All across the nation, thunderous pops can be heard for one of the WWE’s biggest and most important main eventers: the man known as The Animal, Batista. He’s one of the more popular World Champions in recent WWE history, and even main evented Wrestlemanias 21 and 23. To many fans of World Wrestling Entertainment he is seen as a hero: a man among all men. He is seen to many as a person you really want to cheer for night in and night out. He’s a person that most people want to spend their hard earned money and their valuable leisure time to see do his job every week on Smackdown. This is no different than any of the other big stars that the WWE has. People all across the nation cheer wildly for Triple H, Rey Mysterio, and Shawn Michaels to name a few, who all receive incredible crowd reactions. But for most of the wrestlers who receive incredible crowd reactions, they can always be explained by the fact that they are intense, charismatic, have a good look, are great wrestlers in the ring, or by some other noticable factor.
But when you look at Batista, other than having a very well built body, something that a lot of wrestlers have, there’s nothing that really sets him apart from everybody else. He is not oozing charisma, he’s not a great talker, he’s not a great wrestler (even though he is one of WWE’s better power wrestlers…which doesn’t really say much), and doesn’t have on overwhelming amount of intensity (at least not in my opinion) so why is it that Batista has become such a popular WWE performer? Why is it that this man is about as good a talker as Sylvan Greiner, yet Sylvan is barely make it above the under card of Smackdown? Why is it that Batista has the some body as Psycho Sid, yet when Sid main evented Wrestlemania 13 it was the worst buy rate for a Wrestlemania ever? How comes Batista wrestles about the same as Hercules Hernandez in terms of match quality, yet Batista is a main eventer and Hernandez never was?
Perhaps it has something to do with a little idea I would like to call the “Goldberg†factor. The Goldberg factor has something to do with how well a wrestler is booked to win matches. As we all know, Batista has been booked to win many, many matches since his big main event push back in early 2005. In fact, his last televised one on one loss before his lame DQ and count out losses to Ken Kennedy in '06 came against Chris Jericho back in late 2004, and even then he only lost by disqualification. He did lose to Booker T a few times, and did lose decisively to Undertaker, as well as failing to regain the title from champions like Khali and Edge. Is the fact that Batista has kept up an incredible one on one win/loss record since he received such a big main event push in the WWE really the reason that he has become such a huge star? Let’s take a closer look at the matter.
To fully explain this theory, let me first use an analogy to get my point across. A lot of you are familiar with how many people will tend to jump on the band wagon of certain sports teams once they win a few championships for their particular sport. Take the Los Angeles Lakers from not too many years ago. Not all that long ago, the Lakers were by far the most dominating team in the NBA. They won 3 Championships in a row, something that very few teams have ever done in the history of the National Basketball Association. They steam rolled over team after team, and compiled an amazing win/loss record.
And what happened to them during this time period? They became one of the most popular basketball teams across the country. Some may argue that it was due to having some charismatic players on their team (Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal), but when you look closely at the matter, you will see that handfuls of charismatic players are distributed all across the NBA, but only the Lakers were the real national band wagon team during this time period. This is clearly due to the fact that they won Championship after Championship. People just don’t like being fans of losing teams. Like it or not, there is a part of most fans of any sport, even sports entertainment, that likes to be a fair weather fan. It’s easy to celebrate with a team when they win, but it’s a lot harder to suffer with a team when they lose.
This may exactly be why Batista has become such a huge star in World Wrestling Entertainment. Getting back to why I called this the “Goldberg†factor, let me explain how Goldberg became overly popular in WCW. As you all know, Goldberg was one of the most charismatic figures in the history of WCW. However, why is it that he did not become a huge star right away? Because it was a while before he became a main event player and started getting main event wins over top wrestlers in the company. He was slowly built as an unstoppable machine who always won, eventually even against the big boys. As said before, it’s easier to celebrate good times with a player/team than it is to suffer through the bad times with a team. For Goldberg, there were hardly any bad times. Fans didn’t have to suffer through all the hardships that say a fan of Matt Hardy would have to go through.
