Batista: I Walk Alone DVD
Released: October 20, 2009
The Matches

Disc two:

OVW Heavyweight Title: The Machine (w/Queen Victoria) vs. Leviathan (Batista)

Machine works over the shoulder, but throws dust in the face of the referee. Leviathan hits a choke-slam, but the ref, from the back, is late in getting there. Revolution runs down. Leviathan recuperates and goes for the Demon-bomb, but Victoria gets in the ring in and hits a low-blow. The ref was late in, so it is a two. Leviathan then hits the spear for the win in 7:53.

Thoughts: This was a decent showing from Batista. The match was a bit straight forward at times, but was okay for what it was. I love Cornette’s commentating; if ROH was smart they would put him on the announce team. He really has an ability of knowing how to make the wrestlers look good. **

Kane vs. Batista

This was the first PPV match Batista had Kane starts it up, and  clotheslines him over, In the ring, Batista spears Kane and then hits a powerslam for 2. Batista hits a botchbomb and nearly breaks Kane’s neck. Kane hits a flying clothesline. Then, Batista gives Kane a spine-buster, but it only gets two. Kane tosses Flair in, allowing Batista to sneak up, boot Kane in the gut, and hit the Batista bomb to win in 6:38.

Thoughts: This is as bad as you expect. The fans were really getting angry at Batista, because how green he was; Kane was no better, either, and looked very sloppy. In a nut-shell, this was a complete utter mess. If I saw this match live, I would have thought Batista would have became World Heavy Weight unemployed, rather than Champion. DUD

Batista (w/Ric Flair) vs. Shawn Michaels

Batista catches up with Shawn’s speed, while HBK tried to use it to his advantage. Batista then waits for get up and nails him with a clothesline. Shawn goes for his comeback; then hits a flying forearm and does his kick up thing, but Batista grabs him for the double choke-slam. Shawn fights out of the move and hits the top rope elbow. Shawn goes for Sweet Chin Music, but Batista catches him and delivers a spine-buster. Batista calls for the Batista Bomb, but Shawn slips out of it and hits SCM for the win at 12:21.

Thoughts: No HBK match is bad, but this is as bad as one could get. Batista looked misplaced for the whole match. His timing and pacing were awful. He just did moves for the sake of doing them, with no meaning behind him. Terrible match wrestled by Batista. *¾

World Tag Team Titles: Table Match: Batista & Ric Flair vs. The Dudley Boyz

The Dudleyz attack them.  Batista misses a punch and hurts his own shoulder. Bubba gets a table and slides it into Batista. The Dudleys set up the table and snatch Flair. They’re about to suplex him through it, but Batista throws the table. The table gets set up in the corner. Flair chops Bubba. Bubba comes back with the Elbow. Batista chokes D-Von with his foot. D-Von hits Flair with an airborne clothesline. Batista hits Bubba with a charge. Flair goes up, but Bubba slams him off. Coach comes in, and saves Flair from going through the table. Batista hits a Batistabomb through the table at 4:20.

Thoughts: Short, sloppy, and botched. The only structure in the match was because of Flair. Bad match. ½*

Disc Three:

Royal Rumble (01/30/05).

Batista is #28, and comes in and eliminates off the bat. Jericho jumps at Batista, but Batista catches him and tosses him over. Christian is #29 and he goes after Cena. Rey hits Kane with the 619. Cena tosses Kane over with the Fireman’s carry. Ric Flair is #30. Batista spinebusters Coach and Flair eliminates him. Flair throws Christian into a Batista spinebuster. Flair and Batista team up to throw that guy who won in 2004. Flair tries to be the dirtiest player in the game, but Batista catches him, but Flair denies it. Edge hits a spear on Dave. Edge goes for a spear on Rey, but Rey counters. Edge tosses Rey to the apron and Edge spears him to the floor. Cena tosses Edge out. Cena picks Batista up in the FU, but can’t get him over the top rope. Batista counters into the Batista bomb. Cena holds on. They fall over the top, landing at the same time. Each brand ref thinks their wrestler won. Vince McMahon restarts the match. Batista blocks the FU and then hits the spinebuster on Cena.Batista throws Cena over the top, and is heading to Wrestlemania.

Thoughts: Not the best Rumbles, but easily up there. I liked everything up to the end. I found it very rushed, and asinine. They should have just made it seem like it was an epic showdown of two evenly match contenders, rather than the ridiculous ending (which caused Vince to tear both his quads.). This was the start of the Batista era. ***½

World Heavyweight Title: Triple H (w/Ric Flair) vs. Batista (04/03/05).

