Former WCW Trainer Reveals Why He Rejected Batista At Tryout

In a recent interview with SK Wrestling, former WCW wrestler and trainer Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker (DeWayne Bruce) recalled the time he rejected Batista at a tryout held at the WCW Power Plant wrestling school.

Parker maintains he did Batista "a great favor" as he felt WCW management "was not going to take to him" the way he was. The Animal would eventually train under WWE Hall of Famer Afa Anoa'i at the Wild Samoan Training Center, before signing with WWE and heading to OVW in 2000.

"You know what, WCW was set-up for training program there," Parker recalled. "He did come for a tryout, I did run him off but I knew WCW was not going to take him like he was. I thought I did him a great favor going to WWE because I sent him to the Cincinnati – whatever their training ground is. But he still holds it against me. But all things looking at it, it was the best thing to happen for him."

Parker added that WCW wouldn't have properly utilized Batista.

"Well, it wasn't necessarily him," Parker said of Batista. "It was most necessarily with WCW because they didn't have a program for him to go."

In 2014, Batista recounted his own expereince of being "run out of the door" by Parker, aka Sarge, when he visited the WCW Power Plant in 1999.

"I went down there at 340 pounds, was all jacked up, went down with a buddy of mine and Sarge jumped in our faces and just got on us and he wanted nothing more than to just run us out the door," Batista said on Talk is Jericho. "He was just a bitter troll of a man."