5 athletes who made MMA their second career

#3 Dave Bautista

Commonly known as “Batista”, the former WWE star has explored MMA and Hollywood

Everyone remembers “Batista” from his good old days in the WWE but only some people know that the American has been a professional mixed martial artist. Dave started his careeer with wrestling as he signed with WWE under the ring name Batista, and became a six-time World Champion – winning the World Heavyweight Championship four times and the WWE Championship twice.

He was also the longest reigning World Heavyweight Champion. But the wrestler quit WWE after he had got a legitimate compression fracture of his L1 spine in 2010. He later said in a interview to TMZ.com that he wanted to try MMA and will strike a contract with Strikeforce.

After a lot of attempts to get the contract signed, it took one year for the wrestler to put pen to paper in 2011 after Strikeforce had been bought by Zuffa, LLC and after many delays, he made his MMA debut against the 40-fight artist Vince Lucero via a technical knock-out in 2012.

That was his only MMA fight as he moved into the acting business with a role in movies such as Spectre (2015), Riddick (2013), and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). He returned to WWE in 2014 but would soon quit the company as he did not like the direction the company was going in. His MMA career may have been short, but you cannot rule out a return.