WWE News: Update on Batista's Potential Return to WWE

What a year it's been for Batista.

Having dabbled with a few bit-part movie roles and tried his hand at Mixed Martial Arts, the former six-time World champion felt it was time to head back home. On the January 20 showing of Monday Night Raw, he ended a four-year hiatus and made his triumphant return to the WWE.

Except, it wasn’t triumphant at all.

Some ill-advised booking and misjudged character handling saw Batista’s return derailed almost instantly. Just six days after making his comeback, he and the WWE writers were being booed out of the building at the 2014 Royal Rumble.

That didn’t stop him from going on to headline the biggest WrestleMania of all time though. Of course, he ended up submitting to Daniel Bryan, and two pay-per-views later he was written off TV.

But while his days in pro wrestling yielded little success, his return to Hollywood couldn’t have played out more differently. His latest film, Guardians of the Galaxy, became the highest grossing August movie of all time.

The movie’s critical and financial success led to a restructured contract that will see Batista feature in various future Marvel films, and thus his most recent WWE hiatus looked to be a more permanent one.

According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider though, this isn't necessarily the case:

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As I've discussed in the Elite section of PWInsider.com, former World champion Dave Bautista is believed to plan to eventually return to WWE, but likely won't be doing that until at least 2015…

… Bautista has spoken publicly of wanting to do a Wrestlemania-level bout with Triple H, who he defeated to win his first WWE World title in 2005 at Wrestlemania 21. In previous interviews with PWInsider.com, Bautista has said he never wanted to return for just a PPV bout as opposed to a longer run.

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If we take a closer looks at the situation, then this really isn’t too surprising. The future films that Marvel wanted Batista for would be a Guardians sequel as well as an eventual Avengers 3 movie. But given that Guardians has only just been released and Avengers 2 isn’t even out until next summer, both films appear to be a long way off still.

The only other film on his schedule is the Kickboxer remake, due for release sometime next year. But with filming yet to even begin, it would appear that there is certainly time to fit in another WWE run at some point.

And if the above article is anything to go by, that run could involve a WrestleMania 31 appearance.

Sure his last time out at the Showcase of the Immortals didn’t go as planned, but in a different situation and with better booking there’s no reason why this time round can’t be a success.

Photo courtesy of WWE.com

Whether that situation turns out to be a showdown with Triple H remains to be seen, and although it’s still an awfully long way away, it seems like a good idea to me.

Ten years on from their clash for the title at WrestleMania 21, their storied history could easily be incorporated into the angle. Having two part-timers face off also creates a degree of uncertainty as to who will emerge victorious, while it leaves the WWE World Heavyweight Championship picture open for the full-time stars who are generally more deserving.

Of course the WWE would likely be tempted to book Batista as the face, given where the Game is right now, and thus the feud's success would be heavily dependent on Creative’s booking.

But if this were billed as simply a grudge match between two former allies, adversaries and arguable legends of the business, then I certainly believe it could work. The potential is there, both from a logistic and creative perspective.

Either way though, I’d be keen to see Batista back in the company. Love him or hate him, he understands the business and given another chance, I doubt the WWE would make the same mistakes that they did last time around.

But what do you guys think?

Please feel free to comment below with your thoughts on Batista’s future, a potential return for WrestleMania 31 as well as any other issues that were touched upon in the article.