Age, Biography and Wiki
Dave Bautista was born on January 18, 1969, in Washington, D.C., United States. He is an American actor, professional mixed martial artist, and former professional wrestler. Bautista gained widespread recognition for his career in WWE, where he became a six-time world champion and was known as "The Animal." His transition to acting has been marked by notable roles in films like "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Dune" .
| Occupation | Martial Artist |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 18 January 1969 |
| Age | 56 Years |
| Birth Place | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Horoscope | Capricorn |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Bautista stands at 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) tall and weighs approximately 289 pounds (131 kilograms) .
On December 16 episode of SmackDown!, Batista and Mysterio defeated WWE Tag Team Champions MNM to win the titles in a match they dedicated to Eddie Guerrero, and thus Batista became a double champion. After this, the clash with Big Show and Kane at Armageddon turned into a Champions vs. Champions encounter. Batista and Mysterio lost to Big Show and Kane at Armageddon. Two weeks later on SmackDown!, MNM defeated Batista and Mysterio after help from the returning Mark Henry to regain the WWE Tag Team Championship. During the interference, Henry attacked Batista, and performed his World's Strongest Slam. The teams met again in a steel cage match the following week that Henry also became involved in, and Batista and Mysterio were defeated again. Batista tore his right triceps during a match with Mark Henry at a house show on January 6, forcing him to vacate the World Heavyweight Championship at the SmackDown! tapings on January 13, two days after surpassing Triple H's previous mark of 280 days for longest reigning champion. In his book, Batista Unleashed, Batista said that he believed that Henry was "careless" during their match as he never gave Batista any warning that the move was coming. Batista went on to have successful surgery on his arm on January 12.
Batista made an appearance at No Way Out and told the crowd that once his arm had healed he would return to regain the World Heavyweight Championship. At WrestleMania 22, he interrupted a Randy Orton interview, putting SmackDown! on notice that the World Heavyweight Championship would return to him by WrestleMania 23.
On the June 23 episode of Raw, Batista was drafted from SmackDown to the Raw brand during the 2008 WWE Draft. After failing to win the World Heavyweight Championship from Edge at Night of Champions, Batista attacked Edge the following night on Raw, allowing CM Punk to cash in his Money in the Bank contract on Edge. This set up a title match between Batista and Punk at The Great American Bash which ended in a double disqualification after Kane interfered and attacked both men. The following night on Raw, Batista and Punk had a rematch, Batista won by disqualification after he was attacked by JBL. As John Cena came to the ring to fight JBL, he inadvertently punched Batista as JBL ducked. This started a program between Cena and Batista leading up to SummerSlam, for which a match was made official by Raw general manager Mike Adamle. This was the first time a match between the two would occur as they had each been on separate brands since they both debuted in 2002. On the August 4 episode of Raw, Batista and Cena won the World Tag Team Championship from Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, making Batista a three-time World Tag Team Champion. The next week on Raw, Batista and Cena lost the World Tag Team Championship back to Rhodes and DiBiase. After losing the titles, the two had to be separated by multiple officials. Batista defeated Cena at SummerSlam, legitimating injuring Cena's neck in the process. Batista then competed in the World Heavyweight Championship championship scramble match at Unforgiven and was eight seconds away from being a four-time world champion, but Chris Jericho snuck in and pinned Kane in the waning seconds. On October 26 at Cyber Sunday, Batista defeated Jericho for his fourth World Heavyweight Championship in a match in which Stone Cold Steve Austin was voted in as the special guest referee. Batista's reign, however, only lasted eight days when Jericho won the title back in a Steel Cage match on the 800th episode of Raw on November 3.
Batista then entered a feud with former Evolution partner, Randy Orton; at Survivor Series, Batista led a team of himself, CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, Matt Hardy, and R-Truth to face the team of Randy Orton, Shelton Benjamin, William Regal, Cody Rhodes, and Mark Henry. Orton's team won with Orton pinning Batista, winning the match for his team. His feud with Orton continued up to Armageddon where Batista defeated Orton. On the December 15 episode of Raw, Batista was put into a handicap match against The Legacy with John Cena as his partner. During the match, Orton struck Batista with a punt to the head. Batista was knocked out and put out of action indefinitely due to a storyline head injury. WWE.com later reported that Batista elected to undergo surgery to repair a hamstring tear. His hamstring was injured at SummerSlam, in the same match that John Cena was forced out of action with a neck injury. He was expected to be out of action for six to eight months.
Batista returned on the September 14 episode of Raw with his arm still in a vice. Randy Orton, assuming Batista was retiring, claimed that he ended Batista's career. Batista then removed his arm vice, which turned to be fake, and attacked Orton. He then stated that he would not retire, but move to SmackDown instead. Later that night, he defeated Orton in a no-holds barred match which was to be his last match on Raw.
