Monday’s episode of Raw in Atlanta ended with a huge angle involving the return of Dave Batista during Ric Flair’s birthday celebration.
In the final segment of the show, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon brought out Shawn Michaels, Ricky Steamboat, Kurt Angle, and Sting before introducing Flair. After his music played and he did not appear, they cut to the back and Batista entered Flair’s locker room, dragging him out before looking into the camera and asking Hunter if he had his attention now.
The show concluded with Triple H running to the back, checking on Flair and calling for a doctor as Flair was laid out on the floor.
This would appear to confirm the long-discussed singles match between Batista and Triple H is on for WrestleMania in April.
For years, Batista has spoken about wanting to have one more match with Triple H following their 2005 program that elevated Batista into a top position. The buildup to their main event at WrestleMania 21 in 2005 was one of the most effective in the promotion’s history.
Mahal came out for dark segment only to take a sweet chin music & angle slam into the birthday cake. Crowd was still kinda upset that Flair didn’t appear live.
I didn’t see the segment and haven’t finished Rewind-A-Raw yet, but it sounds like Batista is going to be the heel in this feud based on what he did and HHH is the face? IMO, the roles should be reversed.
It was Triple H and management who shunned Batista when they didn’t believe that Guardians of the Galaxy would do well in 2014. Batista is the underdog actor no one believe in and succeeded on his own outside of WWE and now is coming back to say I told you so and to get revenge on the authority figure who doubted him. That makes Batista more of a face if we’re going with the real life story.
I like the idea of Ric Flair being in on it. Batista did flop as a face in 2014 when he first came back, so maybe that’s why they are making him the heel here.