Dave Bautista Shares Why He Refuses To Go Back To Pro Wrestling Or Tarnish His Legacy

Dave Bautista had a storybook ending to his career that he will never tarnish.

The Animal returned to the WWE in 2019 for one final retirement match. He faced his long-time rival Triple H in a no-holds-barred match at WrestleMania 35, in a bout that was the most violent from that year’s event.

Triple H won the match, sending Bautista into retirement. This was the perfect ending for the former World Heavyweight Champion, and one he refused to tarnish.

Bautista spoke with Jake’s Takes while promoting The Killer’s Game. He spoke about the end of his wrestling career, saying he did the “honorable thing” by losing his last match.

The former World Heavyweight Champion says he is proud of the way he retired. Bautista added that 99.9% of people don’t get to choose their retirement, which makes him luckier than most.

“To me, you know, the honorable way to go out is to go out on your back. You go out, and you leave somebody who’s going to be there with the company; you put them over and build them as stars. Not that the guy I went out with needed to be built—he was probably the most massive star in the company—but that’s the honorable way to go out.”

“The thing is, with wrestling, 99.9% of the time you don’t get to choose the way you go out. I did. I got to choose the way I went out. Which is a special thing. It was a dream for me; it was a storybook ending. That’s why I’m very proud of the way I went out, and that’s why I refuse to go back, because, you know, in wrestling, retirement isn’t really retirement.”

Dave Batista: I Will Never Go Back

Dave Bautista continued, sharing that he could never tarnish his final match, even though he misses wrestling “every day”.

“So, people don’t take you seriously when you say you’re retired, right?” Dave Bautista said. “But, yeah, that’s why I would never go back. I just couldn’t tarnish that, man. I got to go out on my own terms—where I wanted, when I wanted, and with the guy I wanted to go out with. Every time I think about it, it makes me feel happy and fulfilled.”

“I’m very proud of my career, proud of what I did, what I accomplished, and the way I went out. That’s it. Even though I miss it—I miss it every day, every time I hear my music, every time I see a clip on Instagram with the crowd going nuts—I want to be there. I want that adrenaline rush again. It’s like a drug, an addiction that I crave. But I will never tarnish the way I got to go out because I got to go out on my own terms.”