It’s your move, WWE — Dave Bautista just publicly stated he wants to make a return to the ring.
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During an appearance on Good Morning Britain, Bautista was asked if he planned on ever returning to WWE’s ring. Typically, veteran wrestlers like to play coy when this question hits, but Bautista was nothing but candid.
“I hope so, yeah. It’s always an ongoing conversation with myself and WWE. I never burnt that bridge, intentionally because I never had any reason to. I left for certain reasons. But I love professional wrestling and I love that company,” he said.
This actually isn’t the first time the 49-year has expressed a desire to come back to WWE. Earlier this year he went on the record and stated he wanted one more run before finally retiring from in-ring action. Those quotes quickly attached themselves to rumors of his comeback happening and according to Bautista, WWE reached out to him to be Ronda Rousey’s tag team partner at WrestleMania 34.
“But they reached out to me earlier this year to possibly come back and do that thing with Ronda [Rousey],” Batista told 106.7 The Fan. “And I said that I would be willing to do it only if we teased something for me and Hunter to go to Mania next year. And they said, ‘Yeah, that would be great. I love that idea.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s great. I’ll come back a few times during the year, and we’ll tease it, and we’ll work it and we’ll milk it. And we’ll go to Mania, me and Hunter, next year.’ Oh, I love that idea. Let’s do it!”
However, WWE didn’t follow up on the idea and Bautista was left hanging. But The Animal took a progressive approach and reached out to them, but only got crickets.
“I sent a text to Hunter. I was like, ‘Hey man, I don’t know if you put any more thought into what’s going on. I’m really excited about the possibilities.’ And I literally never heard back from them. They just stopped talking to me about it. Man, I don’t know what else I can do to try to … I want to end my career the right way. I’m faithful and loyal to the WWE. I’m proud of being from there and I want to do good business with them, but they just don’t make it easy. You know, they just don’t,” he said.
While WWE chose to use Kurt Angle in that spot, it is odd that they would pass on the services of Bautista. However soon after ‘Mania, a report indicated that WWE simply did not have interest in the Guardians of the Galaxy star. It’s hard to guess how true that may be, but there appears to be something between Bautista and his WWE return.