There are many ways to get over in professional wrestling, and being booked to win match after match like an unstoppable machine is one way that usually works. It doesn’t always work, like with Randy Orton’s superman face push that he got in late 2004/early 2005. But most times, as long as the wrestler has some pretty decent qualities about them, they will most times be well received by the fans as a face or as a heel, whichever they are being pushed as. This is what has happened with Batista. He has developed an amazing win/loss record throughout all of 2005, and has steam rolled through nearly everyone that he has faced. WWE fans jumped on his bandwagon. There were hardly any bad times for them to suffer through, and all they had to do to be Batista fans was celebrate the happy moments.
Maybe this is the reason why Batista has become such a popular wrestler in World Wrestling Entertainment. Maybe it is all due to how Batista has been booked to win match after match in WWE. He’s been built as unstoppable, and many WWE fans are just front runners. WWE fans don’t have the option of being hometown fans, so they simply choose to root for the wrestlers who appeal to them the most. And often times, a lop sided winning record is enough to get them to cheer for you. Or maybe this isn’t the reason at all that people choose cheer for Batista. Perhaps it is due to something else altogether. Perhaps it is due to the fact that Batista was booked to be the face in one of the top 2 WWE storylines of 2005, and people simply became Batista fans from then on. Is this really the reason why Batista gets cheered so much?
To fully explain this theory, let me first use another analogy from the sports world. Back in 2003, a baseball rivalry was renewed in the Boston Red Sox vs. the New York Yankees. If you are not familiar with this rivalry, let me explain it to you. It all started with Babe Ruth being traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees in the early part of the 20h century. After that, the Yankees went on to win many (and I mean MANY) World Series Titles. However, The Red Sox did not win a single World Series Title since before their franchise traded Babe Ruth for the rest of the century. Then in 2003, the rivalry was reopened as both teams made it to the American League pennant series, and had an intense 7 game series, that ultimately lead to the Red Sox losing in the end.
Many Americans felt sympathy for the Red Sox, and became Red Sox fans. The next year, both teams made it back to the American League pennant series (by the way, that’s not the official name of the series, I’m just using terms that won’t be foreign to non-baseball fans), and the rivalry continued. People felt that the Red Sox deserved to win after being “cursed†for so many years. Hell, I wasn’t even a baseball fan, but even I was sympathizing with the Boston Red Sox during this time period. They went on to defeat the Yankees and eventually win the World Series, and many people who became Red Sox fans during this time period remain fans of this team to this day, even after they were no longer under dogs. It should also be noted that there were many people who hated the Yankees due to them being so dominant, which made people root for the Red Sox even more.
This could be exactly what has happened with Batista. In this analogy, The Yankees are symbolic of Triple H, and The Red Sox are symbolic of Batista. Batista was being held back by Triple H, sort of like how The Yankees were always standing in the way of the Red Sox. People sympathized with how Batista wasn’t getting his time to shine because of Triple H. Also, Triple H was a very dominant heel at the time, sort of like the Yankees, and people sympathized with Batista that much more because of it. Not only did they want to see Batista get the spotlight shined down on him, but they also wanted to see Triple H get his ass kicked, seeing how he was playing such an effective heel. I think this is pretty self explanatory here,
However, I would like to take the time to point out something that may seem very contradictory towards you regarding this argument and the one before it. In the first argument, I stated that when a wrestler/player/team wins constantly, they will become very popular. This is contradicted by what I said in my second argument, as I stated that many people hated the Yankees for being so dominant. As it turns out, both statements made in those two different arguments are true. Whenever a team wins a lot, especially when they win championships, many people will start to have very strong feelings towards the team, whether it be positive or negative. The wrestling world is a little different, as most people will either feel only one way about a wrestler who tends to win a lot, but there will always be SOME people who feel the opposite way. I had a strong dislike for Stone Cold back in 1998 simply because he was winning all the time, while everyone else seemed to love him. As far as Batista goes, most people simply have chosen to feel positively about him for whatever reason.
Perhaps this is the reason why Batista is such a mega star in World Wrestling Entertainment. Maybe it is because the WWE fans had felt sympathy for Batista back during his storyline where he was being held down by Triple H, and they simply stayed fans of his ever since. Maybe it really is all due to one storyline that is very similar to the Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry. Or perhaps this is not the reason why Batista is so popular in WWE. Maybe it is due to the brand split that WWE has adopted ever since 2002, and because of the brandsplit, the spotlight has been shined down on undeserving wrestlers? Let’s take a closer look at the matter.
