Strikeforce: No Deal for Former WWE Wrestler Dave Batista
Posted by Kris Karkoski on Jun 21, 2010 at 12:41 pm ET36 Comments
Strikeforce has dismissed rumors that it had signed former WWE wrestler Dave Batista, who told TMZ earlier today that he had signed with the promotion and was already booked for his MMA debut, though he declined to name an opponent.
The 41-year-old Batista, who wrestled for WWE from 2002 until leaving the company in May, would be the latest professional wrestler to make the jump to mixed martial arts, following UFC heavyweight Brock Lesnar and Strikeforce prospect Bobby Lashley.
For the latest Strikeforce news and Strikeforce rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Loading ...
Hell yeaa idk how batista wud b mma wise but name wise that b sick i say batista vs lashley
He is alrdy 41? No future in MMA……..in my POV.
You got that right except for one thing. It’s been said for years that he’s been lying about his age. Apparently he’s not born in 69, he was born in 66. Making him 44 years old. So he’s even older than you originally thought and Wiki reports 1969 as well.
If he does really try to have a sit down with MMA promoters. He will have to reveal his real age. Because it’s quite possible to have someone payed off to write your Wikipedia bio or any other website bio.
He should just make movies and/or take his ball, chain, money, and go home. Let the young guys get a piece of the good ol’-American proverbial pie.
Real age means nothing, you body’s “age” does. Shalrous does not even know his actual birthdate or year. Many countries don’t keep records up on that. The main thing is just being able to prove the fighter is over 18 and in this case that’s not hard.
yea if he’s already 41 he’s not gonna do anything
This could be hilarious! The guy has zero fighting experience, and got battered by Booker T in a fight he started!
This is so true. I remember reading all about this. Dispute in the locker room led to the two going at it and the smaller Booker T tossed him around willingly. Funny stuff.
I am as big of a pro wrestling fan as I am an MMA fan, for different reasons of course, before anyone jumps all over me for it. While I do think some pro wrestlers could make the jump, Dave Batista is not one of them. Not only is his age an issue, but this guy has had injury after injury affect his wrestling career. Imagine if he was training for an actual sport, he’d have to reschedule at least 4 times for his debut.
I like Batista, I’ve watched him since his debut in WWE and your right his injuries are extensive, his age is a factor, not to mention that he’s pretty much a body builder. He’ll gas out way too quickly. Brock is a natural beast with natural size and real freak athletic ability, Lashley is very athletic but also pretty much a body builder physique, Batista is just a powerful body builder who is athletic at most. The only advantage he would bring in is his ability to handle big crowds.
H Walker. Toney. Now Batista what a joke S.Coker and White trying too get some headline if its all true.. if u signed him like 5 years ago i would kind of interesting but now.. better start on his cycle so he could be called the animal again
Interesting if this becomes the trend and WWE & TNA becomes a feeder program for future MMA Fighters. I’m not so sure if I would endorse it. It would encourage wrestlers to join WWE, Juice up for a few years, then enter MMA as a behemoth Heavyweight. Although juicing during MMA is a nono, there isn’t much the Athletic Commission can do about previous performance enhancing drug use. I’m sure not all professional wrestlers use steroids (I.E. Mick Foley) It’s my belief that 99.9% do. IDK, what are your thoughts frenzy?
Hold on here.
How was this even an issue under consideration?
A friend of mine, who is an avid pro wrestling fan, mentioned that he got a Tweet about Dava Batista attending a Strikeforce event.
How was the leap made from maybe sitting cageside to fighting in the cage?
Just to be glass clear, I’m certainly not directing this rhetorical question to the frenZy and/or Kris, who are simply reporting the issue.
I’m just wondering what Pulitzer-deprived online “writer” originally thought this was a story?
Yes, I realize that Dava Batista told TMZ that he was signed, but seriously?
We’re considering the statement made by a pro wrestler, who basically gets paid to create and then play a fictional character in a violently athletic bit of street theatre?
I mean the guy is out of work, and probably looking for a gig. Somehow I highly doubt Scott Coker did more than shake the guy’s hand.
I was in the bookstore about a week ago so my gf could get her weekly magazine fix. I noticed the guy’s “biography” on the discount shelf for around $5, so maybe this is a cae of him falling on hard times or some such.
Also, same friend mentioned above added that Dava Batista is a raging asthmatic, and has on occasion gotten winded hauling his oddly muscular frame from the dressing room to the ring.
If thats the case, MMA is the wrong sport for this guy to midlife crisis in, no?
And yes I realize that Coker has made some shady signings lately with guys like Lashley and Walker, as has Dana White with James Toney, but at least they all have some sort of combat sport background.
