Smackdown seems to have no luck. In addition to the Angle injury destabilising the main event brand in 04 and Mysterio being a miss for much of 2007, Smackdown also had to contend with losing Big Dave Batista in early 2006. Perhaps this was the biggest injury problem of all. Batista was a main event beast when he jumped from Raw in the draft of 2005. The idea was that Batista would be the face of Smackdown and John Cena the face of Raw, it was good booking, a star for each show. In fact, at the time, Batista was the far bigger headliner. Just a six months later and Smackdown's big injection of stardom was rendered void. Batista tore his right triceps in a match with Mark Henry on January 6th 2006. This resulted in Smackdown being left without a main event figurehead for months on end, with Batista even missing WrestleMania 22. The WWE were left without their second biggest star in the company for a period of 7 months. The Animal was furious at Henry for causing the injury. It had forced him to vacate the world title which he had dominated for 282 days. Speaking of Henry in his 'Batista Unleashed' autobiography, Batista called him "careless."