Back before the roster split, only a few wrestlers in WWE got a lot of big time recognition. There were only a small handful of wrestlers who could be considered main eventers. The higher your place is on the card, the more likely it is that people will take notice of you and care more about you. Take a look at Mark Henry for instance. Here is a guy that is not exactly oozing charisma, can’t talk on the microphone all that well, and has about as much wrestling talent as a wooden broom. However, he is being pushed harder than he ever has in his career, and is now getting the best crowd reactions of his career (save for his time as “Sexual Chocolateâ€). Coincidence? I think not.
But now that there is a brand extension, there are twice as many wrestlers being pushed in the main event scene. Obviously, since there’s now two shows, there are two different main event scenes, and therefore WWE needs two different sets of main eventers. This means that people would normally be in the upper mid card if there was only one whole roster are now getting main event pushes. Take the aforementioned Mark Henry for instance. At the very best, he would be an upper mid carder if the rosters were united. However, due to the roster split, more people get a chance to shine, and there fore Mark Henry gets his time in the spotlight, despite the fact that he doesn’t deserve it.
This just might be what has happened with Batista. Batista is all around a decent, respectable performer, but is not exactly the stuff that World Champions are made out of. However, due to the roster split, Batista has gotten his chance to shine. Let’s face it, Batista WAS the number one face in the WWE during his main event feud with Triple H in 2005, but that was only because of the storyline he was in. When he dropped out of that storyline, John Cena was the number one face in the WWE. And by number one face, I mean he was getting the biggest reactions of any face at the time, whether they were positive or negative. Batista would have been an upper mid carder if there was only one whole roster, because John Cena was the number one wrestler in the company at the time. When you throw in the fact that being higher on the card will usually make fans care about you more, this could be a very logical reason why Batista became so popular.
There’s no denying the high level of popularity that Batista has. But when you look at all of Batista’s assets, he is an overall average performer at best, besides having a good look with his well built body. So why exactly does this one man get cheered so much? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he has won match after match, and people have simply jumped on his bandwagon. Or maybe the reason Batista is so popular is because of how most WWE fans sympathized with him over his feud with Triple H, and just stayed Batista fans ever since. Or perhaps the reason why Batista gets cheered so much is due to the roste split allowing for undeserving wrestlers to get pushed farther than they normally would, and the higher up you are on the card usually means the more people will care about you as a wrestler. Whatever the reason may be, there’s no denying that Batista is over like rover, despite his average credentials.
But when you look at Batista, other than having a very well built body, something that a lot of wrestlers have, there’s nothing that really sets him apart from everybody else. He is not oozing charisma, he’s not a great talker, he’s not a great wrestler (even though he is one of WWE’s better power wrestlers…which doesn’t really say much), and doesn’t have on overwhelming amount of intensity (at least not in my opinion) so why is it that Batista has become such a popular WWE performer? Why is it that this man is about as good a talker as Sylvan Greiner, yet Sylvan is barely make it above the under card of Smackdown? Why is it that Batista has the some body as Psycho Sid, yet when Sid main evented Wrestlemania 13 it was the worst buy rate for a Wrestlemania ever? How comes Batista wrestles about the same as Hercules Hernandez in terms of match quality, yet Batista is a main eventer and Hernandez never was?
Perhaps it has something to do with a little idea I would like to call the “Goldberg†factor. The Goldberg factor has something to do with how well a wrestler is booked to win matches. As we all know, Batista has been booked to win many, many matches since his big main event push back in early 2005. In fact, his last televised one on one loss before his lame DQ and count out losses to Ken Kennedy in '06 came against Chris Jericho back in late 2004, and even then he only lost by disqualification. He did lose to Booker T a few times, and did lose decisively to Undertaker, as well as failing to regain the title from champions like Khali and Edge. Is the fact that Batista has kept up an incredible one on one win/loss record since he received such a big main event push in the WWE really the reason that he has become such a huge star? Let’s take a closer look at the matter.