A stiff tie-up; no one gets the advantage. They do it again, and Batista pushes him backwards. Triple H tries a shoulder-block but runs into Batista. HHH goes for it again, and Batista knocks him down. HHH goes for the Pedigree, but Batista shoves him and then press slams him. Batista gives him a backdrop. Triple H ducks a clothesline and delivers a knee that sends Dave to the floor. Hunter hits Batista with an elbow as Batista trying to get back in the ring. Later on, H goes for a Pedigree, but Batista backdrops HHH. Batista catches HHH with a sideslam for only a two. Batista catches up with HHH and slams his face into the ringsteps. In the ring, Batista starts pounding on HHH. Batista delivers clothesline. Flair distracts Batista while Hunter attempts to hit him with a chair, but the Ref blocks it. Flair runs into a spinebuster with the title in his hand. Hunter nails Batista with the title behind the ref for only a two. Hunter charges but its right into a spinebuster. Batista goes for the Dave Bomb, but Hunter counters and hits a low blow. HHH goes for the Pedigree, but Batista powers out and drops him with a Misawa’s finisher. Batista hits the Dave Bomb and gets the pinfall.

Thoughts: Very boring in the start, but picked up slowly throughout the match. They tried adding drama by using the bag-of-tricks booking, but it just felt substandard for a WM main event match. Batista was very charismatic in this match, which helped hide his flaws. Better days for Batista still to come. ** ½

World Title, Hell in the Cell: Batista vs. Triple H (w/Ric Flair — 06/26/05)

Batista was mega over at this point. In the ring, Batista clotheslines him and whips HHH to the cell wall. Hunter counters the whip and sends Batista into the ringsteps. Batista attempts to get back in the ring, but HHH knocks him down. HHH gets a chain and hits Batista in the mid-section. HHH chokes Batista. Batista snaps and counters it. Batista starts hitting HHH with the chain with great vengeance and furious anger. Batista goes for the Dave Bomb, but Hunter counters with a backdrop. Hunter nails Batista with his friend, but it only gets two. He attempts again, but this time Batista goes low on HHH. Batista picks up the sledgehammer and charges, but clever HHH finds the chain and drills Batista before Batista hits him. Batista throws Hunter over the top.  In the ring, Batista throws HHH into the ring steps he set up Batista goes for the Dave Bomb, but HHH goes low and then hits the Pedigree, but only gets a two. HHH goes for another one, but this time on the steps. Batista counters the move, and hits a spinebuster. Batista goes for a Dave bomb, but HHH grabs the Sledgehammer on the way up. HHH goes to hit him, but runs out of time as Batista hits the Batista bomb and gets the three.

Thoughts: Started off very similar to their WM match because of it being methodically paced, but rapidly enhanced as the match went on. The finish gave HHH an “out” but also made it seem like he deserved a rematch clause. In my opinion, Hell in the Cell is supposed to end the feud by giving one of the wrestlers a clean victory to conclude the feud. Despite its flaws, it still was a very good match with good amounts of realism and hostility. Nice work.  ***½

World Heavyweight Title: No Holds Barred: Batista vs. John Bradshaw Layfield (08/21/05)

JBL meets Batista and they start brawling. JBL grabs the chair, but Batista spears him through the crowd blockade. JBL recovers and comes back with a clothesline and starts pounding him with the belt. Batista takes the belt away from him and drills JBL with it. JBL blocks a charge and hits the lariat for a two count. JBL brings the ringsteps into the match and goes for a powerbomb on them, but Batista backdrops him and gives him the Batista Bomb. He picks JBL up and gives him a powerbomb on the steps for the pinfall.

Thoughts: Much better than there Great American Bash match. WWE obviously knew that they needed to keep this one short and sweet in order for it to be watch-able. While it only lasted 9 minutes and was short they did tell a good enough story of Batista getting his revenge on JBL. Not as bad as you would think. **

World Heavyweight Title: Batista vs. Eddie Guerrero (No Mercy – 10/09/05).

Eddie takes Batista down, but Batista pops up and powers him. Eddie throws the chair down, but Batista grabs him and yells at him. Eddie whiplashes Dave’s throat on the top rope and hits the frogsplash for only a two. Later on, Eddie rolls through the Dave Bomb, but Batista blocks his sunset flip and pulls him up by the neck. Batista hits his vintage spinebuster, but only gets two. Batista tries an elbowdrop, but the ultimate opportunist gets his knees up. Eddie goes for the traditional frogsplash, but Batista gets out of the way. Eddie runs into the spinebuster, which gets the pin.

