David Michael Bautista Jr. (born January 18, 1969) is an American actor and retired professional wrestler. Regarded as one of his generation's most prolific professional wrestlers, he rose to fame for his multiple stints in WWE between 2002 and 2019. Bautista began his wrestling career in 1999 and signed with WWE (then WWF) in 2000. From 2002 to 2010, he gained fame under the ring name Batista, initially as a member of Evolution. He would go on to win the WWE Championship twice, the World Heavyweight Championship four times (with his first reign remaining the longest in history at 282 days), the World Tag Team Championship three times (twice with Ric Flair and once with John Cena), and the WWE Tag Team Championship once (with Rey Mysterio). He also won the 2005 and 2014 Royal Rumble matches and subsequently headlined WrestleMania 21 and WrestleMania XXX, with the former being one of the top five highest-grossing PPV events in wrestling history. Having larg