WWE Faction Evolution Reuniting at ‘Smackdown 1000’

WWE’s Faction Evolution — which features Triple H, Batista, Randy Orton and Ric Flair — will be reuniting at Smackdown 1000.

According to an announcement directly from WWE, the four superstars will appear together again for the first in years during the big event.

The organization also noted that, between them, the crew of heavy-hitters has 49 world championship title grabs.

While Triple H, Randy Orton and Ric Flair have all been fairly active in the WWE as of late, Dave Bautista has been enjoying a successful movie career for the past several years.

However, during a 2017 interview with Uproxx, the Guardians of the Galaxy star opened up about both of his careers and sharing how his wrestling ring name came to be.

“All right, here’s the funny thing about that, because when I was … when I went up, when I was called up from OVW, which was our training facility, they changed my name and changed it to ‘Batista.’ I didn’t realized they changed the spelling of it,” he stated.

“Well, I was told the reason they did that was so people would be able to pronounce it easier, and then I was told later by another wrestler, he said, ‘No, you dummy. They did that so they could own it. They just can’t own your name. They changed the spelling, now they own it.’ Which was true. I left WWE without my wrestling name, went back to my real name, and started over,” he added.

Bautista also went on to talk about how, contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t think wrestling prepared him for film acting all that much.

“I think as far as comedic timing whatever, I think that all comes from me really just being a fan of movies, being a fan of comedians, and not being afraid to embarrass myself. Not being afraid to make fun of myself. I think that’s where that comes from,” he asserted. “As far as wrestling, it’s weird because it’s such a big, I don’t know, physical type performance. It’s hard to compare it to actual film acting.”

Finally, Bautista reveled that — even with as many films as he’s done — “a lot of people just recognize” him “from wrestling.”

“I mean, I would say 90% of the people who recognize me when I’m out in public they recognize me from wrestling, but that’s because I was on TV every week for almost 10 years. I totally understand,” he added. “Most of my film exposure has been from Guardians of the Galaxy, which I’m covered in makeup, so it’s still mostly my facial recognition comes from wrestling fans.”

SmackDown’s 1000th episode will air Tuesday, Oct. 16, at 8 p.m. ET on USA Network.