Batista was declared the 50th greatest wrestling villain of all time by a WWE article in 2012. WWE has also ranked him as the second best World Heavyweight Champion of all time. WWE advertised Batista as being 6 ft 6 in tall and weighing 290 pounds, both of which are different from his real height of 6 ft 4 in and unknown weight.
Bautista is 6 ft tall and weighed around 275 lb as of August 2020, later slimming down to around 240 lb by September 2024. He has numerous tattoos, including a large dragon on his back, red kanji lettering on his upper left biceps which says "Angel" (in tribute to Angie), a signature design on his upper right biceps, and a small sun on his abdomen which encircles his navel. He also has a tattoo on his arm of the flags of Greece and the Philippines. While taking time off due to injury in 2009, he had both upper arms covered in large, tribal style tattoos, and the phrase "DC soldier" added to his right biceps. He once had a tattoo of a meteor on his arm, a logo associated with former friend Manny Pacquiao, but had it covered up with a sugar skull design after Pacquiao made homophobic remarks. Beginning in 2010, Bautista began eating a mostly plant-based, pescetarian diet, and in 2021 planned to go completely vegan in the near future.
| Height | 6 feet 4 inches |
| Weight | 289 pounds |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
Information regarding his current relationship status is not consistently updated, but Bautista has been married three times previously. His personal life is often kept private, focusing more on his professional achievements .
David Michael Bautista Jr. His paternal grandfather served in the Philippine military, worked as a taxi driver and barber, and held other jobs to feed the family. Bautista's mother later came out as a lesbian. He has said that he lived in poverty and had a hard life which included exposure to violent crime at an early age. Before reaching the age of nine, two bodies had been found on his front lawn and another one nearby. As young as age 13, he had begun stealing cars. By age 17, he was estranged from his parents and living on his own. However, he later said, "I am proud of my parents. They are good, honest, hard-working folks. They taught me the values of working hard."
In late 2004, the relationship between Batista and Triple H began to deteriorate in kayfabe. After a loss to Chris Jericho, Triple H verbally insulted Batista. Batista teased leaving Evolution that night, but declared that he was still part of Evolution and that they tricked everyone. Despite this ploy, Batista began behaving more like a face over the next few weeks in comparison to Evolution's heel tactics. One particular moment saw Batista express disgust as Triple H and Ric Flair boasted about how they had intimidated and/or beat up Jim Ross, Danny Hodge, and Stacy Keibler. Regardless, he continued to show his loyalty to Triple H and Evolution by running down to the ring and assisting them in matches.
According to the Wrestling Figure Checklist, Bautista had 171 action figures released in the 2000s and 2010s; most were released in the mid-to-late 2000s by Jakks Pacific. He remarked on his 2007 appearance on MTV Cribs, "I was trying to collect my action figures, but I gave up, there became too many". On October 16, 2007, his autobiography, Batista Unleashed, was released. In an interview about it, he claimed, "I didn't want to tell my story unless it was honest... You have to go through three sets of lawyers: Simon & Schuster lawyers, WWE lawyers, my lawyers. Everything now being the way it is, you can be sued for the simplest thing." There was controversy over the book's mention of Chris Benoit, a wrestler who killed his wife and strangled his son in a murder-suicide, and about whom other details were removed from the book. Bautista said, "I loved the guy. I despise what he did, but that doesn't erase him from my life. I fought to keep him in there and am glad they did."
When asked about his ex-wife, Angie, Bautista says, "[We] have really become close again, which we really haven't been in years. I really learned a lot about her, and she learned a lot about me from reading the book. She actually saw things from a different perspective from reading the book. So that was definitely therapeutic." Bautista held a campaign to raise money for Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance in 2010 because of Angie's ovarian cancer battle.
Bautista married his first wife, Glenda, in 1990. They had two daughters together, Keilani (b. 1990) and Athena (b. 1992), before they divorced in 1998. Bautista married his second wife, Angie, on October 13, 1998. They have a son together, Oliver, and divorced in 2006. Before the age of 40, Bautista already had two grandsons through Keilani. In October 2015, he married competitive pole dancer Sarah Jade. They separated in early 2019.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Glenda Bautista (m. 1990-1998) Angie Bautista (m. 1998-2006) Sarah Jade (m. 2015-2019) |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Dave Bautista's net worth is estimated to be between $16 million and $18 million. His earnings come from a successful career in WWE, acting roles, particularly in blockbuster films like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and various business ventures .
