Dave Bautista left WWE in 2010 at the top of the card, and he says it came down to being told he could not chase what he wanted anywhere else.
Speaking on the Live Fierce podcast with W.O.L.F Gyms co-owner Cale Owen, Bautista explained that he had wanted to build an acting career while still with the company. WWE was making films at the time and, in his telling, the machine was pointed at one man.
Before getting into it, Bautista was careful to head off the obvious conclusion.
“This is not like an animosity thing towards John Cena. I don’t have anything but love and respect for John Cena. A lot of people have painted us as rivals, but it’s like an internet thing. It’s just not a real thing,” Bautista said. “I root for John Cena. To see him being successful in films makes me feel good. I’ve never rooted against John Cena. I will never root against him.”
His issue was with the disparity in opportunity.
“At the time, he was the face of the company, and they were really steering everything toward him, and I got it,” Bautista said. “But while he was doing films and commercials and magazines and endorsements, I was working. I was picking up slack here and there, and it was a grind. And I thought it was unfair, and I thought I should have those same opportunities within the company.”
He said he made that case directly.
“That’s the way I pitched it. I said I should have these same opportunities. I’m pulling the same houses. I’m picking up the slack. I’m grinding my a*s off. I’m at the top of the company. I’m champion,” Bautista said. “Our careers very much mirrored each other up to a certain point, and it’s just that he fit the bill. He was a great face of the company. They made the right choice. But it just didn’t sit well with me that I wasn’t getting the same opportunities, and I knew it was going to stunt my growth as an entertainer.”
Part of the problem, he said, was that the company had moved somewhere he could not follow.
“The company had taken this really PG turn, and there was nothing f*cking PG about me. Nothing. Not the way I wrestled, not the way I looked, not my background, not my upbringing, nothing,” Bautista said. “John Cena, in that way, couldn’t be any more opposite.”
So he asked to pursue it elsewhere, and got a firm answer.
“I said, if I can’t have these opportunities here, and I understand why I can’t, well, I should be able to go and have them outside the company. And they said, absolutely not,” Bautista said. “They said, no, we need you here. We need you doing this. You’re intellectual property. You cannot work outside the company unless it’s approved by us.”
His response set the exit in motion.
“I said, oh well, then I’m going to let my contract run out, and I’m going to leave. And they said, no, you’re not. Watch me,” Bautista said.
The cost was immediate and severe. Bautista did not return to WWE until 2014, by which time he had landed the role of Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy.
“I went broke in those three years. I went broke. My house got foreclosed on. I lost everything,” Bautista said. “I was in debt again.”
He said the film work in between did not come close to covering what he had been earning.
“I worked a few times as an actor, but I didn’t get paid much. I think I did a couple films that paid me like 50 grand each,” Bautista said. “But when you go from making millions in wrestling to making 50 grand a year, when you’ve got all the same bills and you’ve got people to support, a lot of people lose sight of that.”
