Dave Bautista Reveals Whether He Would Be Convinced to Return to WWE

Will Dave Bautista make a WWE comeback? The Guardians of the Galaxy star, who went by Batista in WWE, appeared at Justice Con over the weekend to promote his new movie, Army of the Dead. The host Enosh Fee suggested that Bautista will be dropping Batista Bombs again once the COVID-19 pandemic ends. That led to Bautista stating that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

“Don’t put that out there man,” Bautista said while laughing as reported by ComicBook.com. “People will jump on that and be like, ‘He’s comin’ out of retirement!’ I’m not. It’s hard to convince people that I’m actually retired. You have no idea how tough that discussion is. When professional wrestlers retire, they don’t really retire. They kind of retire. But, you know, when the paycheck’s big enough or the event’s big enough, they come out of retirement. it’s just not that way with me. I exited the business in such a storybook way, I’d never go back. I would never take away from that. I am just done, man. I really got to finish on my own terms and nothing is going to take away from that.”

Bautista, 52, annoucned his retirement from WWE in April 2019. This came after he lost to Triple H at WrestleMania 35, his last match with the company. Later in the year, WWE announced Batista will be inducted into the Hall of Fame Class of 2020. The ceremony was pushed back to April of this year, prompting WWE to pull Bautista out of the class.

“To the [WWE Universe], Unfortunately, due to previous obligations I am unable to be a part of the [WWE Hall of Fame] this year, Bautista wrote on Twitter. “By my request, they have agreed to induct me at a future ceremony where I’ll be able to properly thank the fans and people who made my career possible.”

During his WWE career, Bautista won the WWE Championship twice and the World Heavyweight Championship four times. He also won the WWE Tag Team Championship and the World Tag Team Championship three times. Bautista is also a two-time winner of the Royal Rumble match, making him one of eight WWE Superstars to win the match multiple times, the other seven are Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Triple H, Randy Orton, Edge and Stone Cold Steve Austin who won it three times.