WWE: 10 Problems With The Batista Return

By Grahame Herbert /

5. Do Younger Fans Even Remember Him?

The title of this point may seem ridiculous, but the fact is that so many of WWE's audience is under 10 years of age right now. This was fully exposed on Monday night when John Cena made his way through the crowd after chasing off Randy Orton. Did you see how many kids were in attendance? It was a stupendous amount! I was actually a little taken aback at just how many under tens were making up the crowd. The majority looked around the 8 age range bracket. This means that many of this audience (who WWE builds their whole brand around right now) would have been around four years old when Batista last left the WWE. Considering that, there is a good chance that many of the younger audience have no idea who this guy is. Some of the kids may not even have been born when Batista was at his absolute peak in 2005. This could explain why Batista got somewhat of a tepid reaction when he returned to Raw on Monday. In contrast, John Cena and Daniel Bryan (who the kids are used to seeing every week) got the usual thunderous reaction. No doubt about it, Cena and Bryan generated more noise than Batista did on Monday night. Going forward as a face Batista needs to tap into the key younger market ... the problem is that many of the WWE Universe are already chained to either John Cena or Daniel Bryan.