Thoughts: The more experience Eddie Gurrero helped carry Batista throughout the match Even though this wasn’t the high-flying/athletic side of Eddie, he told a believable story that served the purpose of the story behind this match.

The problems with the match were that; it was way too slow at times and never really picked up at any stages of the match; Batista was becoming very stale and all his matches virtually felt the same; and the finish was very anticlimactic because of Batista not having to use a finishing move to defeat Eddie and beating him with his “set up” move. Sadly, this was Eddie’s last “big” match. **½

World Heavyweight Title: King Booker (w/Queen Sharmell) vs. Batista (11/26/06)

Batista attacks Booker T before he takes his robe off (real babyface). Batista goes for the Dave bomb early, but Booker rolls to the floor.. Batista counters a neck-snap on the ropes and delivers one of his one. Booker then works on Dave’s ribs. Batista comes back with a Jackhammer; then a Bossman slam for a two count. They brawl some more. Batista boots Booker to the floor and nails a flying shoulderblock (that Cole never saw before) for two. Booker hits him with a Bookend, but it only gets a two count. Batista counters the Scissors Kick and hits the Dave Bomb, but Booker T gets his right hand on the bottom rope. Sharmell slides the title belt to Booker and gets on the apron. Booker T goes to hit Dave with the belt, but misses. Dave kicks Booker in the gut and steals the title from Booker. Wham! Batista hits Booker T with the title and gets enough for the pin.

Thoughts: Meh. These two wrestling styles never clicked together. This had some poor timing and a couple slightly blown spots. Everything just felt like it was delayed. The finish came weird to me, also. A babyface such as Batista (a big man face) shouldn’t have to cheat against someone as Booker T. Maybe it happened that way because Batista was scared to get messed up by Booker T, again. Bad match. *

World Heavyweight Title: Batista vs. King Booker (w/Queen Sharmell) vs. Fit Finlay (12/01/06).

Big Dave beats on both the heels. Back from commercial, Booker is firmly in control of Batista. Finlay pulls Batista to the apron and boots him right in the head. Finlay slowly takes apart Dave. Batista sets him on top and delivers a muscle buster. Batista and Booker slug it out as Hornswoggle runs through the ring to distract the ref. Finlay uses the disruption to slip in and destroy Batista’s knee with the shillelagh for only two. Booker charges right into the spinebuster. Batista goes for a Dave Bomb on Finlay, but he counters by drilling the bad knee. Dave no sells the knee, and then hits the Big David Bomb on Finlay for the three.

Thoughts: Finlay added some well missing structure in the previous Booker-Batista matches. The match itself was a typical WWE style heels vs. face match. Heel dominates most of the match and attempts to get some heat; then the face does there comeback and overcomes the odds (usually by no selling the offense from the heel, which would make most of the match filler). Thanks for Finlay, though, this was a decent TV match. **1/2

World Heavyweight Title: Batista vs. The Undertaker (04/01/07).

This match had bad news written all over it. Batista was dogging most of his matches up to this point, and people didn’t think Undertaker would have been able to carry Dave to a decent WM match. Batista goes for a Dave Bomb, but Taker smashes him into the turnbuckle. Batista hits a belly-to-belly suplex on Taker. Batista is smashing Taker’s head in with the punches on top of the turnbuckle, but Taker counters to the Last Ride for a two. Taker goes for another Last Ride, but Batista counters and hits a spear. Batista goes for the Dave bomb and hits hit, but only get another two count. Dave is pissed. Batista goes for another Lametista bomb, but Taker shoves him into the turnbuckle, and then hits the tombstone piledriver for the win.

Thoughts: Just a tad overrated, but still very good. It was really surprising where this match got put on the card, because of all the build it had. Plenty of sources and dirtsheets were hearing rumors of Batista breaking the streak, and sadly I believe that the card placement ruined the unpredictability. Batista seemed very motivated for once in his career and it finally seemed like he cared about something other than a paycheck. What people predicted to be one of the worst WM main events all time, turned into a very good midcard match. ***½

World Heavyweight Title, Steel Cage: Edge vs. Batista (06/03/07).

Edge tries to dash out early. Batista drags him back in. Edge hits the edge-o-matic. Batista delivers a superplex, but instead of trying to escape, he goes up and dives off the top rope. Batista gets fired after Edge beat on him. Batista goes for the Dave bomb, but Edge grabs the cage and tries to escape. Edge hits a low blow. Batista goes the other way and tries to escape, but Edge drops to the floor and wins.

