I saw someone online earlier today make the point that, in retrospect, this is why it would have been great for the company to have Batista go over at WrestleMania, instead of Bryan. It kind of made me laugh in a painful honesty kind of way. Of course the entire IWC was on the Boo-tista wagon and had such a negative reaction to him, but the truth is, landing Hollywood roles like this that could greatly benefit the exposure to the company is exactly the type of thing the vanilla midgets will never be able to do.
Everyone's hero CM Punk has talked about the "bi-polar nature" of this business, and that's true in this instance too. The tug of war between people/fans who think the top priority in the wrestling business should be the wrestling, 5 star matches, etc, and at the other end of that rope, a publicly traded corporation who benefits more from having one of their stars land a role in a blockbuster movie than having two 175lb wrestlers tear the house down in a wrestling clinic for the ages. I don't see any way this dichotomy will ever resolve itself. People need to stop looking to the WWE for the greatest "wrestling" product out there and let them be the entertainment company that they want to be. Go watch ROH or something else and let WWE be the company where a guy like Batista is going to be in the main event, because frankly, it makes sense for everyone involved. The biggest thing Bryan has accomplished is a few instances where his yes chant has bled over into other sports and been featured in a segment on sports center.
All I'm saying is that I can see the point that person was trying to make. WWE would be in a better position if they had done something bigger with Batista. Instead he just has this incredibly successful Hollywood career that doesn't really get linked back to him as being a wrestler. The WWE listened to the fans, the person who went over at WrestleMania is at home with a nagging injury, and the guy who got booed out of the building is going on to do incredible things.
For WWE, it doesn't make sense to NOT prioritize the bigger, more charismatic guys, who maybe "can't wrestle". A company of that size is not going to benefit from having extremely technical showcases of a scripted sport. Nobody cares. If wrestling was really the most important part of the wrestling business, ROH would be the biggest company in the world. Die hard fans never seem to appreciate that they are an extremely small minority, in any business. Die hard video game fans account for 10-20% of the market. Casual gamers are where the money lies, which is why things like the Wii sold astronomically when it first came out, and why game companies see the biggest, brightest future in developing dinky little boring games for cell phones and tablets. Game consoles are going to be dead within a generation or two because there is no more money there. Microsoft has never made a profit off of XBOX hardware, the PS4 is the first time Sony is selling a piece of hardware at slight profit rather than a staggering loss (the original $600 PS3 cost them $900 to manufacture). The same goes for diehard wrestling fans, You simply aren't the majority, and if your favorite companies were actually to start giving you what you wanted 24/7, they'd be bankrupt within a few years. Closing RAW with a 5 star match means nothing to Vince compared to having the next Bond villain be a part of your company.
I'm rambling and failing to make a point. But basically, reasons like this (Batista landing this role) are why WWE always leans towards favoring these guys, and they'd probably be feeling pretty good right about now if they HAD let Batista become champion, and would now be receiving greater promotion as the company that he works for, rather than him having a miserable, temporary run that ended when the fans insisted that Daniel Bryan was their guy.
Congrats to Batista, what an amazing transition he is pulling off with his career.
