Upon his return to WWE in early 2014, the company had huge plans for Batista until negative crowd reactions thwarted the goals. ''The Animal'' recently discussed his thoughts on the fans turning on him and other topics while being on hiatus from the company.
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Batista is taking time off to promote the upcoming Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy that is due out this summer, and he is slated to return around SummerSlam in August for in-ring action. The WWE signed Batista to a big money deal with plans to have him win the Royal Rumble as a babyface and go on to defeat heel Randy Orton for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXX.
The only problem in the WWE's plan was simple: the fans. Crowds weren't enamored with "The Animal" upon his return, causing the WWE to flip the script and add Daniel Bryan to the WrestleMania match, and Bryan left New Orleans as the champion. Batista spoke with WWE.com about the crowd turning on him.
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"It was weird," Batista told the site. "It wasn't like a normal response. It was almost like a personal attack. It had to [deal] with factors that were not in my control, factors and things that were going on in the company with other people, stuff that really had nothing to do with me. To me, it was a little frustrating, a little confusing, and, you know, I don't want to say I completely took it personal, but I did somewhat. What I heard over and over was, "Batista doesn't deserve this," and that's what I took personally, because it's like they forgot about my 10 years of pain and suffering and sacrifice."
Batista also spoke about "Bluetista" trending on Twitter during Evolution's match against The Shield at Payback earlier this month due to the fact that he was wearing blue tights.
"You know, we had six guys beating the crap out of each other ... but people were focused on me wearing blue! I don't get that, man. I just don't get it!"
The WWE being forced to change its plans led to Batista turning heel and joining Orton and Triple H in the reformation of Evolution, something that wasn't expected to happen.
"Yeah, we had not talked about that at all," Batista said. "Evolution was where I got my start. It's my comfort zone. I love it, the fans love it. Everywhere I go across the world, people still talk about Evolution. So when [Triple H] started talking about it, I said, "That's veeerrry interesting." [Laughs] I loved that, and I got with that program real fast, because that's something I've wanted to do for years. I knew it was going to be good."
Batista said that he didn't mind the element of Bryan being added to the main event of WrestleMania XXX and that he was excited about it.
"Oh, I was super excited. I was super excited, because, you know, we needed that element," he said. "Even speaking from a fan's standpoint, for me, it's hard to get sucked into a [bad guy vs. bad guy] match. We needed a hero, man, and Daniel Bryan was the biggest hero in the company. I knew this was gonna be good. It's so much better when the fans have an emotional investment. And they were so emotionally invested in Daniel Bryan, and they were so absorbed in their hatred for me that I knew it was gonna be good stuff."
"The Animal" is taking a break from the WWE until August, but no matter how the fans feel about him he intends to come back with a vengeance.
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