Dave Batista is a hot item at 50 years old. The former multi-time World Champion is set for a comeback of sorts, and will step back into the ring for someone this year; but whom?
Pro Wrestling Sheet claims that Batista is on the WWE radar and there have been preliminary talks about his return to the company, with eyes on working WrestleMania. PWInsider has confirmed that a meeting has taken place already, but the odds of the deal being done is said to only be “50/50”.
The hangup? Batista has expressed his dissatisfaction with the WWE with his last two runs, and that has opened up the conversation for someone else to get involved. Enter AEW.
AEW is talking to Batista, wanting to sign him to the promotion to join Chris Jericho as elite names for the promotion. AEW is in the running, though the seriousness of Batista to AEW is unknown. To further back the rumors, Batista just met with Chris Jericho over a meal, in what anyone could assume was a pitch.
With The Bucks handling duties for the upcoming Double or Nothing event, and Cody Rhodes having just had knee surgery, it makes sense Jericho would pitch the promotion to Batista, especially with their friendship and history together being a factor.
Where will Batista end up? Who knows.
In Other News…
Hiroshi Tanahashi was never supposed to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship this year. Shocking, right? The plan, according to Dave Meltzer, was to have Kenny Omega head into April’s ROH/NJPW duel event in New York; the G1 Supercard. It would of been Kazuchika Okada challenging Kenny Omega in their first mach on American soil. That’s obviously not happening. Now it looks to be Kota Ibushi taking on new champion Jay White. After Omega was unsure of his future, NJPW bookers made the decision to put the belt on Tanahashi in order to eventually put White over only a month later.
In interesting news, Jay White revealed the events of his now infamous Josh Barnett incident last summer was all a shoot, and he was terrified. Telling Chris Jericho on the Talk is Jericho podcast;
This was completely real. I wasn’t trying to hit JR. I hear the reaction to the move and about a second later, everyone was like, ‘What was that for?’ I look over and I see the fans looking down at something. And I was like, ‘I must’ve knocked JR out of his seat. I should make the most of this.’ So I stand up and gloat and yell and Josh Barnett stands up and I start talking shit to him. He starts coming around the fence and I’m like, ‘Oh shit, I’m gonna stay out of his reach.’ I get out of the ring and keep talking shit to him. As he starts walking off, I actually spat at him. I don’t think he saw it, which is probably a good thing in hindsight.
I get backstage and someone comes up to me, someone from AXS, and he goes, ‘What the hell was that?’ I go, ‘Who the fuck are you? I just had an awesome match, what are you talking about?’ He said they were pissed about JR. I said it was an accident and I was worried, hoping he wasn’t actually hurt. I didn’t want to screw up things for AXS and New Japan. They came back and let us have it. I apologized. We didn’t get told that we couldn’t throw each other into the fence. We thought it was attached.
In other NJPW news, Kota Ibushi has announced that he’s sticking with the promotion, despite his close, personal relationship with Kenny Omega. Some thought Omega and the AEW crew would get Kota to go to AEW, but that’s not the case anymore. Ibushi has reportedly signed with NJPW for two years.
Quick Hits – Former WWE star Eva Marie has told Scott Fishman of TV Insider that she has had talks with the promotion, but declined ot specify what they were about. With the reports of low ratings for the WWE-E! reality shows, it might be about returning for that. It was announced on MLW’s Fusion show that Pentagon and Fenix were sticking around with the promotion for the foreseeable future. Daniel Bryan was quoted on Total Bella’s that he has three years left on his contract, that are guaranteed.