Book Review: Batista Unleashed

Batista Unleashed
by Dave Bautista & Jeremy Roberts

Dave Batista, one of WWE's current big stars, while his autobiography was in the planning stages, stated that he was a pretty boring guy and was only going along with this because the WWE wanted to push a book about him. He was right – through no fault of his own, his book is not exactly must read material.

Batista Unleashed, likely as told to Jeremy Roberts by Dave Batista, is the life story of the sudden sensation of a big man who started in the industry late in life, debuting at the age of 33. As the man is only 38 when the book was released to store shelves last October, most of the book is mostly based on his personal life.

And that's kind of the problem. As a fan of a lot of wrestling autobiographies, I read mostly for the road stories and other industry workings in the strange and unique business of professional wrestling. Batista and Roberts do try to make the best of it, trying to put in as many interesting diversions as they can, since the book is an obvious cash in on Batista's current popularity.

The story follows Batista from his childhood on the rough streets of Washington D.C., into a run with a bad crowd and a brief life of crime. He spent much of his young adult life serving as a bouncer, a natural given his height and build. He goes into his time as a bodybuilder, which he credits to saving his life. He spends much time speaking of his relationships with various women, and the resulting unplanned children from those unions.

As expected, he doesn't actually start to speak of the wrestling industry until he's a good ways into the book. For what's there, he makes it entertaining and is seemingly not afraid to throw mud, which can be a positive or negative depending on one's opinion on the maturity of that. There are some fine gems of passages in the book, such as Batista's altercation in the WCW Power Plant with a small pasty white career jobber/trainer by the name of Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker saying that the future Wrestlemania Main Eventer would never make it in the industry.

Another plus I'll hand the book is that Batista actually reflects on his past and is actually regretful of some of his past screw ups, such as the aforementioned delving into a life of crime, and even in the wrestling industry such as his known backstage brawl with fellow star Booker T. This is a nice change of pace to other books in the genre, where the author was always in the right and everyone else has no idea what they're talking about.

On the flip side, as a duality, he still comes up as bullheaded a lot of the time, almost to the point of comicality. As an example, are his claims to be sleeping around with many of the WWE's Divas – women wrestlers. The need to promote this fact(if it is a fact) is a strange one to stick in one's book, especially given it's talking about a relatively current time of not even a year ago. One would think you'd keep your current sexual exploits to yourself until a later date, not publish them all for the world to see.

It's by no means the worst wrestling autobiography you could buy. But you could do better. If you're a big Batista fan, it's probably worth a read. A general wrestling fan? I'd place it low on your list behind A Lion's Tale, Have a Nice Day, To Be The Man..., Etc. For a non-wrestling fan? I wouldn't even bother, as I do not see much universal appeal here in this obvious WWE Cash-in.