Former World Heavyweight Champion Batista has once again shut down any possibility of returning to the ring, saying he has no interest in following the path of many wrestlers who come out of retirement.
Speaking with W.O.L.F. GYMS (see video below), Batista reflected on how he got his start in professional wrestling, admitting his decision was driven by financial desperation rather than a lifelong dream.
“People always ask me why I got into wrestling, and I always tell them I hate answering this because it’s not a glamorous answer. I got into wrestling because I wanted to make money. Cause I was f**king desperate, I was poor, I had two kids and not a dime to my name,” Batista said. “After a while I became obsessed with it, and I would have wrestled for free because I just loved it so much. Making a good living, wrestling was kind of a side effect.”
Batista also looked back on his decision to leave WWE, explaining that while it wasn’t easy, he has never regretted walking away when he did.
“I left the company on good terms; I left at the height of my career. It was hard as f**k to walk away, cause I walked away and I went broke. It was nice having that check come in every week, but I walked away because the company was heading in a direction that just wasn’t right for me. It worked out; I was lucky it worked out.”
The former champion made it clear that preserving the legacy of his career is more important than another payday, saying he has no desire to return to the ring.
“I walked away as champ, I walked away on top. It’s hard to walk away. Most people don’t walk away. And this is why it’s such a running joke when wrestlers retire, because they never retire. They retire like five times. There’s people, they always thought throughout these years that I would come back, I would come out of retirement, and I told them over and over I won’t. I had a f**king storybook ending and I won’t st on it. I’ll go do manual labor before I tarnish that. If I go broke again, I know what it’s like to be poor. I don’t like being poor, but I know what it’s like, and I will go f**king broke and be poor before I ever go back to wrestling.”
Batista reiterated that his in-ring career is over for good and that he’s content with how everything ended.
“I will never wrestle again. I went out the way I wanted, the guy I wanted to go out with. It’s never going to be that good again and I just won’t tarnish it.”
Batista’s final WWE match came at WrestleMania 35 in 2019, where he lost to Triple H in a No Holds Barred Match, bringing his in-ring career to a close on his own terms.
