Anyone who has ever watched wrestling is familiar with Dave Bautista. The retired professional wrestler is a former mixed martial artist and bodybuilder. Bautista is also an actor, having starred in the famous “Guardians of The Galaxy” franchise. Dave Bautista is a six-time world heavyweight wrestling champion and holds the record for being the longest-reigning champion in the history of the World Wrestling Federation, for 282 days.
Everyone knows that WWE is show-fighting and completely fake, but Bautista was still an amazing wrestler and an even better entertainer. But with the downfall of WWE, the wrestling star had to choose a different career path. And for this he chose UFC. At the age of 43, Bautista entered the UFC cage for the first time in his life. His pro debut at the Classic Entertainment and Sports event was against the veteran UFC fighter, Vince Lucero who had a respectable of 43 fights with 20 victories and 22 losses.
Bautista’s debut fight was originally planned with Rashid Evans, but Rashid was convicted and Bautista was left without an opponent. Vince was brought in as a replacement for Evans. Bautista trained vigorously in the weeks leading to the fight. In a pre-fight interview, Bautista told the reporter that this is the hardest training schedule that he’s ever gone through.
When the fight started Laucero showed everyone that experience was something not to be ignored. He rushed straight at Bautista and landed two clean right hands at his face which had little or no effect on the former WWE star. Laucero then clinched Bautista against the fence and waved to the fans behind, showing that he was not at all intimidated by the huge body od the WWE star.
After some time the referee asked them to break the clinch and the action in the middle of the ring started, once again. This time Bautista’s wrestling instincts kicked in and before Laucero could start throwing punches or kicks while standing, and Bautista grappled and knocked Laucero down. After that Bautista stayed on top of Laucero and unleashed a rally of punches to Laucero’s head. Lauceor could not defend himself and the referee had to stop the fight to prevent further damage to Laucero’s head.
Laucero complained to the referee about the punches to the back of his head but the referee did not agree and Bautista was awarded the victory. The fight ended at 4:05 in the first round taking Bautista’s pro record to 1-0, which remains intact to this day as Bautista did not return to the ring ever again. In a post-fight interview, Bautista admitted that he was way too nervous during the match and he completely forgot the instructions of his coach and former UFC light heavyweight star Stephan Bonnar.
Bautista said “I think Stephan Bonnar is going to be a little disappointed. He called me, and the two things he said was, ‘Keep your hands up and your chin down.’ And I did neither of those things. I think I was so nervous. I was terrified walking out there”
When asked whether he will return to the cage again or not and what he hopes to get out of his UFC career, Bautista responded honestly by saying that “Nothing. I do it because I love it. I have no ulterior motives. I think it’s obvious after tonight that I won’t be a world champion.”
Fans and critics had mixed reviews about the fight with some praising the performance of Dave Bautista and some going out on a limb and saying that the fight was an embarrassment. The former WWE star then became a full-time Hollywood actor and completely retired from all fighting sports.