Despite growing Hollywood stardom, Dave Bautista makes time to keep tabs on his roots. Bautista sat down with Chris Jericho on the latter’s podcast “Talk is Jericho.” Amongst other things, Bautista riffed on which WWE superstars he enjoyed watching. The wrestler that impressed him most? Bray Wyatt (quotes via Wrestling Inc.)
“I haven’t watched in a long time, but yeah, I was watching kind of once in while. Well, the new guys that I did like, they’re not really new anymore. Bray Wyatt. I thought he was incredible. I love everything about that kid.”
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Bautista added:
“I would have loved to work with him. Yeah, and super athletic. He can go! I love that kid. He can run his mouth too. And personally, I just like him.”
Bray’s old school demeanor looks to have made quite the impression:
“There’s nothing real pretentious about him. He just wants to work and have good matches and I think he’s super talented. But he’d be at the top of my list.”
A trip down Google will tell you that Bray Wyatt is one of the most heavily endorsed performers in WWE. Legends like Diamond Dallas Page and Jake “The Snake” Roberts have gone out of their way to single out Wyatt. Batista gushing over the man officially makes it a trend.
If Bray can enamor the old guard, and enchant current fans, why does it feel like his character is stagnant?
Yes, he did win his first WWE championship this year. However, the crowning of Bray was long awaited, assigned high expectations, and could not have fallen flatter. For a fan base that believed this would open the doors to the Bray Era, his championship loss at WrestleMania has us all questioning the character’s potency.
The entrance and schtick are some of WWE’s best, so what gives? Before we overreact, it is worth pointing out that Bray’s last WrestleMania opponents go like this: Orton, Rock, Undertaker, Cena.
So although we may get angry with his empty, filibuster promos, or his propensity to lose big matches, at least he gets these opportunities. I mean, Cesaro would do terrible things to get pinned by John Cena at WrestleMania.
So hang in there fans, Bray will have a long, decorated career. It’s no coincidence legends line up to glow about the man – he’s talented. As Macho Man once told us, “The Cream, yeah, will always rise to the top!”