Dave Bautista Reveals Rejection from WCW Power Plant on The Tonight Show

Dave Bautista is making the media rounds to promote his new movie, "My Spy: The Eternal City," which was released on Amazon Prime this week. During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Bautista shared a surprising and candid story about his early wrestling career.

In his conversation with Fallon, Bautista recounted a tryout at the WCW Power Plant that went disastrously wrong before he eventually made his way to WWE. Despite the initial setback, Bautista went on to become a multiple-time World Champion and is expected to be a future Hall of Famer.

Reflecting on his journey, Bautista said, “I wanted to just lift weights, and I thought I wanted to bodybuild. And 13 years later, I had nothing to show for it. I was just big and jacked, and I was broke, and I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’ And yeah, professional wrestling.....And I actually failed at that. No, no, my first tryout was miserable. They told me to leave, and I'd never be a pro wrestler."

Fallon inquired, “Where was that?”

Bautista replied, “That was in Atlanta. Atlanta, Georgia, yeah. It's a place called the Power Plant, which was WCW at the time. They literally told me to leave. They said, ‘You're not gonna make it.’”

Despite the discouraging start, Bautista’s perseverance paid off as he later found success in WWE as Batista.