This Batista looks like he works for Vivid Video, and a quick Interweb search yields ZERO martial arts training, so WTF?
Finally, there are a very few professional wrestlers who once upon a time had the stuff to try MMA, like Kurt Angle and Shelton Benjamin, both wrestling standouts, and in Angle’s case an Olympic gold medalist.
Hopefully this is just a fluff bit of MMA “journalism” on an otherwise slow news day, and not the start of some disturbing trend that will see 40-something pro wrestlers trying their hands at MMA…
There is a video floating on YouTube of Batista at the Affliction training centre with two other dudes, basically him looking stiff kicking at a bag and focus mits. I say feed him to the real animals, give him his fight, StrikeForce I’m sure would make a few benjamins from having this cat at one of their pay-per-views and I personally wouldn’t mind seeing him get smashed
whats next, MMA retires go to pro-wrestling… will we get to see the likes of chuck lidel get bodyslamed, or Randy perform a belly-belly suplex from the clinch… lol
there are very few wrestlers who could make the switch, but most wrestlers today are old and haggard even the young guys arent exactly fighters…
before MMA got big the only place college wrestlers had to go was WWE, now they have options, now they look at there college and HS wrestling as something that could lead to MMA somethings thats raw and real, not fake…
Even with Kurt Angle’s olympic experience, I doubt he would make a decent transition into the sport. I think his age is a factor. And I also think that while these guys are athletic enough to attempt the training, getting in the cage and going full speed with guys who have trained for a while is a whole other ball of wax.
That’s the Olympic wrestler who almost had his arms and shoulder snapped by Daniel Puder?
Haha, yeah. Almost forgot about that. And puder at the time wasn’t even a superstar in MMA.
Theres a video of Angle talking about that incident on you tube (there are several actually), but this one in particular he says there was a point when Puder started to apply the arm bar that he could have simply lifted Puder up and slammed him on his head, but he didn’t want to hurt any of the kids.
Nice save there buddy.
Aside from that Puder incident being staged, I was referring to pro wrestlers, specifically Kurt Angle, who IF they had had the opportunity in their prime could have transitioned to MMA.
I do realize that currently Angle is over 40 and plagued by a seriously damaged neck.
For example, if MMA and the UFC were where they are today a decade ago, a guy like Kurt Angle would have been a 205 contender within 18 months of entering the sport, maybe less.
Same goes for Shelton Benjamin, a former 2 time All American from Minnesota. The guy was/is He11a athletic, and weighed in at nearly 250. When he waved off the Olympic trials for pro wrestling in 2000, the UFC HW class wasn’t exactly stacked like it is today.
If Benjamin had tried his hand at MMA, and gotten with a good camp, he could have found himself in contention in less that 2 years.
Imagine a larger, stronger, more athletic, and better wrestling Rampage Jackson in PRIDE if you need a pciture painted for you.
And forget the UFC.
PRIDE would probably have been a very different place if men like Angle and Benjamin had stepped into their ring, instead of Vince MacMahon’s…
you guys do realize that was all staged and Puder went off script right?
Not to mention Puder has a pretty legit background in MMA under Paulson and was at AKA for awhile.
Get Angle in a real grappling match and no one touches him. Even today trust me… I’ve seen it first hand… I was there when he won gold and I’ve seen him actually wrestle since… the guy still has it.
Yes but a real grappling match and MMA are two different things.
Not according to most of the champions in most organizations today ;) just looking at strikeforce and the UFC’s champs… melendez, edgar, GSP, Shields, Lawal, and Lesnar… all wrestling heavy…
Ive watched the video and that kimura was in deep! If that referee hadn’t of saved that Kurt Angle guy with that bogus count Puder would have his arm in his trophy cabinet, if Kurt Angle, this Batista dude or Hulkamania get in the cage with a mixed martial artist they are going to lose and lose quickly and most probably very convincingly. Perfect example Brock Lesnars UFC debut
the day I judge a guy’s submission defense by a something put on by the WWE is the day I’ve had a full lobotomy…
Lesnar’s not an example of olympic level guys. You want an example of that look at Askren.
