WWE: Ranking The Top 10 Moments In Batista’s Career

1. Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Every big WWE Superstar has one career defining moment that made them a star and a main eventer for life. For Stone Cold Steve Austin, it was passing out to the Sharpshooter. For Seth Rollins, it was slamming a chair into the backs of his Shield brothers. For Batista, it was simply giving a thumbs up followed by a climactic thumbs down.

For a little bit of context, Batista won the Royal Rumble in 2005. He had the choice to either stay on Raw and challenge his mentor Triple H for his World Heavyweight Championship or face WWE Champion JBL and John Cena in a Triple Threat for the title. Behind his back, Dave’s Evolution buddies conspired to make Batista decide to go to SmackDown. They even went as far as to hire someone to try to run Batista over with JBL’s limo to make it look like the WWE Champion had a vendetta.

Eventually, their plot failed right before the contract signing, where Batista teased going to SmackDown with a thumbs up, but ultimately put frowns on Evolution’s faces with a thumbs down.

The timing of everything – the facial expressions, the slow thumbs down, the calm before the storm – was executed to perfection. Batista could not have asked for a better, bigger moment before hitting the big time at WrestleMania 21.