Batista won the World Heavyweight Championship on April 3 by defeating Triple H in the main event of WrestleMania 21. WrestleMania 21 received 1.09 million pay-per-view buys worldwide – the then-highest ever number of buys for any non-boxing pay-per-view. Batista's match with Triple H was described by sports journalist Dave Meltzer as "the peak of one of [WWE's] best storylines in years". Batista won a rematch with Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship at Backlash. After Batista retained his title against Edge on the May 23 episode of Raw, he was betrayed by Ric Flair, who helped Triple H viciously attack Batista as Triple H challenged Batista to a Hell in a Cell match at Vengeance. Batista won the match at Vengeance, retaining his title yet again. With this win, Batista became the first wrestler to pin Triple H in a Hell in a Cell match.
Batista faced Big Show for the ECW World Championship on the August 1 episode of ECW, winning the match by disqualification but failing to win the championship as titles cannot change hands by disqualification. He then set his sights on King Booker's World Heavyweight Championship, with the two facing in a match for the title at 2006 SummerSlam on August 20. However, Batista also won this match by disqualification. During a commercial shoot for the SummerSlam pay-per-view, Booker T and Batista reportedly got into a legitimate fistfight, with Booker T accusing Batista of considering himself superior to the rest of the roster due to his quick climb to main-event status. It was also reported that some wrestlers on the SmackDown brand agreed with Booker T. Batista continued his pursuit of the championship, failing to capture it once again in a fatal-four way at No Mercy in October also involving Finlay and Bobby Lashley, before finally defeating King Booker to regain the World Heavyweight Championship at Survivor Series on November 26. The following month at Armageddon, Batista teamed with John Cena to defeat King Booker and Finlay, putting an end to the rivalry.
The following night on Raw, Batista opened the show in a wheelchair and claimed that he would be pursuing legal action against Cena and WWE for his injuries (which he revealed in 2014 to be a legitimate compression fracture of his L1 spine). His promo was interrupted by new Raw General Manager Bret Hart, who ordered he face an injured Randy Orton to qualify for a shot at WWE Championship against Cena again at the new Fatal 4-Way pay-per-view. Batista refused and quit the company after Hart named Orton winner by forfeit. His profile was subsequently moved to the alumni page on WWE's website. He later said in an interview that he left WWE because he "did not like the direction the company was going in".
Business Ventures
Bautista is involved in several business ventures, including his part-ownership of Devils River Whiskey and other investments like DC Society Ink and Dogbone Entertainment. He is also known for his involvement with Smirnoff and Rocket Mortgage .
Bautista began his wrestling career in 1999 and signed with WWE (then WWF) in 2000. From 2002 to 2010, he gained fame under the ring name Batista, initially as a member of Evolution. He would go on to win the WWE Championship twice, the World Heavyweight Championship four times (with his first reign remaining the longest in history at 282 days), the World Tag Team Championship three times (twice with Ric Flair and once with John Cena), and the WWE Tag Team Championship once (with Rey Mysterio). He also won the 2005 and 2014 Royal Rumble matches and subsequently headlined WrestleMania 21 and WrestleMania XXX, with the former being one of the top five highest-grossing PPV events in wrestling history. He retired from professional wrestling after WrestleMania 35 in 2019.
Bautista worked as a nightclub bouncer until he was arrested after a fight that left two patrons injured, one of whom was knocked unconscious. After a trial, he was sentenced to one year of probation. He worked as a lifeguard before deciding to pursue a career in bodybuilding, which he credits with saving his life. At the age of 30, after having a breakdown from the shame he felt for having to ask a co-worker to lend him money so he could buy Christmas presents for his children, he saw how lucrative a career in professional wrestling could be and decided to pursue it.
Bautista tried out at World Championship Wrestling's Power Plant, where trainer DeWayne Bruce told him he would never make it in the wrestling business. He then went to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), who advised him to train with Afa Anoaʻi at the Wild Samoan Training Center, where he trained and later competed in Anoaʻi's World Xtreme Wrestling (WXW) promotion. He wrestled his debut match under the ring name Khan on October 30, 1999, less than three months before his 31st birthday. He also trained with Marrese Crump in Muay Thai and Eskrima.
While still in OVW, Bautista began appearing on non-televised WWE events. He began his televised WWE career on May 9, 2002, on an episode of SmackDown! as Deacon Batista, a heel enforcer for Reverend D-Von. He made his WWE in-ring debut in a tag team match teaming with D-Von against Faarooq and Randy Orton, pinning Orton. Over several weeks, Orton tried to beat D-Von and Batista with different partners, but ultimately lost each time. Batista suffered his first loss in a match against Rikishi after D-Von accidentally punched him, allowing Rikishi to take advantage and pin Batista. Batista and D-Von argued over the forthcoming weeks, with Batista eventually turning on D-Von. On the November 14 episode of SmackDown!, Batista defeated D-Von to end their feud. After splitting with D-Von, he was assigned to the Raw brand and was renamed Batista. He aligned himself with Ric Flair and feuded with Kane, whom he defeated at Armageddon on December 15.
