by Dave Batista
This, of course, was long before the terrible tragedy with his family. As I said before, the Chris who killed them and then took his own life was not the kind, unselfish man I knew.
The match was in Washington, D.C., my hometown. So even though I was a big-time heel at the time, half of the arena consisted of my friends and family, and I was really the hometown babyface. The match ended with a DQ, a disqualification, when I started just kicking the crap out of Chris and wouldn’t stop.
The thing is, working with Chris, it was very easy to completely forget yourself. We always use the term “suspend your disbelief.” People think of it mostly from the fans’ point of view, where the fans are forgetting that it’s entertainment. But it can happen with wrestlers, too. We can get sucked into the match and half think, half pretend that it’s only entertainment. It feels real. Chris made it easy for that to happen. It’s why he was so good.
I’m pretty sure Chris was the first guy to ever let me call a whole match. It happened before that Raw show, at some point when we were working together in house shows. I was still relatively new. He was the veteran, and for him to show that kind of confidence in me made me, well, it was pretty important.
Like a lot of wrestlers, Chris loved to call the match kind of on the fly because it made everything spontaneous and that much more real. He really liked to feed off the crowd. Plus he was such a talented guy that nothing could throw him.
I can’t remember where we were that night, but I do remember him saying, “Why don’t you call it?” I can see him as I’m writing this. He’s got a little bit of a smile on his face. Not really a challenge, more like, “Welcome to the club, kid.”
I was nervous as hell. I didn’t want to screw up in front of Chris Benoit. I had never called an entire match to that point. But you know, it was an old-school rule: the heel would lead the match back in the day.
So I took my best shot. And it was an incredible match. And he was so fucking happy afterward. I earned a whole bunch of respect from him, and tons for myself in the locker room. If you earned Chris’s respect, that went a long way. He put me over to all the agents, all the people in the office, even the veterans. Everybody. That was a big push for my career.
CHRISTIAN
Another good friend of mine whom I haven’t had a chance to mention yet is Jason Reso—known as Christian. He helped me find my home in Tampa, which I really appreciated. I always loved working with him. On more than one occasion I heard Arn Anderson say he could watch Jay work all day—a pretty big compliment, coming from one of the best.
This is just my personal feeling, but I always felt like Jay was never really given his fair shot in WWE. He really had tremendous star potential. Maybe that’s not for me to say, but I loved watching him work, and I loved watching and listening to him on the mike. He was funny, he was original—man, he had so much charisma.
I’ll never forget the day he left the company. It was after a show in 2005. He came up to me and pulled me aside. He said, “I just want you to know I’m leaving. I’m not going to be here anymore.”
He started crying. He was absolutely heartbroken, but he felt it was something he had to do. He felt like he wasn’t going anywhere with WWE. His contract was up, and even though he’d been offered a renewal, he felt they weren’t using him right and weren’t likely to. So he left on his own terms. He went to a different company—TNA—which really gave him a huge push.
He was a good friend of mine when he was with WWE. Jay was one of those guys who didn’t like to go out much—I don’t know if he didn’t like to or he just wouldn’t because his wife wouldn’t put up with it. He’d have just one drink and then be out of there. But no one ever held it against him because he was so much one of the boys. He had a lot of locker-room respect. We felt his absence for a long time. I hope one day he’ll return to us. I think he’s a hell of an entertainer, extremely underrated when he was here.
STARTING OVER
Not too long after WrestleMania 21, we started hearing rumors that the company was thinking of changing the lineups on Raw and SmackDown! I heard they were toying with sending Hunter over to SmackDown! And then there were rumors about me going over. Finally I went to Vince and asked him directly.
“Are you moving me to SmackDown!?”
“Yes. We’re moving you to SmackDown!” he said. “We’re counting on you. This is your show.”
That may sound flattering, but to me it felt like I was starting over. And I walked into a locker room that didn’t like me very much.
Some of those feelings came from an interview I did earlier that year. The interviewer was talking about the competition between Raw and SmackDown! asking which brand or show was better, that sort of thing. I was a Raw guy at that point, and so I was speaking up for my show. The thing is, I did it basically by ripping SmackDown! I really did put them down—pretty much ripped them a new asshole.
There were some guys on SmackDown! at the time who in my opinion didn’t work as hard as they could. I dogged them out.
Part of the interview was taken out of context, but the truth is I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean. I was being prideful and I thought I was representing our show and saying, “This is why we’re better.”
Now remember, I had been on SmackDown! Some of the guys there were more concerned about where they were going after the show than with the show itself. There were some guys who were very content with their spots. They didn’t want to move up; they just wanted their five minutes on TV because that was enough to go out and get them laid.
I thought I was being smart at the time by not naming any names, even though the interviewer pressed me. I think I talked about guys being lazy bastards and not showing pride, that sort of thing, but I didn’t name anyone by name.
CALLED OUT
Most of the people I was referring to in those interviews have long since been fired. But the problem was, by not singling anyone out, I seemed to be criticizing everyone over there. Which I hadn’t really intended on doing.
