Smackdown Magazine, December 2005
How WWE Superstars Cope With Life in the Limelight
As the World Heavyweight Champion, Dave Batista has often found himself mobbed by fans wherever he goes. "It's awesome on one hand," he says, "but it's also strange because I still feel like the same person."
"Most of the time people are very polite and respectful," Batista says, "but I've had people walk up to me in the middle of dinner, slap a piece of paper on the table and say, 'Sign that for my kid!' I just hand the paper back to them and tell them that I won't sign anything if they can't be more polite than that."
Batista credits his getting into the business when he did as the reason he's avoided such pitfalls. "I got into this at an age where my head was really on straight," he says. "I'd gone through all my troublemaking years and now I knew what I wanted out of life, and I was prepared to do anything to get it."