Batista: He dares you to watch just one WWE show
THAT is the dare that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star Batista is throwing to any Singaporean who has never caught professional wrestling on TV.
He claims the experience is so much fun that first-time watchers often can't help coming back for more.
'You have to start with an open mind,' he told The New Paper in a phone interview last Friday.
'You don't need to analyse it. Usually, there is a good guy and a bad guy, and they beat each other up.'
And what can be a better time for your maiden tune-in than this week, when one of WWE's most-watched events of the year, SummerSlam, will be shown here?
Dubbed 'The Biggest Party of the Summer' in the US, the pay-per-view wrestling fiesta took place in Indianapolis on Sunday night. Last year, the same event attracted a viewership of 550,000 fans in the US.
The show will be available to fans in Singapore on StarHub's Demand TV starting today at noon.
Of the seven match-ups, the showdown between Batista and John Cena arguably attracted the most attention - and provoked the most controversy - among fans.
Organisers tried to market it as a 'dream match', since both wrestlers have had impressive WWE careers with multiple accolades, but have never fought each other one-on-one in the ring.
(For those unfamiliar with wrestling, just imagine a situation in which Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both win numerous tennis grand slams, but somehow avoid having to play each other for years.)
Batista, who made his WWE debut in 2002, is a three-time world heavyweight champion. Fans here might remember him thrilling the crowd at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last July, as part of WWE's Smackdown SummerSlam Tour.
Cena, who is also a movie and hip-hop star, held the US championship twice and the WWE championship three times.
Both were teammates earlier this month, pairing up to win the tag team championship.
Then, with little warning (as is possible in the virtual world called WWE), scriptwriters turned the two against each other, setting up a SummerSlam face-off.
Fans complained that there was no attempt to develop the storyline in the lead-up to the match, making it a less exciting than it should be.
When we asked Batista, he agreed.
'I personally would have chosen to wait. It's a dream match and we should have waited to tell a good background story,' he said. 'When there is more build-up, the fans invest more emotion in the match, and there's a whole different feel to it.'
Nevertheless, he promises the two will put up a show well worth the money that fans pay to watch.
Neither, he said, will be pulling punches.
'We are two very prideful people. We've both done everything. So this match is just about pride and bragging rights.'
Batista and Cena are not the only wrestling stars that fans can look forward to in SummerSlam.
The Undertaker will be looking to bury the Edge in a 'Hell in a Cell' match (essentially, wrestling in a cage-like structure). And Triple H will take on The Great Khali. You can also catch other WWE programmes on SuperSports (StarHub Ch 22) from Wednesdays to Fridays at 10pm.
Source: The ELECTRIC New Paper
