Dave Bautista won the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 21 and held it for 282 days, the longest reign in that title’s history. He says the money did not arrive anywhere near as fast as the spotlight did.
Speaking on the Live Fierce podcast with W.O.L.F Gyms co-owner Cale Owen, Bautista said his first years on the road left him in the red.
“My first few years of wrestling, I was broke, man. I was, until 2005, when I became world champion and started to make some money. I was still borrowing money from people,” Bautista said. “I was living in a tiny apartment when I was world champion, because I’d just become world champion and hadn’t started making money yet.”
He described the routine he used to stay afloat.
“I used to go to those check cashing places and get like a $300 loan, and then you come back next cash event, come back, pay it, and borrow another 300, and do that week after week,” Bautista said. “That was around 2005 when I didn’t have to do that anymore, and I started to make money.”
Part of the squeeze, he said, was that the job came with almost no support.
“When I was wrestling, they pretty much provided you with airfare, and that was it,” Bautista said. “They didn’t cover your stay. Not food, not cars, not hotels, none of that.”
That is the comparison he reaches for whenever someone asks whether long film shoots are hard.
“Filmmaking is long hours. There’s a lot of sitting around. It takes a lot of patience, but it’s nothing compared to wrestling,” Bautista said. “Coming from wrestling, man, this is gravy.”
The difference, he said, is in the basics.
“When I was wrestling, not only was I grinding harder, it was in a different spot every night. That’s a luxury about filmmaking. You’re typically in the same place for long periods of time,” Bautista said. “Whereas wrestling, you’re moving, hustling. Also, nobody’s catering to you. Nobody’s setting up stuff for you. You don’t have a trailer. You’re just grinding. You’re pulling your own weight.”
He also has not forgotten how close he came to never getting in at all. Before WWE, Bautista went to a WCW tryout that ended almost immediately.
“I didn’t make it past the first day. He told me to get the f*ck out, and I’d never be a pro wrestler. I didn’t have what it took,” Bautista said. “So I was pretty crushed, because I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.”
Instead of quitting, he borrowed money from friends and enrolled at the Wild Samoan wrestling camp in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which had ties to WWE.
“I borrowed money from my buddies. I went up there, I got an apartment, I started training full time, and I was there for about a year before I got a tryout with the WWE, and so I made it with them,” Bautista said. “I got a contract, but it was for 650 bucks a week.”
That deal sent him to Louisville, Kentucky for two more years of developmental before he ever appeared on television in 2002. He was not complaining.
“I was also getting paid to wrestle. I was happy. I was successful at that point. I made it,” Bautista said. “It’s like every time I took a step, that’s where a new struggle began.”