Batista appeared in the Royal Rumble and made the final three before being eliminated by Triple H. At No Way Out, he was part of the SmackDown Elimination Chamber Match and eliminated Big Daddy V, but was last eliminated by The Undertaker. At WrestleMania XXIV, he defeated Umaga in an interpromotional match. After Shawn Michaels defeated Ric Flair in a Career Threatening match (forcing Flair to retire) later that night, Batista began a feud with Michaels, calling him selfish and egotistical. The two faced off at Backlash with Chris Jericho as the special guest referee. Michaels won after faking a knee injury and performing Sweet Chin Music. Batista then defeated Michaels at One Night Stand in a stretcher match, thus ending their feud.
After leaving WWE, Bautista attended Strikeforce: Los Angeles on June 16, 2010, having previously registered an interest in competing in MMA. Five days later, he said that he would be embarking on an MMA career. He became a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Cesar Gracie. Bautista and Strikeforce agreed on a price and were negotiating a contract. However, in April 2011, Bautista stated that negotiations fell through when the organization was bought by the Zuffa company.
In 2018, Bautista joined his castmates in support of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn after Gunn's firing over old tweets joking about pedophilia and rape. He called Gunn's firing "nauseating" and declared that he would ask to be recast if Disney, the parent company of Marvel Studios, did not use Gunn's script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Gunn was reinstated as the film's director in March 2019. In May 2021, he confirmed that the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would be his final appearance as Drax.
Social Network
Bautista maintains a strong presence on social media platforms, engaging with fans and promoting his projects. However, specific details about his social media following are not provided.
At the Royal Rumble in January 2010, Batista entered the Royal Rumble match at number 30, but failed to win as he was eliminated by John Cena. Batista then became involved in WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and Bret Hart's rivalry by assisting McMahon in attacking Hart; John Cena attempted to save Hart, but was assaulted by Batista. On February 21 at Elimination Chamber, as payment for Batista attacking Hart, McMahon allowed Batista to face Cena for the WWE Championship immediately after Cena won the title in an Elimination Chamber match. Batista won the match and thus his second WWE Championship, which resulted in Batista moving back to Raw. On March 28 at WrestleMania XXVI, Batista lost the WWE Championship to John Cena in a rematch, ending his reign at 35 days. Batista received his rematch for the title in a Last Man Standing match on April 25 at Extreme Rules, but was defeated by Cena after Cena duct-taped his legs around a ring post, preventing him from standing up. Batista and Cena faced off once again for the WWE Championship on May 23 at Over the Limit, but he failed again to regain the title from Cena in an "I Quit" match, quitting as Cena threatened to give him the Attitude Adjustment off the roof of a car. Cena did so anyway, throwing Batista off of the car and through the stage below.
Upon his return to WWE in 2014, Batista was heavily booed by the crowd after winning the Royal Rumble, despite playing a heroic character. In an interview with WWE.com, he said of the crowd reaction, "It was weird. It wasn't like a normal response. It was almost like a personal attack. It had to do with factors that were not in my control, factors and things that were going on in the company with other people, stuff that really had nothing to do with me. To me, it was a little frustrating, a little confusing, and, you know, I don't want to say I completely took it personal, but I did somewhat." The fan reaction caused storyline changes, with Batista turning into a villainous character.
On September 7, 2008, he was a judge on an episode of Iron Chef America, with snails as the theme ingredient. Along with Candice Michelle, Shelton Benjamin, and Josh Mathews, he represented the WWE at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in an effort to persuade fans to register to vote in the 2008 presidential election. He has also appeared on MTV Cribs showing his house and cars. His first biographical DVD, Batista: I Walk Alone, was released through WWE Productions on October 20, 2009. A second DVD, WWE Batista: The Animal Unleashed (released June 2014) continued his life story, detailing his departure from WWE in 2010 and his return to it in 2014.
Education
Bautista's educational background is limited due to his early entry into professional wrestling and other ventures. He often highlights his determination and hard work as key factors in his success despite the lack of formal education .
As an actor, Bautista is known for portraying Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2014–2023) and Rabban in Dune (2021) and its 2024 sequel. Bautista has additionally starred in Spectre (2015), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Final Score, Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (both 2018), Army of the Dead (2021), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Knock at the Cabin, and Parachute (both 2023).
On December 9, 2019, WWE officially announced that Batista would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a part of the Class of 2020. The event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it was announced that the class of 2020 would be inducted alongside the class of 2021 at the 2021 event. Prior to the event, however, he was removed from the list. He tweeted to confirm his removal, citing previous obligations as the reason why he could not attend the 2021 event. He also said that WWE honored his request to induct him at a future ceremony.
