Dave Bautista: A Lot Of People Didn’t Believe In Me During My Time In OVW, John Laurinaitis Wanted To Fire Me

Dave Bautista proved a lot of people wrong.

During a sitdown interview on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Batista spoke about his time developing his character and strength in Ohio Valley Wrestling where a lot of people, including John Laurinaitis didn’t believe in the Animal and how he dug deeper to prove everybody wrong to be remembered for who the former world champion is today.

“It was a long, long road. A lot of people didn’t believe in me. Even when I was in developmental camp down in OVW, there were people with the WWE, John Laurinaitis, who wanted to fire me [laughs], but I just kept digging in and digging in and digging in until I finally got my real first opportunity with Evolution, and I had access to Triple H and Ric Flair, two of the greatest professional wrestlers ever, and I wasn’t gonna blow my shot. So I had blinders on. I put everything else on the back-burner and focused on my wrestling career,” Bautista said.

Batista would go on to win two Royal Rumbles in his career where he won the World Heavyweight and WWE Championship on multiple occasions throughout his legendary career that’ll soon be immortalized in the WWE Hall of Fame.

h/t to Fightful for the transcription.

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