Lesnar is an example of a pro wrestler-MMA hybrid however whom at the time had trained for 2 years in MMA that left a leg in and almost lost a foot and now this Batista joker thinks because of his profile it entitles him to a StrikeForce payday when there’s highly trained mixed martial artists suffering in the small shows. That incident in other places is being called a ‘shoot’ which means it was legit and not scripted or staged. Angle was going pretty hard on Puder and as soon as the decorated Olympian took the martial artist down the martial artist sank in a sub. This isn’t a opinion that’s just what happened
Yeah I don’t think I made my point here. Angle was a Freestyle World Champ in ’95 and Olympic in ’96. I was a kid then but I remember it. He worked from the clinch and won matches in the clinch. Folkstyle(Lesnar’s base) has far less emphasis on certain skills and technique. Angle was one of the best International wrestlers in US history. You take an incredible olympic wrestler and turn him loose in mma and the results are solid when they stick to wrestling. Perfect example, Hendo he smothered and covered three BJJ standouts in his first 10 fights(Newton, Babalu, and Big Nog). Hendo strayed away from that in his rematch with Big Nog and got tapped.
Pro “wrestling” whether it’s a “shoot” situation or not is done with the emphasis on show. Angle doesn’t wrestle the same way as a “Pro” as he did as an olympian. When you’re more showy you leave things out there to get hook and snapped. So judging his sub defense when he was being showy in a “pro” setting where the emphasis is on show is asinine because submission guys have more options because your technique is looser and over-exaggerated with the emphasis on putting the guy on his back for a “pin.” so if a guy grabs a hold that puts himself on his back you’re not trying to fight out like you would in a fight.
Let’s remember Lesnar also was hammering Mir into oblivion from a good position before the questionable restart and then lost composure and went for the kill while sacrificing position with an absolute god of BJJ and was hooked.
Funny, David Bastista criticized Allen Jones (A.J. Styles) once of just flipping and flopping, of having no real ring skills. I always liked Jones’s retort in the press, something to the effect of “I can’t see how he can talk about me when he can’t take a simple bump without tearing up his back.” Where’s AJ Styles, and where’s Batista?
Somewhere Mr. Jones had to have a laugh at this excuse for breaking news…if he’s even bothered.
Perhaps Mr. Bastista can reclaim his old vocation as a bouncer at that nightclub in D.C…..
Batista, Dream is calling.
Its more like Batista is dreaming if he think he can try MMA at his age and lack of any combat sport training and experience…
Unfortunately, that about sums it up. To top it off(not that I watch pro wrestling), his fight sequences in wrestling were very stiff and board-like. I don’t think he would make the physical transformation to the cage very well. Everyone “thinks” they can “do” mma until they punched, kicked, or put in a submission hold….
Now I remember now where else I’ve seen this Batista cat.
The girl I was dating at the time [Genie, Geena, something?] had a real thing for those horrible WB/CW TV shows, and I think he played a monster or robot or whatever on Smallville a few years ago.
I’m sure with the guy’s physique, plus his acting experience from pro wrestling, he can snag any number of Hollywood roles in straight-to-DVD action/horror/sci-fi flicks…
While I’m not a fan of WWE, I am a fan of Batista. Yes he is 41, and he’s had some bad injuries, but look at the guy! If he could pass the drug test and could prove he has some knowledge, I’d pay to watch him fight! Does anyone know if he’s had any formal training in Wresting, or boxing? Power accoutns for a lot but it’s not everything (see Brock Lesner’s next fight)! This is interesting though you gotta admit. Maybe someone should set up an exWresterls organization WWMMA or something lol, yeah right, yes I’m joking. These guys have to have somewhere to go! They can’t act!
If you’re that big a fan of him, why don’t you know what kind of combat training he has? Surely it’s on his Wikipedia page or something. Or how about you Google it or something?
Why always the attitude towards people dude?
I said fan, not stalker. Yeah what’s your problem, ppl aren’t allowed to voice opinions in here? Or do my opinions have to be created the same way yours are? I’m afraid I don’t have in depth knowledge on all the people I like, however, now that you’ve brought it to my attention, perhaps I’ll take what little time I have outside of work, family, and the rest of my LIFE, to study, in detail, everyone I deem worthy to respect so that when I voice my opinion, it will be up to your standards!
Oh and if you’re going to quote me, at least get it right. I said I was a fan of Batista, not a big fan. Small detail yes but a difference in any case.
Good luck with the ppl skills.
So in other words, I’m supposed to take the time out of my schedule of work, family and the rest of my LIFE, to answer a question that you don’t have time to look up? Especially when you, being just a fan, not a big fan, have a significant advantage in knowledge of the person in question (before this article, I didn’t know his first name was Dave and that his last name was actually Batista)? And if we’re going to get downright nitpicky, I never intimated anything about stalking, so I would appreciate the same courtesy from you that you’re asking of me. Oh, and the people skills are working just fine.
MJ: I’m sorry I have offended your sensibilities, and believe me, I will be much more tolerant of the needs and considerations of others on this site. Even the ones who ask questions because they’re too lazy to do a Google search.
Accepted absolutly my man