Former WWE superstar Dave Bautista aka ‘Batista’ has followed in the footsteps of Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley by trying his hand at mixed martial arts, and he picked up a win in his heavyweight debut fight last night.
Fighting for CES MMA in Providence, Rhode Island, Bautista TKO’d late replacement Vince Lucero at 4.05mins of the first round.
Despite Lucero having a less-than-impressive 22-22 record prior to the bout, the heavily muscled Bautista had to survive an early scare when he was dazed by punches in the opening seconds of the fight.
“He hits like a [expletive] horse. I was rocked,” Bautista admitted afterwards.
Luckily for the 43 year-old the portly Lucero opted to clinch up with him against the cage, giving him time to recover. He then broke free and engaged in some untidy exchanges with his opponent with his defense appearing almost non-existent.
They clinched up again and this time Bautista was able to reverse the position, but it came to nothing and they reset in the center of the cage.
Then the former pro-wrestler made the smart decision to take the fight to the ground and secured a takedown. He attempted to pin Lucero’s arms to the mat, then took opted to take his back instead.
With Lucero now flattened out and seemingly powerless to escape Bautista was able to rain down right and lefts until the referee finally stepped in to call an end to the bout.
Afterwards Bautista admitted that the pressure of the occasion had got the better of him.
“I didn’t have my legs under me coming out because I was so nervous,” he said, before adding that he does still intend to compete again.
“I want to fight again for sure. I think it was a matter of getting this first one out of the way. The guys will tell you I was so nervous and had so many butterflies coming out that I think he got the best of me a little bit. I’m better than I showed tonight.”
Credit to Bautista for having the bottle to step into the cage, but given his age and the quality of his performance on the night there’s nothing here to indicate that he’s going to be anything other than a sideshow.
Place your bets now on how long it is before we see Bautista Vs Mariusz Pudzianowski!
Watch last night’s fight in full below.
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