To fully explain this theory, let me first use an analogy to get my point across. A lot of you are familiar with how many people will tend to jump on the band wagon of certain sports teams once they win a few championships for their particular sport. Take the Los Angeles Lakers from not too many years ago. Not all that long ago, the Lakers were by far the most dominating team in the NBA. They won 3 Championships in a row, something that very few teams have ever done in the history of the National Basketball Association. They steam rolled over team after team, and compiled an amazing win/loss record.
And what happened to them during this time period? They became one of the most popular basketball teams across the country. Some may argue that it was due to having some charismatic players on their team (Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal), but when you look closely at the matter, you will see that handfuls of charismatic players are distributed all across the NBA, but only the Lakers were the real national band wagon team during this time period. This is clearly due to the fact that they won Championship after Championship. People just don’t like being fans of losing teams. Like it or not, there is a part of most fans of any sport, even sports entertainment, that likes to be a fair weather fan. It’s easy to celebrate with a team when they win, but it’s a lot harder to suffer with a team when they lose.
This may exactly be why Batista has become such a huge star in World Wrestling Entertainment. Getting back to why I called this the “Goldberg†factor, let me explain how Goldberg became overly popular in WCW. As you all know, Goldberg was one of the most charismatic figures in the history of WCW. However, why is it that he did not become a huge star right away? Because it was a while before he became a main event player and started getting main event wins over top wrestlers in the company. He was slowly built as an unstoppable machine who always won, eventually even against the big boys. As said before, it’s easier to celebrate good times with a player/team than it is to suffer through the bad times with a team. For Goldberg, there were hardly any bad times. Fans didn’t have to suffer through all the hardships that say a fan of Matt Hardy would have to go through.
There are many ways to get over in professional wrestling, and being booked to win match after match like an unstoppable machine is one way that usually works. It doesn’t always work, like with Randy Orton’s superman face push that he got in late 2004/early 2005. But most times, as long as the wrestler has some pretty decent qualities about them, they will most times be well received by the fans as a face or as a heel, whichever they are being pushed as. This is what has happened with Batista. He has developed an amazing win/loss record throughout all of 2005, and has steam rolled through nearly everyone that he has faced. WWE fans jumped on his bandwagon. There were hardly any bad times for them to suffer through, and all they had to do to be Batista fans was celebrate the happy moments.
Maybe this is the reason why Batista has become such a popular wrestler in World Wrestling Entertainment. Maybe it is all due to how Batista has been booked to win match after match in WWE. He’s been built as unstoppable, and many WWE fans are just front runners. WWE fans don’t have the option of being hometown fans, so they simply choose to root for the wrestlers who appeal to them the most. And often times, a lop sided winning record is enough to get them to cheer for you. Or maybe this isn’t the reason at all that people choose cheer for Batista. Perhaps it is due to something else altogether. Perhaps it is due to the fact that Batista was booked to be the face in one of the top 2 WWE storylines of 2005, and people simply became Batista fans from then on. Is this really the reason why Batista gets cheered so much?
To fully explain this theory, let me first use another analogy from the sports world. Back in 2003, a baseball rivalry was renewed in the Boston Red Sox vs. the New York Yankees. If you are not familiar with this rivalry, let me explain it to you. It all started with Babe Ruth being traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees in the early part of the 20h century. After that, the Yankees went on to win many (and I mean MANY) World Series Titles. However, The Red Sox did not win a single World Series Title since before their franchise traded Babe Ruth for the rest of the century. Then in 2003, the rivalry was reopened as both teams made it to the American League pennant series, and had an intense 7 game series, that ultimately lead to the Red Sox losing in the end.
Many Americans felt sympathy for the Red Sox, and became Red Sox fans. The next year, both teams made it back to the American League pennant series (by the way, that’s not the official name of the series, I’m just using terms that won’t be foreign to non-baseball fans), and the rivalry continued. People felt that the Red Sox deserved to win after being “cursed†for so many years. Hell, I wasn’t even a baseball fan, but even I was sympathizing with the Boston Red Sox during this time period. They went on to defeat the Yankees and eventually win the World Series, and many people who became Red Sox fans during this time period remain fans of this team to this day, even after they were no longer under dogs. It should also be noted that there were many people who hated the Yankees due to them being so dominant, which made people root for the Red Sox even more.
