1. Its Fashionable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm6ahR4dP0Y All the previous reasons built upon each other to form the basis for the Batista backlash, but at the end of the day, its just become cool to boo The Animal. For a lot of fans, one or several of the previous reasons contribute to this dislike, but as detailed on the previous pages, not everything is within Batistas control. Its not his fault how he was booked and few would personally blame him for lashing out against fans who confuse the character with the person. But wrestling fans can easily fall into a pack mentality. And once everything started snowballing, it became difficult to stop. Now its just the norm to yell Bootista! at him and hate everything he does. To his disadvantage, Batistas, Deal with it! attitude didnt help, much like John Cenas, Fans can boo me because they all have a voice and Im here for the Cenation members who support me tripe doesnt help. At least with Cena, he has been around for 12 straight years and has built a dedicated fanbase and has a body of in-ring work that even detractors have to respect. With Batista coming back and almost immediately becoming hated, it was impossible to build up any goodwill. And with no memorable matches on his recent résumé, there was nothing to fall back on. So now, without any real reason for fans to like or support Batista, its just the fashionable thing to greatly dislike, even hate him. Heres hoping that while Batista is away this summer, the creative team can figure out a smart way to bring him back and actually book him properly. Because if they screw it up a second time, fans will not be forgiving, and that just isnt fair to the guy. Batista came back to entertain fans, not be genuinely hated, so hopefully this break will help cleanse the palette and we can start anew in a few months.
Scott Carlson
Contributor
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
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