WrestleMania 35 Preview: Batista vs Triple H

For a couple of years now, there have been echoing whispers of one more Batista match.  There were, however, times when a match between the two superstars looked unlikely. The match was made official on the March 11th edition of Monday Night RAW – when Triple H accepted Batista’s demand of a No Holds Barred match between the two WWE veterans.  This will mark the first time the two have worked a match against each other since Vengeance 2005 (house shows not included) and will serve as one final opportunity for Triple H to do something he has remarkably never managed to do in his luxurious career: beat Batista one-on-one.

WrestleMania 35 Preview

There were rumours for years that Batista wanted to promote Guardians of the Galaxy, during his previous 2014 return, but was laughed at by Triple H and Vince McMahon – who both believed the Marvel film was destined to be a bust (boy, were they wrong).  From that point on – from Batista’s premature exit from the company in mid-2014 to his recent 2019 return – there seemed to be a bit of bad blood between the two sides.

Batista would later go on to claim that he had not been invited to Smackdown 1000 – after months of pitching a retirement match against Triple H – a claim which gained media attention and an eventual place on the card for the man nicknamed The Animal.  It is worth considering that a lot of this bad blood could be storyline; Batista is a smart businessman – someone who knows how to create a story to promote a match.  Kayfabe or not, it has helped create one final match for Batista as he takes on Triple H one last time.

The last time these two fought, it was 2005.  Facebook was in its infancy; YouTube was just six months old and CM Punk had not yet signed with the company.  The three headliners of this year’s WrestleMania were teenagers.  2005 was the beginning of the, at the time, a new era – which later became the “John Cena era”.  However, at this time, John Cena was just one half of the duo who would dominate Monday Night RAW and Smackdown – the other half was Batista, who would, after the recent departure of Brock Lesnar, become the backbone of Smackdown; following the draft that saw Cena move to RAW and begin his decade of dominance.  Following the Vengeance 2005 Hell in a Cell Match between The Animal and The Game (their last non-house show match), Triple H began to transition into tag team matches – reforming DX with Shawn Michaels, after a series of matches with John Cena culminated in Triple H’s defeat at WrestleMania 22.

Since 2010, both stars have wrestled just a handful of matches.  Batista retired from the ring in 2010 – following an I Quit Match loss against (who else but) John Cena.  It was around this time Triple H transitioned into his current executive role; reserving an annual WrestleMania feud for himself, as well as the occasional pay-per-view feud.  Triple H has, therefore, remained the more active of the two and – outside of his short 2014 run – Batista has not wrestled since 2010; having mainly focused on a successful acting career and a solo fight, solo win venture into MMA in 2012.

The match will take place live this Sunday on April 8th, 2019 at WrestleMania 35 in MetLife Stadium, New Jersey.  Whereas this match does not have the World Heavyweight Championship on the line, you can be sure to expect a good, old-fashioned brawl.