Dave Bautista ended his in-ring career when he faced Triple H at WrestleMania 35 in a stellar No Holds Barred match. It allowed him to go out on his own terms after a disappointing return a few years earlier and we haven't seen him wrestle since.
The Animal has talked about wanting to put The Game over in the match as a sign of respect for everything he did for his career and recently told Chris Van Vliet why he wouldn't consider coming back for anything similar to John Cena's upcoming retirement tour.
"I get along with John. I respect John a lot. A lot more than people think I do for some reason. I think the internet and fans have built this rivalry between us, which, there, really isn’t, but this is how we’re different. I would never do this. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t feel it would feel disingenuous to me to go around, but where I see his point, where he wants to go around and he wants to personally thank all the fans, but there’s just something in me where I couldn’t do it."
"I would feel uncomfortable to me, like accolades feel uncomfortable to me, like I could never be the type of babyface who was saying good stuff because I wanted to get the crowd to cheer for me, Like I couldn’t be that guy. And I love and respect what he’s doing with his whole tour, to say, you know, thank you to the fans, but we’re just different that way, like I couldn’t do it."
"I went out the way I wanted. I retired the way I wanted. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. I announced my retirement on Instagram, you know, and I knew I was going to do it. I just didn’t want to tell anybody I was going to do it because I didn’t want anybody to say, no, no, you got to come in. You have to give a speech, you know, to the fans, and I don’t know, just something about it would have felt false to me. And I couldn’t do it."
It makes sense, particularly as the Dune and Guardians of the Galaxy star is now far more focused on his acting career. In fact, it was while he was discussing his latest project - The Killer's Game, a movie which also features Drew McIntyre - that he heaped praise on CM Punk.
In an interview with BuzzFeed Celeb, the former WWE Champion said he believes the Best in the World is underrated as an actor.
"You know who I think was really overlooked as an actor? I don’t know if he hasn’t pursued it as much as he’d like to because he’s still heavily pursuing professional wrestling but it’s CM Punk, Phil Brooks," Bautista explained. "His potential in acting is pretty unlimited."
"So I really wanna see more from him in acting, and I’d actually love to work with him because I think he has a passion for acting, but I think, still, his heart is in professional wrestling," he added. "Until he’s able to let that go a little bit, he’ll never be able to fully envelope himself in acting and I think Phil Brooks...he’s a great actor."
Punk does still line up the odd acting project here and there, but is indeed fully focused on his latest WWE run right now. He likely has at least a few years of in-ring action left in him too, so it may be a while before he follows Bautista to Hollywood.