This could be exactly what has happened with Batista. In this analogy, The Yankees are symbolic of Triple H, and The Red Sox are symbolic of Batista. Batista was being held back by Triple H, sort of like how The Yankees were always standing in the way of the Red Sox. People sympathized with how Batista wasn’t getting his time to shine because of Triple H. Also, Triple H was a very dominant heel at the time, sort of like the Yankees, and people sympathized with Batista that much more because of it. Not only did they want to see Batista get the spotlight shined down on him, but they also wanted to see Triple H get his ass kicked, seeing how he was playing such an effective heel. I think this is pretty self explanatory here,
However, I would like to take the time to point out something that may seem very contradictory towards you regarding this argument and the one before it. In the first argument, I stated that when a wrestler/player/team wins constantly, they will become very popular. This is contradicted by what I said in my second argument, as I stated that many people hated the Yankees for being so dominant. As it turns out, both statements made in those two different arguments are true. Whenever a team wins a lot, especially when they win championships, many people will start to have very strong feelings towards the team, whether it be positive or negative. The wrestling world is a little different, as most people will either feel only one way about a wrestler who tends to win a lot, but there will always be SOME people who feel the opposite way. I had a strong dislike for Stone Cold back in 1998 simply because he was winning all the time, while everyone else seemed to love him. As far as Batista goes, most people simply have chosen to feel positively about him for whatever reason.
Perhaps this is the reason why Batista is such a mega star in World Wrestling Entertainment. Maybe it is because the WWE fans had felt sympathy for Batista back during his storyline where he was being held down by Triple H, and they simply stayed fans of his ever since. Maybe it really is all due to one storyline that is very similar to the Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry. Or perhaps this is not the reason why Batista is so popular in WWE. Maybe it is due to the brand split that WWE has adopted ever since 2002, and because of the brandsplit, the spotlight has been shined down on undeserving wrestlers? Let’s take a closer look at the matter.
Back before the roster split, only a few wrestlers in WWE got a lot of big time recognition. There were only a small handful of wrestlers who could be considered main eventers. The higher your place is on the card, the more likely it is that people will take notice of you and care more about you. Take a look at Mark Henry for instance. Here is a guy that is not exactly oozing charisma, can’t talk on the microphone all that well, and has about as much wrestling talent as a wooden broom. However, he is being pushed harder than he ever has in his career, and is now getting the best crowd reactions of his career (save for his time as “Sexual Chocolateâ€). Coincidence? I think not.
But now that there is a brand extension, there are twice as many wrestlers being pushed in the main event scene. Obviously, since there’s now two shows, there are two different main event scenes, and therefore WWE needs two different sets of main eventers. This means that people would normally be in the upper mid card if there was only one whole roster are now getting main event pushes. Take the aforementioned Mark Henry for instance. At the very best, he would be an upper mid carder if the rosters were united. However, due to the roster split, more people get a chance to shine, and there fore Mark Henry gets his time in the spotlight, despite the fact that he doesn’t deserve it.
This just might be what has happened with Batista. Batista is all around a decent, respectable performer, but is not exactly the stuff that World Champions are made out of. However, due to the roster split, Batista has gotten his chance to shine. Let’s face it, Batista WAS the number one face in the WWE during his main event feud with Triple H in 2005, but that was only because of the storyline he was in. When he dropped out of that storyline, John Cena was the number one face in the WWE. And by number one face, I mean he was getting the biggest reactions of any face at the time, whether they were positive or negative. Batista would have been an upper mid carder if there was only one whole roster, because John Cena was the number one wrestler in the company at the time. When you throw in the fact that being higher on the card will usually make fans care about you more, this could be a very logical reason why Batista became so popular.
There’s no denying the high level of popularity that Batista has. But when you look at all of Batista’s assets, he is an overall average performer at best, besides having a good look with his well built body. So why exactly does this one man get cheered so much? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he has won match after match, and people have simply jumped on his bandwagon. Or maybe the reason Batista is so popular is because of how most WWE fans sympathized with him over his feud with Triple H, and just stayed Batista fans ever since. Or perhaps the reason why Batista gets cheered so much is due to the roste split allowing for undeserving wrestlers to get pushed farther than they normally would, and the higher up you are on the card usually means the more people will care about you as a wrestler. Whatever the reason may be, there’s no denying that Batista is over like rover, despite his average credentials.
