Black Widow
02-09-2008, 11:40 AM
A gleaming white Mercedes-Benz SL500, with matching 20-inch rims, luxuriates in Dave Batista s driveway.
It has hardly ever been driven because the star wrestler can barely fit his 6' 5" 290-pound body into the cockpit. Why, one might wonder, does Batista own such an extravagant vehicle when he can t shoehorn his massive frame into it?
I originally bought that for my wife. When we split up, she got it in the settlement. I found out she was planning to sell it, so I said, I ll buy it back from you. I had a lot of work done to it, and I didn t want someone else to have it. I essentially bought that car twice.
For this interview, Batista is sitting in the spacious living room of his Tampa, Fla., home. He smiles easily and speaks in a husky near whisper, a far cry from the bluster of his wrestler persona.
I learned that on TV and in the ring, you re basically yourself, but you just turn up the volume.
Batista is on the road wrestling so much that none of his four cars have stressed odometers. His main driving machine is a tricked-out Hummer H2. It s sleeker than most H2s, thanks to a lowering kit. A new grille nicely accents the white exterior (matched by a white leather interior). Enormous 26-inch-diameter wheels add just the right amount of bling.
And then there s the sound system, with four 1,000-watt amplifiers and eight subwoofers built into a custom box in the back. Batista cranks up the bass for Celebrity Car Magazine, and the music booms and thuds. More volume and the vibrations are so intense that you begin to worry that your head might pop off. Batista turns the volume down and grins.
It s way more than you can ever use. It ll take the breath right out of you.
No kidding.
Batista says he has only been living particularly large for a couple of years. He worked his way up through the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a sidekick and a bit player.
However, his contract grew bigger, his percentage of the gate grew large and his merchandising take also grew.
Our company is based on a totem pole. And then it s a matter of how hard you want to work.
In 2005, Batista snatched the WWE Heavyweight Championship during WrestleMania 21, then lost it in April 2007 at Wrestlemania 23. WrestleMania is a yearly event that takes place in early spring. The first such event took place in 1985.
Batista grew up poor in Washington, D.C., shuttled between his mother and father. He played football for a brief stint.
I wasn t very good at all, and he had an undistinguished scholastic wrestling career. When he was a high-school senior in Arlington, Va., his father finally bought him an early 1970s Volkswagen Beetle.
It was yellow, and my dad took it to Earl Scheib (body shop chain) and had it painted this awful blue. But you d open the door and it was still yellow inside. Those VWs, they had a certain sound and smell to em. We could fit some big guys in there, though. We d show up at wrestling meets smelling like gasoline.
Batista began body building after high school. He knocked around the pro bodybuilding world for a few years, competing in a few meets, but was put off by the culture.
I don t want to stereotype, he says, and then pauses. OK, I do. The egos in that sport were out of control.
Batista attended a cattle-call tryout for the World Championship Wrestling, and the man running it told him he would never make it as a pro. At 350 pounds and cut like a diamond from bodybuilding, Batista paid the man no mind.
In 1997, Batista joined a private wrestling school in Allentown, Pa. After he signed a small contract with the WWE, he bought a used Nissan Maxima and then something a little more size appropriate: a Toyota Sequoia sport ute.
Batista bought his first upscale car a few years ago, and still owns it: a black 2003 BMW 745Li.
I got it cause it was so roomy, he says, even though it s not that huge on the outside. I m attached to it now. I haven t had anything major done to it. It has really nice rims, Asanti [22-inch] with black centers . . . I shaved off the BMW emblems and . . . people ask me all the time what kind of car it is.
Batista s other ride, not part of this photo shoot, was a silver 2006 Range Rover Sport, the supercharged model.
The color is kind of bland, but it was supercharged and those are hard to get your hands on, so I scooped it up. I actually got it for my mom. She wouldn t drive the BMW cause she didn t like the gear shifter. She was driving around in my Hummer, and that just didn t look right.
n Celebrity Car is produced by Wheelbase Communications in conjunction with quarterly publication Celebrity Car Magazine (celebritycarmagazine.com) and the duPont Registry (dupontregistry.com).
mercurynews.com
It has hardly ever been driven because the star wrestler can barely fit his 6' 5" 290-pound body into the cockpit. Why, one might wonder, does Batista own such an extravagant vehicle when he can t shoehorn his massive frame into it?
