WWE Batista DVD Review: 12 Things You Should Know

7. The MMA Years

The documentary gives extensive and revealing coverage of Batista's brief (albeit successful) MMA career. He trained for years with Gracie Jiu Jitsu and won his solitary MMA fight in the first round via TKO in 2012. "My dream after leaving WWE was to fight" Batista says. However, despite the popularity of MMA at the time and fellow pro wrestler Brock Lesnar earning huge money in the sport, Batista didn't enjoy any sort of commercial opportunities. "It was one of those things, I'm getting older, I gave up a year of my life to training and I didn't make any money doing it." As such he decided to quit MMA competition, "I gotta pick and choose my battles." This perhaps reflects the fact that Batista is at heart a pro wrestler. He is motivated by promotion and money. He might have enjoyed MMA, but he loves WWE and all the commercial success that it him. There's no doubting his toughness though, MMA trainer Cesar Gracie says the following "He's an athletic guy, he's agile like a cat, he got it." WWE also interviews former UFC star Stephan Bonnar for the DVD, who again compliments Batista's training work. Finally we see a recent ceremony in which Gracie awards Batista his purple belt award, a process which sees all other members of the gym whipping Batista with their own belts. He is left covered in red welts, but you can tell he is proud of his MMA brotherhood.
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WWE Writer

Grahame Herbert hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.