Dave Bautista

Dave Bautista has been married three times. He married his first wife, a woman named Glenda, on March 25, 1990. They have two daughters together, Keilani (born 1990) and Athena (1992). Through Keilani, he is the grandfather of two boys, Jacob and Aiden. Bautista and Glenda eventually parted ways on April 1, 1998.

Bautista’s second wife was Angie Lewis, whom he married in the same year he got divorced from Glenda, on November 16, 1998. They were married for close to eight years before getting divorced in 2006. Since October 2015, he has been married to competitive pole dancer Sarah Jade. He had previously dated WWE divas Melina Perez, Kelly Kelly, and Rosa Mendes.

Bautista’s autobiography, ‘Batista Unleashed’, was published on October 16, 2007, through Pocket Books. In the book, Bautista dealt with some of the most controversial issues in his life, including his relationship with Chris Benoit.

Dave Bautista was born on January 18, 1969, in Washington, D.C., to Donna Raye (née Mullins) and David Michael Bautista. His father, whose own parents were from the Philippines, still works as a hairdresser in the DC area. His parents divorced when Bautista was still young and he was subsequently raised by his mother, who is of Greek descent. At some point, Donna came out as a lesbian and Bautista has been supportive of her decision, dubbing himself as “a proud son of a lesbian”.

He has a sister who was named after their mother as well as a brother named Michael. Bautista has talked about the financial difficulties his family had to face when he was a child. Furthermore, the neighbourhood he grew up in was quite violent. By the time he turned nine, he had witnessed three murders on their front lawn. He himself had committed criminal activities as a teenager. At the age of 13, he was stealing cars.

Bautista had a serious falling out with his parents when he was 17. He then left home and started living on his own. He worked as a bouncer for several clubs before he was arrested for a brawl that left two of the patrons injured. He was eventually sentenced to one year of probation.

After getting released from the prison, he developed an interest in professional bodybuilding. He has since stated that bodybuilding potentially saved his life.

After being involved in professional bodybuilding for a while, Dave Bautista wanted to pursue a career in professional wrestling. This was a period when the industry still had other promotions competing with WWE on equal footing. Bautista first approached World Wrestling Championship (WCW) and gave an audition at the WWC Power Plant but Sgt Buddy Lee Parker., who was working as one of the trainers there at the time, told him that he would never succeed in the professional wrestling business.

Bautista then went to their biggest rival, WWE. After a successful tryout, WWE designated him to the Wild Samoan Training Center wrestling school to train under Afa Anoa'i. He also got lessons in Muay Thai and Eskrima. Bautista soon began to wrestle for Anoa'i’s World Xtreme Wrestling (WXW) promotion.

Subsequently, Bautista signed a contract with WWE and started competing at one of their developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling. In 2000, he made his debut under the ring name Leviathan and went on to win the OVW Heavyweight Championship. His rapid progression in the promotion convinced WWE to include him in the WWE main roster.

After participating in several non-televised events, Bautista made his television debut on May 9, 2002, on a SmackDown episode under the ring name Deacon Batista, serving as the heel enforcer of Reverend D'Von. His in-ring debut came about on 6 June, when he teamed up with D'Von for a tag-team match against Faarooq and Randy Orton and went on to pin Orton.

After he split from D'Von, Bautista began to simply use ‘Batista’ as his ring name. He was not initially supposed to join Evolution, a villainous professional wrestling stable in WWE which was a part of its Raw brand from 2003 to 2005. Mark Jindrak was picked at first as the group’s enforcer and even began filming vignettes with the rest of the group before Batista replaced him.

Dave Bautista made his cinematic debut in an unaccredited role in Greg Glienna’s directorial venture ‘Relative Strangers’ (2006). His next film appearance came about three years later, in the 2009 American-German film ‘My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?’ He had his first starring role in the 2010 direct-to-DVD action film ‘Wrong Side of Town’.

His outing as Ray Shane, an ex-vice cop who had just been released after serving five years in prison, in ‘House of the Rising Sun’, earned him critical praise. He played various roles in ‘The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption’ (2012), ‘The Man with the Iron Fists (2012), and ‘Riddick’ (2013).

In October 2014, he joined the cast of the 24th film in the James Bond franchise, ‘Spectre’, portraying a character named Mr. Hinx. He had only one spoken word in the entire film, “Shit”, but accepted the role because he has been a lifelong fan of the Bond film series.

Bautista played Sapper Morton, a Nexus-8 Replicant and combat medic, in the 2017 neo-noir science fiction film ‘Blade Runner 2049’. Some of Bautista’s upcoming films are ‘Escape Plan 2: Hades’, ‘Master Z: Ip Man Legacy’ and ‘Stuber’.