Turns out Kurt Angle wasn’t the only one giving us a farewell performance at WrestleMania 35. And it wasn’t Triple H whose career ended after he faced Batista in a No Holds Barred match at MetLife Stadium on Sun., April 7.
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that last night in East Rutherford, New Jersey was Dave Bautista’s swan song. He’s long been on record that his ideal final match would be with Hunter at ‘Mania. And maybe the story was rushed, but it delivered some classic moments - mostly from the Animal due to his legendary attention to detail & gift for giving us GIF-able moments like “GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!” - and ended in a brutal match whose main sin was that it was a little too long on a night that was a lot too long.
The 50 year old Washington, D.C. native has a packed schedule with his current career as a Hollywood movie star. He headlines two action comedies this summer, My Spy and Stuber, is filming another sci-fi epic with award-winning director Denis Villeneuve with Dune, and figures to show up as Drax in what could be the biggest box office smash ever in a couple weeks (Avengers: Endgame) before eventually reuniting with James Gunn and returning to the character he broke out with in Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3.
As Dwayne Johnson will tell you, once you start having movie studios casting you in projects like that, they don’t want to hear you got hurt moonlighting at your old gig.
Still, while not unexpected, this Batista (and Bautista) super-fan was a little sad to wake up to read this on the morning after ‘Mania:
He got to go out on his own terms, and for that, we can only as grateful as he is. As he says again here, Dave came back to WWE twice because he loves being a pro wrestler. For that, we can only say thank you.