Golden belts and headlining major events are what pro wrestlers are promised to reach if they work hard enough, and it is something Dave Bautista undoubtedly achieved in his WWE career, where he wrestled under the name Batista. However, ‘The Animal’ claims that things didn’t pick up for him financially until much later in his WWE run.
During an interview with “W.O.L.F. GYMS,” Bautista compared his current career in film to his years as a pro wrestler.
“I always tell everybody, coming from wrestling, ‘man, [acting] is gravy.’ Because, when I was on wrestling, not only was I grinding and grinding harder, and it was in a different spot every night,” he recalled, adding that nobody caters to you in wrestling and you still have to finance many things yourself. “It’s not only, like, physically very difficult and mentally very difficult, but it’s also like – it’s also expensive.”
“They pretty much provided you with airfare and that was it, man,” Bautista claimed. “Not food, not cars, not hotels, like none of that! So, like, my first few years of wrestling were… I was broke, man. I was [broke] until 2005 when I became world champion and started to make some money. I was still borrowing money from people! I was living in a tiny apartment when I was world champion, because I had just became world champion, hadn’t started making money yet.”
Bautista further claimed that he often had to take small loans to keep himself afloat for a few weeks before finally getting to the point where he wasn’t in debt anymore. Now, Bautista is retired from pro wrestling and says he would rather do manual labor than return to the business, thus spoiling his retirement angle.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “W.O.L.F. GYMS,” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
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