A look back at Batista's early WWE career, 20 years after his Raw debut

This is a script for my video on Batista's early WWE run. You can watch the video version here when it has uploaded: https://youtu.be/JNqBXF1nvVg

There have been a lot of significant anniversaries in wrestling this year. 1997 was maybe one of the most important years for various reasons and thats worth looking back at, but 2002 was a special year too. We saw the business try to regroup from the loss of WCW and ECW, future big promotions begin to emerge and the returns to the big stage of Rey Mysterio, Shawn Michaels and others. As far as historic debuts, 2002 might have a lot of other years beat, with John Cena, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar all making their debuts that year, all going on to have legendary careers. This video however is about the Raw debut of another debut though, as November 4th marked 20 years since Batista had his first match on WWE Raw.

You might be wondering why with all of these other debuts am I making this video about Batista, the honest reason is that I just liked him better back then. I'm not usually much of a fan of the big jacked up dudes in wrestling, but something about Batista felt different. He had a charisma to him, and that sweet Saliva theme song, and that other Motorhead song but we'll get to that.

On this night, big Dave would make short work of Justin Credible in a near 90 second squash match. In reality Batista had been working Raw house shows for the previous month, mostly with Justin, but also with Redd Dogg, known then as Rodney Mack. In the match Justin's entire office was two punches and a kick, and the rest was Batista throwing him around the ring, ending with a devastating looking sit down powerbomb, which would become his signature Batista Bomb. Justin Credible might have been low on the WWE totem pole, but he was a former ECW World champion and had been around since the early 90's, and did a fine job of making Batista look as good as he possibly could, so fair play to him.

This match was more than just a debut though, it was a repackage, as Batista had actually moved over from the Smackdown brand in an era where the two shows were considered more separate than ever. Dave had arrived on the May 9th episode of Smackdown as Deacon Batista, the associate of Reverend D-Von.

For those who aren't familiar with this weird period on D-Von Dudleys career, remember when I said the brands were considered more separate back then? In the initial draft the Dudley Boys were inexplicably separated, with Bubba Ray going to Raw to take part in the Hardcore title scene and become 'Dancing Bubba Dudley', and D-Von went to Smackdown to become a Reverend. When D-Von first entered ECW back in 1996, his character was based on Samuel L. Jacksons character in Pulp Fiction, a hitman who would quote from the bible. All that survived of that aspect of his character by early 2002 was his "testify" catchphrase, but there was precedent for the religious aspect of D-Von, so it didn't come from completely nowhere. Also I noticed that on the night that Batista debuted D-Von was introduced as "Mr. McMahon's spiritual advisor, which sounds like a horrifying prospect knowing what we know about satan himself. For context Jim Ross called him that by the way...

As D-Von and Batista walk down the ramp, the at this point unidentified Animal immediately draws your eye to him, and the oversized collection plate hanging around his neck. This was very much a departure from Batista's last gimmick in developmental company Ohio Valley Wrestling, as the monster known as Leviathan, who actually emerged from the swamp, which was booked by the ultra serious Jim Cornette by the way... Deacon Batista's Smackdown run was a fairly lacklustre one compared to some of his contemporaries, with his main role being to help D-Von win, and to intimidate the front row into parting with their collection money, for the church, of course. He would wrestle a few matches teaming with D-Von who I imagine would have been a great ally to learn from behind the scenes, before being moved over to Raw and completely repackaged. The Dave Batista who arrived on Raw was more of a typical WWE badass, and like many would lost his first name fairly soon.

For the following few months Batista would have more short squash matches, even defeating the likes of Rob Van Dam and Kane in less than three minutes, but like any great Pokemon, Batista was levelling up and was ready to evolve.

Part of the reason Batista had been brought over to Raw was to be part of a new group that was set to take over the brand led by Ric Flair and Triple H. That group would be known as Evolution, and by the end of 2002 they would have every title on the Raw Brand. According to a recent interview with Triple H he hand picked third generation prospect Randy Orton and the newcomer Batista. The point of the group was for the two rookies to sit under the learning tree, until it was time for them to become main eventers and leave the group. Orton would be the first to graduate from Evolution in mid 2004, then Batista would follow in early 2005, having won the Royal Rumble match. In a very well built story that lasted several weeks, World Champion Triple H did everything he would to try and convince Batista to challenge Smackdowns champion JBL, but Batista only had eyes for Triple H's belt, and come Wrestlemania 21 he would be coronated on the biggest stage possible.

That re-debut in November 2002 was about more than a quick squash match, it was all about correcting a mis-step, and starting over with a man who would go on to win multiple world titles, star in grand movie franchises, even even become a beloved Marvel character. That is quite the career trajectory for a man who once emerged from a swamp but as that Motorhead song used to go, Evolution is a mystery.