I originally bought that for my wife. When we split up, she got it in the settlement. I found out she was planning to sell it, so I said, I ll buy it back from you. I had a lot of work done to it, and I didn t want someone else to have it. I essentially bought that car twice.
For this interview, Batista is sitting in the spacious living room of his Tampa, Fla., home. He smiles easily and speaks in a husky near whisper, a far cry from the bluster of his wrestler persona.
I learned that on TV and in the ring, you re basically yourself, but you just turn up the volume.
Batista is on the road wrestling so much that none of his four cars have stressed odometers. His main driving machine is a tricked-out Hummer H2. It s sleeker than most H2s, thanks to a lowering kit. A new grille nicely accents the white exterior (matched by a white leather interior). Enormous 26-inch-diameter wheels add just the right amount of bling.
And then there s the sound system, with four 1,000-watt amplifiers and eight subwoofers built into a custom box in the back. Batista cranks up the bass for Celebrity Car Magazine, and the music booms and thuds. More volume and the vibrations are so intense that you begin to worry that your head might pop off. Batista turns the volume down and grins.
It s way more than you can ever use. It ll take the breath right out of you.
No kidding.
Batista says he has only been living particularly large for a couple of years. He worked his way up through the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as a sidekick and a bit player.
However, his contract grew bigger, his percentage of the gate grew large and his merchandising take also grew.
Our company is based on a totem pole. And then it s a matter of how hard you want to work.
In 2005, Batista snatched the WWE Heavyweight Championship during WrestleMania 21, then lost it in April 2007 at Wrestlemania 23. WrestleMania is a yearly event that takes place in early spring. The first such event took place in 1985.
Batista grew up poor in Washington, D.C., shuttled between his mother and father. He played football for a brief stint.
I wasn t very good at all, and he had an undistinguished scholastic wrestling career. When he was a high-school senior in Arlington, Va., his father finally bought him an early 1970s Volkswagen Beetle.
It was yellow, and my dad took it to Earl Scheib (body shop chain) and had it painted this awful blue. But you d open the door and it was still yellow inside. Those VWs, they had a certain sound and smell to em. We could fit some big guys in there, though. We d show up at wrestling meets smelling like gasoline.
Batista began body building after high school. He knocked around the pro bodybuilding world for a few years, competing in a few meets, but was put off by the culture.
I don t want to stereotype, he says, and then pauses. OK, I do. The egos in that sport were out of control.
Batista attended a cattle-call tryout for the World Championship Wrestling, and the man running it told him he would never make it as a pro. At 350 pounds and cut like a diamond from bodybuilding, Batista paid the man no mind.
In 1997, Batista joined a private wrestling school in Allentown, Pa. After he signed a small contract with the WWE, he bought a used Nissan Maxima and then something a little more size appropriate: a Toyota Sequoia sport ute.
Batista bought his first upscale car a few years ago, and still owns it: a black 2003 BMW 745Li.
I got it cause it was so roomy, he says, even though it s not that huge on the outside. I m attached to it now. I haven t had anything major done to it. It has really nice rims, Asanti [22-inch] with black centers . . . I shaved off the BMW emblems and . . . people ask me all the time what kind of car it is.
Batista s other ride, not part of this photo shoot, was a silver 2006 Range Rover Sport, the supercharged model.
The color is kind of bland, but it was supercharged and those are hard to get your hands on, so I scooped it up. I actually got it for my mom. She wouldn t drive the BMW cause she didn t like the gear shifter. She was driving around in my Hummer, and that just didn t look right.
n Celebrity Car is produced by Wheelbase Communications in conjunction with quarterly publication Celebrity Car Magazine (celebritycarmagazine.com) and the duPont Registry (dupontregistry.com).
mercurynews.com