10 Reasons Batista Is Genuinely Hated By WWE Fans

2. Nearly Messed Up The Most Organic, Fan-Driven Push In Years

This gets thrown at the creative team€™s feet, not Batista. It isn€™t his fault that he was pushed to win the Rumble and originally booked to main event WrestleMania. If anyone, including every Daniel Bryan fan, was booked to wrestle at Mania for the title, they would take that spot gladly. So faulting Batista is just unfair. But this column isn€™t about what Batista did, it€™s what€™s happened to generate such hatred. And for poor Batista, he happened to return at a time when fans were reaching a fever pitch in support of their favorite underdog, Daniel Bryan. He was (and still is) getting cheered incessantly, and fans were just clamoring for him to put an exclamation point on a storyline that began at SummerSlan and win the WWE title once and for all. Instead, we got Triple H€™s buddy, who walked out of WWE in 2010 and blasted the company, only to come back when he had a movie to promote, step right into the title hunt. Then he won the Rumble with Bryan sitting on the sidelines. And from there, the vilification was on. WWE likes to say they listen to their fans, that the WWE Universe is so important to them. But rather than listen to them and create a natural storybook progression for Bryan, they tried to shoehorn Batista into the picture, and fans vocally rioted. That whole Occupy Raw angle was the closest WWE has come to a mea culpa €“ yes, most people say it was a response to Chicago Raw, but a ring full of Bryan supporters yelling at The Authority isn€™t far off from how fans really felt. If WWE listened to their fans, they wouldn€™t have shoved Batista down everyone€™s throats. Batista could only do what he was booked to do €“ win the Rumble. But fans took it personally. Many knew their chants and months of diehard support are what helped keep Bryan in the spotlight, and to see it potentially derailed, well, it€™s easy to see how hatred could spring eternal at that point.