It’s been over two years now since Batista’s last run in WWE ended, and The Animal has been opening up recently about his thoughts on his six-month run in the company in 2014. Earlier this week, Big Dave commented on how Triple H and Stephanie McMahon didn’t believe Guardians of the Galaxy would be a hit and didn’t want to cross-promote it with SummerSlam, and now he is speaking out about his feuds with Daniel Bryan and The Shield before he left the company to focus on movies.
In an interview with MLW Radio, Batista said it “killed” him that he went with the Evolution vs. The Shield feud after WrestleMania 30 instead of working more with Daniel Bryan. Although Bryan and Batista met in a triple threat match in the WrestleMania main event, there was apparently an option for him to challenge Bryan at the next month’s pay-per-view, Extreme Rules. Instead, Batista re-upped with Orton and HHH to fight The Hounds of Justice, while Bryan was left to face Kane in what would end up being his only title defense on pay-per-view.
“I did the thing with Daniel Bryan. Let me tell you the reason I was pissed about the whole thing, the reason why, because I didn’t want to work with him at the next pay-per-view. I wanted to work with [The] Shield. I wanted to do the Evolution thing, so it wasn’t anything against Daniel Bryan and it wasn’t because I loved Evolution so much. I wanted to do the Evolution thing and that’s what kills me.”
Despite the fact that he wishes he had faced Bryan, Batista had nothing but nice things to say about Rollins, Reigns, and Ambrose, saying that he believed they should have even stayed together longer than they did as a group.
“And then, the whole thing with The Shield, like, I love that whole run, man. I loved working with those guys. The thing is, we put them over like a million bucks then they split them right up.” Batista added, “they could have continued that run for at least year together. Those guys are great. The Shield was such a strong unit. Man, they could have milked that for everything that it’s worth.”
Batista also spoke about how he wished he was in better shape for his 2014 run, how he dealt with the negative fan response towards him, and how he was disappointed Bryan didn’t sell his injuries more on the night after WrestleMania. You can check out the entire interview over at MLW Radio.
(Transcription via Wrestling Inc)
