We are in something of a golden age of professional wrestlers-turned-actors. From Dwayne Johnson to John Cena to Dave Bautista, we have three of the most successful to ever make the transition working at the same time. And while Bautista has arguably separated himself from the WWE more than the other two since both The Rock and Cena have returned to WWE recently, he still loves where he came from and he’s even shouting out to his fans in his films.
Dave Bautista’s newest film, My Spy: The Eternal City, includes a fight scene with a moment that will look very familiar to fans of Batista, the former WWE Champion. He drops an opponent with a Batista Bomb, the signature move he used to put away opponents during his wrestling career. He tells ComcBook.com that he came up with the idea to put it in the film, and now wants to put it in all of his movies. Bautista said:
From me? I'm ready for that. I just wanted to put it in. We were working on that fight scene and I was like, 'Oh man this would be fun.' And now, it's kind of become my obsession. I'm trying to squeeze it into every film just because. I don't know. You know, it's one of those Easter eggs. I think if I can get it into every film, I will. It's just a nod to my career. A nod to the fans.
While I haven’t had a chance to see My Spy: The Eternal City yet, I’ll certainly be keeping my eye out for the Batista Bomb in the movie, and every action scene that Bautista is in from here on out I’ll be watching to see if he does it. And now I need to go back through his old movies and see if there’s one in there I missed.
Dave Bautista isn’t the first professional wrestler to include his signature move in an action movie. Both John Cena and Dwayne Johnson have done it. In fact, they’ve done it in the same franchise. John Cena used his Attitude Adjustment in the recent Fast X and Dwayne Johnson hit Jason Statham with a Rock Bottom in Furious 7.
Honestly, Dave Bautista will likely have trouble putting a Batista Bomb in every movie he’s in. While his fellow former WWE stars have largely focused on action films in their movie careers, Batista has taken a more varied selection of roles. While he certainly could have found a way to Batista Bomb James Bond, there wouldn’t have been much reason to justify one in Knock at the Cabin or Glass Onion.
But WWE fans should keep their eye on upcoming Dave Bautista films on the 2024 movie schedule. He’s set to appear in both the action movie The Killer’s Game and the fantasy film In the Lost Lands later this year, and if he is sneaking more Batista bombs into films, we could very well see them there.
