D-Von Dudley Talks About His Time In WWE Mentoring Batista

Batista wasn't a ready-made champion when he first joined WWE. In fact, Batista first got notoriety on WWE programming as none other than a deacon. Debuting on "SmackDown" back in May 2002, Batista did so as Deacon Batista – the bodyguard for D-Von Dudley during his "Reverend D-Von" days. Eventually, the two would split, and Batista would find himself on his way to joining Evolution. 

In an interview with "PWInsider Elite," D-Von Dudley talked about his brief time working with Batista and trying to teach him on the fly after a lack of experience in Ohio Valley Wrestling left "The Animal" woefully unprepared for the WWE stage.

"It was great working with him, it really was," D-Von said. "I remember Dave telling me that he really didn't have that much of knowledge in terms of working in the ring because, when he was in OVW — and again, this is coming from Dave — all they did was have him do run-ins and things like that. So he never really had full matches," Dudley continued, "and if he did have a match, it was like what they did with the Ultimate Warrior; he was in there for maybe two to three minutes, and that was it. So he never had a full match."

But Dudley was impressed by Batista's commitment to soak up whatever knowledge was being passed along, making for a generally positive experience for the tag team veteran. "But it was great because we got to work together before the people got into the building. He would show up to the building and I would get into the ring with him," he added, "and we would go over stuff and things like that. He was very eager to learn, so that was the one thing that I was very happy with Dave [about]."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "PWInsider Elite" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription