WWE Removes Hall of Fame Inductee From Class of 2020

WWE just made a big change when it comes to its Hall of Fame class of 2020. It was recently discovered that former WWE Champion Batista (real name Dave Bautista) was removed from the class on WWE.com’s website. Both the 2020 and 2021 classes will be inducted in the same ceremony on April 6 after last year’s induction ceremony was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Fightful Select (per Wrestling Inc.), Batista won’t be part of the 2020 class because the plan is to have him be inducted into the Hall of Fame “when a full crowd can enjoy it.” Currently, the 2020 and 2021 classes consist of Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sean Waltman (as The New World Order), Eric Bischoff, Molly Holly, The Bella Twins, John “Bradshaw” Layfield, The British Bulldog, and Jushin “Thunder Liger.

When Batista learned about his induction into the Hall of Fame in 2019, he went to Twitter to send a message to his fans. “To all the [WWE] fans across the world that gave me the opportunity to suspend your disbelief, thank you,” Batista wrote. “From the biggest part of my heart thank you for letting me entertain you. Tonight was my story book ending and I wanted to leave you with all I had to give. I’ll miss this theater of violence more than I can express in words but I am officially retiring from Sports Entertainment. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, I leave in great health, and without a doubt the show will go on. I had a hell of a run. Thank you for the journey.”

Batista, 52, made his WWE TV debut in 2002. He teamed up with Ric Flair, Triple H and Randy Orton to form Evolution in 2003, and his career began to take off. In his WWE career, Batista won the WWE Championship twice, the World Heavyweight Championship four times the Tag Team Championship three times and is a two-time winner of the Royal Rumble match.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in,” Batista said to PEOPLE in 2019. “And I was thinking about it because I mean, it seems like a long journey, but it also feels like yesterday when I started my career. And it also feels … because I’m still working so much, it doesn’t feel like an end of a journey.”