Thoughts: The psychology was present in the match. Batista played the all mighty face who does everything by the book, while Edge was the complete opposite. I do like proper characterization in my matches, but there characters, in the match, really restricted them from doing what they are capable of. **¼

World Heavyweight Title, Undertaker vs. Batista (10/03/2007)

There was a ref scandal before the match. The ref nominations for the match were: Jbl, Foley, and AUSTIN. While JBL was the only person who was on the show before this, everyone still voted for Austin.  What they should have done was to make JBL pull a George Bush and some how “change” the voting. Instead, they just had Austin be the ref and let him beat up Foley and JBL. Batista hits him with punches on the top, but Undertaker counters into the last ride for only 2 .Batista gets up and hits the spinebuster. Batista is puzzled and sells it well. Batisa hits the Batista bomb, but only gets another two. Batista is now furious. Undertaker staggers himself back up. Batista hits another Batista bomb and gets the three count.

Thoughts: They went all out in this match. Very good wrestling match, with both workers not holding back. I do believe JBL would have made a better ref than Austin, because JBL would have added in some heat and drama into it. Batista, as a shocker, gets the clean win over the Deadman. Great match from the big guys. ***¾

Triple H, Batista & Ric Flair vs. Randy Orton, Edge & Umaga (12/10/07).

This was the 15 anniversary show of Raw. On the show, Evolution was supposed to have a reunion. Everyone joined the reunion except Randy Orton (since he was the only heel). Orton then names another stable he was apart of and that is Rated-RKO. Edge comes out, and so does Umaga for no reason, and then they have a match. They do some basic tag stuff. Batista gets a hot tag from Flair, but Umaga  hits the ref and causes the DQ. Rated-RKO runs away. Evolution beats up Umaga just for the sake.

Thoughts: Nothing to rate. Everything in this segment/match was pointless. I don’t even know why this is on the DVD. Batista wasn’t even the main center of attention in any of this. N/R

John Cena vs. Batista (08/17/08).

They are dead even in the feeling out process. Crowd is either booing Cena or Batista(because there “cool).Batista gets a figure-four leglock and the woo chants occur. Cena goes for a FU but Batista elbows out and then Cena in the STFU. Batista makes it to the ropes. Cena goes for the FU, but Batista gets out and applies a weird looking choke. He lets go and then hits the spear but only gets two Cena counters a powerslam and hits the FU and sells the injuries by making a delayed cover. They dish out some blows. Cena wins and comes off for a top rope leg drop, but Batista catches him in the air and hits the Dave Bomb, but only get a two! Batista can’t believe it. Batista hits another Batista bomb and ends the match.

Thoughts: They added in the epic feeling they were looking for by using good power moves, counters, and near-falls. I would give this a great rating, if it wasn’t for the center of the match. The center had bunch of filler. It felt like they ran out of ideas and moves to do. Still a good match. *** ¼

Batista vs. Randy Orton (w/Manu & Cody Rhodes — 12/14/08).
Orton controls most of the match with his sluggish offense. Batista and gives him a DDT. Batista counters the RKO to an unprettier for two. Batista nails him in the corner for punches, and when Randy tries to counter, he accidentally finds himself getting Powerbombed.

Thoughts: Orton’s heat on Batista was so slow and went no where fast. The only thing that could have saved it was, either, good selling or a good comeback, but neither took place because Batista did his average comeback to win the match. Nothing was really that bad from a wrestling standpoint. No botches or anything, but how hard is it to botch when the match is slower than Nick Dinsmore’s character? *3/4

Going Home: This DVD takes through Dave’s life as a punk kid growing up-raised by a single mother, then becoming a bodybuilder and “saving his life” Then, getting into the wresting business from his debuting name: Leviathan; then all the way to becoming one of the most talked about wrestlers today.

This DVD isn’t just about Batista. The DVD also has a good moral behind it, and that is never to give up at what you believe in.  DON’T STOP BELIEVING!

The only match I could say that belongs on there was his Last Man Standing match with Undertaker, but every other important or good match of Batista’s is on there. I actually enjoyed most of the matches on here. Batista is one of those wrestlers who can be on his game sometimes, and completely stink  up the place another night.  On this DVD, you will mostly see Batista on his game; therefor, I recommend this DVD.

Thumbs up for “I walk alone”