Batista Dave - Batista Unleashed

Its Saturday afternoon, February 3, 2007.

Ive just arrived at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri. Its a little after one, and I have a show tonight at seven thirty. That sounds like a hell of a lot of time, but the show is in Carbondale, Illinois, a hundred-something miles away. Not only do I have to get myself over there, but I want to find a gym and a tanning salon beforehand. And I have to eat, because Im starved.

Theres a problem with the car rentalthe car hasnt been reserved. It takes quite a while to work it out. Finally, the computer coughs out the right paperwork and Im on the road.

So much of this business is on the road, traveling. As the highway unwinds, I have a million things on my mind, including this book, which the publisher has been after me to finish for a few months now.

When they first asked me to write it, I was flattered, but I really wasnt sure about doing it.

What do people want to know about me? And why do they want to know? I dont pretend to be a deep thinker. I dont talk that much. When I do, I say what I honestly feel, and I say it plainly, in just a few words. Thats rare today, maybeenough to have gotten me in trouble at different timesbut thats not a reason to write a book.

I went ahead and agreed to it, but even then I hesitated, stopped and started. Finally, I figured I would just plunge in and see what came of it. Doing it has made me think about things that have happened to meevents that rushed past me at the time. And it made me think about pro wrestling, why people connect to it, and how wrestlers go about creating our art every night.

Im still not sure thats enough reason to write a book. But this is it.

Every story has a beginning. Mine is in Washington, D.C., in 1969.

Washington, D.C., in the sixties, seventies, and eighties was one of the poorest places in the country. Murder was common. Crack cocaine was just getting its start. Life expectancy for kids was worse than in many third world countries. The politicians were corrupt, homelessness was at its peak, and even law-abiding people viewed the police as the enemy.

But to me, it was home.

I wont say I was unaffected by the poverty and crime around me when I grew up. Its not like I lived on a safe cul-de-sac around the corner from the ghetto, either: three people died at different times in my front yard before I was nine. But to me, D.C. wasnt the life-sucking hellhole it was for a lot of people. And the big reason for that was my mom.

FAMILY

I was born January 18, 1969.

For some strange reason, the date is a big controversy in the wrestling world. At some point very early in my career, someone wrote a story somewhere saying that I had been born in 1966. That year seems to have stuck with a lot of people for some reason. There have been other dates published, too. There have been so many, in fact, that when I give the right date, some people think Im lying about my age.

I swear to God, its like its a big deal.

Just last week some guy told my girlfriend I was lying about my age, that I wasnt really thirty-eight, that I was forty-two. Maybe he was trying to pick her up, I dont know.

I dont lie about my birth dateI try not to lie about anything, but especially not that. Its no secret that I came to the business really late. I was almost thirty when I got into wrestling. Thats real old for a wrestler starting out. I never lied about my age then, so it would be really crazy to lie now. And if I was going to lie about my age, I wouldnt say I was thirty-eight. Id knock at least five more years off.

I have a sister, who was born about a year later than I was. Our parents werent very original when it came to naming us. I was named after my father, David Michael Bautista. Im Dave Junior. My sister was named after my mother, Donna Raye Bautista. Shes a junior, too. It made it easier for people to remember our names.

(I spell my name Batista for wrestling, but on my birth certificate it has a u after the first a .)

My father was born in Washington, D.C., but his family was from the Philippines, and as a wrestler Ive always felt a strong bond with the fans in the Philippines because of that family connection. His father, my granddad, was in the army; he didnt talk much about what he did, but I know he was in World War II and was wounded or hurt in some way. The family legends have him down as a hell-raiser when he was young, but I dont know much more than that.

I always heard that he was a real ladies man, and that he got into some trouble in San Francisco when he was younger. Supposedly he was running numbers for gangsters and did something for which, for some reason or another, they wanted to kill him. Whatever it was that he did, trouble chased him out of town and he came east.

Those bad days were long gone by the time I came along, and he never told me about them, even though I was his favorite and he wasnt afraid to show it. On the contrary: he used to brag about it.

According to the family stories, my grandfather would never really hold any of my cousins or me when we were babies. He wasnt the nurturing type. But then one day my mom had to run to grab something burning or something like that and she just threw me in my grandfathers arms. His face lit up. By the time she came back to get me, he and I had bonded somehow. From that day, I was his favorite grandchild. I still remember him asking how much I loved him and holding my hands out to say, This much!

When he died in 1988, it just broke my heart. Hes buried in Arlington Cemetery, an honor reserved for men and women who have served our country.