It’s funny, but I don’t think I realized it until Undertaker came up to me later and asked if I’d said what was printed in the interview.
“Yes I did,” I told him.
“Well, that’s fucked up.”
“Why?”
“Well, let me fucking tell you why.” And he explained—I have to say very reasonably—that I had left the door open for everyone to think I was referring to them. And that plenty of readers would think that, too.
Undertaker was very good about this, because he could have been a total asshole. But he made me understand what I’d done wrong.
“Are you telling me there’s not guys on Raw like that?” he asked.
“Yes, there are. But we weren’t talking about the guys on Raw. We were talking about SmackDown! I was just thinking being competitive.”
“Dissing us and being competitive are two different things. You were dissing the company, not SmackDown!”
I don’t have his exact words here—it happened too long ago—but his meaning was pretty clear. Even though we’re on different shows and we’re competitive, we’re still part of the same company. Everyone in WWE has the same goal. Putting someone down in the media pulls the company down.
“If you have something to say, or you want to light some fire under our asses, you go to the guy and tell him. Directly,” said Undertaker. “That’s what being a leader is. Bring this shit up in the locker room. Don’t go to the goddamn press and put it out there. We got all these guys who are very talented and working their asses off and who think you’re dogging them, for no reason. You’re just setting yourself up to be a target.”
It was good advice. The whole incident was part of a learning experience about how to deal with the media. I didn’t understand how the press might twist your words around just a little bit, or not add in a question, or take part of your answer and put it in the interview. It’s hard to be careful about the little parts when you’re focused on the whole. I thin
k I’m a little better with it now, but of course, the damage had been done.
GIVING SHIT
That conflict was definitely playing in the background when I went over to SmackDown! Another thing that didn’t help was my relationship with Hunter. There are a lot of guys in the company who don’t go for him, and if you’re his friend, they take it out on you. He’d warned me and Randy about that before we starting riding with him.
I don’t want to name anybody personally, but at the time we had a few of the old veterans who believed highly in hazing and giving rookies shit. I wasn’t a rookie anymore, but they didn’t think that the guy who’s only been in the business a few years should be champion, and they made that pretty clear. It was very hard for me to start over there.
I think things have changed somewhat since then. I think I’ve earned some guys’ respect. Vince once said to me, “You’re going to get a lot less problems from guys if you’re putting asses in seats.” Which is true, though even then there can still be an undertone of resentment. But I think for the most part, people know that I’m not an ass. I have the same goal as they do: I want our show to be number one.
I’m very prideful about SmackDown! I hate to hear that Raw has higher ratings than us. It’s a matter of pride.
OIL AND WATER
People have asked me why I think Vince decided to make the change in the shows. I think there were a number of reasons, but I don’t think the controversy about my comments had anything to do with it. I don’t think he thought there would be more heat because of them or anything. I do think he thought I would do good things for the show, and that John Cena, who came over to Raw from SmackDown!, would be good for Raw.
I also think that the move was intended to get me a whole new range of opponents. You know, really, I had started with Hunter, basically at the top. There wasn’t that much else for me to do but work my way down. I don’t mean that as a knock on the guys who were there; I’m looking at it from the viewers’ perspective. I think from their perspective, I would have had no place to go but down. That would have diminished the character I’d worked so hard, and everyone around me had worked so hard, to create.
Not only can he drink, the man can talk.
Put me on SmackDown! though, and it’s like starting from scratch. I got a whole new bunch of guys to work with, and it doesn’t seem to the fans that I’m going backward.
My first feud was with Bradshaw—JBL.
There’s a whole generation who are going to know him as a commentator and even a financial advisor, but John “Bradshaw” Layfield has had a great career in the ring. Back in the late nineties, he teamed with Faarooq to form the Acolytes, who were a pretty popular tag team. After that, Bradshaw was part of Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness and in 2002 held the WWE Hardcore Championship belt, which he named the Texas Hardcore Championship, in keeping with his character. He was a big, big arrogant Texan, good at riling up the crowd.
You would think, two big guys like us, the matches ought to be great. But for some reason we didn’t have very good chemistry. We were like oil and water. We struggled, and I could never quite figure out why. I almost think that sometimes you get a much better match when you have a mismatch between the wrestlers: you know, a bigger guy and a smaller guy. Or contradicting wrestling styles.
I have more of a brawling style and so does JBL, so maybe that was the reason we didn’t quite click. We tried, but it just didn’t take off.
Not to say we didn’t have tons of fun. I’ll tell you, he’s a funny son of a bitch to work with. You get him on a mike, and he’s very entertaining.
He’s funny even when he’s not trying to be. One time he’d been on vacation somewhere for a week or something. I swear while he was gone, he put on twenty pounds. He came back and we were doing our match. I went to lift him up for a suplex—a move where you pick up your opponent and drive him into the ground with your own body. I started straining right in the middle of it. Twenty pounds can make a hell of a difference.
“You’re heavy,” I told him.
“I’ve been on vacation.”
Anyway, we went through the move and I got him upside down and we’re starting to fall and he just started yelling at me, “I’ve been on vacation! Take it easy! I’ve been on vacation!”
I hit the mat and started laughing.
JOHNSON CITY, TENNESSEE
I’ve had a lot of fun with JBL outside the ring.
There was the time when we were in Johnson City, Tennessee. I can’t remember now, but I think we might have had a match with each other that night. There was only one place in town to go after the show. It was kind of a redneck bar. I happen to have some good buddies there; one of them is a deputy sheriff, Anthony Nelson. So we were in this place—it was pretty big, and crowded; I think everybody in town was there that night. I was sitting over on the restaurant side and eating with my buddies. JBL and Orlando Jordan were over at the bar drinking. At some point, they started sending drinks over to the table.
“Fuck,” I told my friends. “This is JBL, calling me out.”
So we finished eating and walked over. I started ordering shots for JBL and Orlando, like twenty at a time.
JBL is pretty good at beer—he can sit and drink beer all night. But once he starts on hard liquor, it’s downhill pretty quick. I was ordering Grand Marnier, Jäger shots, and Goldschläger. That’s the stuff that really gets you.
Bradshaw is funny in general, but he’s a really funny drunk. He was making fun and just got us all laughing. But after a while, I started seeing him dry heaving.
As soon as I started seeing him dry heaving, I ordered thirty shots, forty shots. I swear to God. We got the whole bar wasted. Those Tennessee boys can really drink.
Orlando was smart enough to sneak off. He went over and started singing karaoke and hanging out. We tried to keep calling him back, but he was just too smart.
The next thing you know, Bradshaw—who by this time was sitting on the bar—started puking. As he was puking, I was handing him shots. He kept drinking them. He’s puking and drinking, puking and drinking. He never said enough is enough. He’s a fish with no cutoff mechanism.
The place was such a redneck bar that when he started puking on his stool, people looked over, said no big deal, and looked away. They went right on drinking.
That was a Sunday night. JBL and I had a dark match on Raw the next night, so we had to catch a flight out the next morning. He showed up at the airport green. I was still so drunk I could barely get dressed.
I called my wife that morning at six, trying to explain why I hadn’t called her that night.
“Baby, I was out with Bradshaw.”
Oh, that went over big-time. I don’t think she spoke to me for a week.
We flew into Pittsburgh. We were supposed to be at Raw at one in the afternoon. Orlando—he’s the guy who wasn’t drinking that much, remember—felt so bad he had to call for a car to get him to the arena. I don’t know what time John showed up—it was earlier than I did—but I got there about ten o’clock.
As soon as I got there, I walked into Vince’s office and told him, “I’m the drinking world champion of the world.”
I told him the story. Now, some girl had told me—I never confirmed it—that JBL was so drunk he peed in his pants. I told Vince that. I said I didn’t see it, I didn’t witness it, just that some girl had told me that. And I told him, Now don’t tell John I told you this, it’s all between you and me.
Well, we had to take the corporate jet that night. I forget where we had to go but Vince was there and I was and JBL was as well. So we get on the jet and it’s real quiet, and all of a sudden Vince goes, “So what’s this I hear about someone getting so drunk they pissed their pants?”
He threw me right under the bus.
One of the best nights of my life.
EDDIE
From Bradshaw, I started to move into a thing with Eddie Guerrero.
It started in the fall of 2005, with a bi
t where Palmer Cannon named Eddie the number one contender. I did a tag team thing with Eddie and we slowly built up some heat between us. Then we had a title fight at No Mercy, the Pay-Per-View that October. That was the show where I led the crowd singing “Happy Birthday” to Eddie after we went dark, which was kind of a nice moment, because all of the fans gave him a really warm ovation.
I’d actually met Eddie years before when I was at OVW. We had gone up for a match in Cincinnati and he was there. I don’t know exactly what he was doing, whether he was coming back from an injury or just helping guys out. But I met him up there for the first time, and he was very gracious, very helpful, and that was my first introduction to him.
Soon after I came over from Raw, Eddie and I were doing a show in Columbus, Ohio. We both happened to be backstage when I got a call that my daughter had just given birth to my grandson, Jacob. The doctors said there was something wrong. My daughter’s blood pressure had shot up dangerously high, and there was a problem with the baby as well.
I broke down right there, in front of Eddie.
He asked me what was up and I explained.
“I can’t believe that you never mentioned anything,” he said, or something like that.
I didn’t want to mention it. I was afraid what people were going to think. My sixteen-year-old daughter was having a baby. What kind of dad was I, that my daughter was having a baby that young? It was really something that I hid. I didn’t bring my personal problems to work.
But Eddie, without hesitation, went to his bag and grabbed his Bible. He opened it up and had me read this passage that he had memorized.
It was about people judging people. It was beautiful. I can’t remember which passage it was, but it basically said that no one has the right to judge you, and that you can’t live your life according to other people’s judgment. Only God can judge you.
It fit that moment just perfectly. It made me feel a lot better.
