Former World Champion rules out WWE return: ‘I will go f**king broke and be poor before I ever go back to wrestling’
Many retired wrestlers often make their in-ring returns for a brief segment or one -off matches. However, former World Champion Batista has made it clear that he has no interest in following that path, saying he is satisfied with how his WWE career came to an end.
Batista expressed how he hates to discuss his entry into the wrestling world in an interview with W.O.L.F. GYMS. He stated the hardships at the time made it a desperate decision to earn a living for his family.
“People always ask me why I got into wrestling, and I always tell them I hate answering this because it’s not a glamorous answer. I got into wrestling because I wanted to make money. Cause I was f**king desperate, I was poor, I had two kids and not a dime to my name,” said Batista. “After a while I became obsessed with it, and I would have wrestled for free because I just loved it so much. Making a good living, wrestling was kind of a side effect.”
He has no regrets ending his WWE career the way he did and has no interest in coming out of retirement.
“I left the company on good terms; I left at the height of my career. It was hard as f**k to walk away, cause I walked away and I went broke. It was nice having that check come in every week, but I walked away because the company was heading in a direction that just wasn’t right for me. It worked out; I was lucky it worked out.”
“I walked away as champ, I walked away on top. It’s hard to walk away. Most people don’t walk away. And this is why it’s such a running joke when wrestlers retire, because they never retire. They retire like five times. There’s people, they always thought throughout these years that I would come back, I would come out of retirement, and I told them over and over I won’t. I had a f**king storybook ending and I won’t s**t on it. I’ll go do manual labor before I tarnish that. If I go broke again, I know what it’s like to be poor. I don’t like being poor, but I know what it’s like, and I will go f**king broke and be poor before I ever go back to wrestling.”
“I will never wrestle again. I went out the way I wanted, the guy I wanted to go out with. It’s never going to be that good again and I just won’t tarnish it.”
Batista competed in his final WWE match at WrestleMania 35, facing Triple H in a No Holds Barred match, a fitting conclusion to his in-ring career. The two shared a long history together, having been members of Evolution, the faction that helped kickstart Batista’s rise in WWE.
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.