Report: Batista Turns Down Vince McMahon’s Offer To Appear At WWE WrestleMania 32
Former WWE Champion Batista has reportedly turned down a recent offer from Vince McMahon to appear at this year’s WrestleMania 32 on April 3. This report is according to ProWrestlingSheet.com.
ProWrestlingSheet has stated that, according to well-placed sources, Batista was backstage this past Sunday during WWE’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view event from Orlando, Florida. McMahon reportedly met with Batista and pitched him an idea that would fit him into WWE’s biggest show of the year. He would have been incorporated in a non-wrestling role and it would have been a one-off appearance.
Batista apparently passed on McMahon’s offer, with the door being left open for the WWE creative team to come up with some new ideas to pitch Batista in order to work something out before WrestleMania 32. In other words, it could still happen.
During press junkets for the latest James Bond film Spectre in November 2015, Batista talked about some of his frustrations with WWE creative and how they handled his return in 2014. Although they don’t often see eye to eye, Batista stated that he would love to come back to the WWE someday. He even said that he would love to exclusively work house shows/live events with the WWE on a full-time basis. It was an interesting interview that I covered last year. You can click here if you’d like to read up on more of Batista’s comments.
Mark’s reaction: Vince trying to work out a deal with Batista for WrestleMania 32 doesn’t really come as much of a surprise to me. The WWE has been hyping up this year’s Mania as the biggest WrestleMania of all time. Although they say that every year, this year they quite literally mean it when they use the word biggest since they are shooting to break the all-time attendance record of 93,173 set at the Pontiac Silverdome during WrestleMania 3. They’re currently hurting in attaining this record as some of their biggest stars will not be competing due to injury. Therefore, bringing back a big name like Batista could be something WWE can advertise in advance in hopes of selling more tickets; similar to what is being done with The Rock since it’s likely he won’t wrestle a match.
Batista being courted for a non-wrestling role at WrestleMania 32 is likely for the same reason as The Rock. Filming for the rebooted Baywatch movie is taking place during WrestleMania season, and the story goes that Rock signed a deal that would prevent him from wrestling around this time in order to not subject himself to injury and set back production on the movie. It’s likely that Batista is in this same position, as filming for his role in Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is set to begin next month.
Even if Batista was going to appear at WrestleMania, I don’t think it would help that much when it comes to selling tickets. Sure maybe it would help a little bit, but I don’t think it would make as much of a dent as they may be thinking it will. It’s going to be really tough to break the WrestleMania III record of over 93,000 people. However, I’m sure if they’re anywhere within the vicinity of the record they’ll probably fudge the numbers to make it seem like they broke the record. WWE has done this in the past quite often. There have even been rumors for years as to the legitimacy of the 93,173 record. I’d of course love to see AT&T Stadium legitimately holding over 100,000 people when WrestleMania 32 rolls around, it’s just a very tough task to accomplish.
Would you like to see Batista at WrestleMania 32? If so, how would you like to see him be used? Do you think WrestleMania 32 can break WWE’s all-time attendance record? Keep the conversation going by leaving any of your thoughts in the comment section below.