"the animal" unleashed in manila

the beast has been unleashed... in manila! "the animal" batista comes to manila for the first time to promote the wwe smackdown tour this october. and for a wrestling aficionado like me, it was like i was hit with the batista bomb...

channel surfing while having my lunch in front of the tv, i saw eat bulaga's bulagaan portion and the questions were wrestling related. and then i overheard joey de leon saying that batista will be a special guest on the show come saturday. i was in disbelief. i knew he'll come this october for the smackdown tour but i never knew he'll be a guest at eat bulaga. i normally don't watch the noontime show but saturday was a marked date, i've got to see this for myself.

then confirmation came when i got a text message form a friend. he was at crowne plaza attending a seminar but was more interested with the rumor that batista is already in the philippines and was in fact in the same hotel as he is. he wasn't able to catch a glimpse but i knew the media would be there to tell the whole story for me.

the 2 giant networks both had batista on the "still to come" feature. it was well worth the wait. proudly showing-off a tattoo of the philippine flag, he was talking about adobo, lumpia, pancit, and of course, the pacman. the animal wants to walk manny to the boxing ring, something his fellow wrestler, the undertaker, did when manny pacquiao knocked-out another mexican prior to his 2nd fight with erik morales.

my mind explodes when i think about batista being a proud filipino. i was a witness to his rise to stardom and all that time, the thought of a filipino heritage never crossed my mind. he was, back then, just a back-up act to the greatest wrestler alive today, the game, triple h. then one by one, the great wrestlers started fading away. the rock was into movies, goldberg had feuds with vince mcmahon, stone cold was busy drinking beer, no one was left to level with the game. no one until batista turned his back on his mentor and became the wwe's hottest commodity. to this day, i think that only he can match up to triple h. not john cena, not jbl, not even shawn michaels. "to be the man, you got to beat the man." and he sure did beat the hell out of the king of kings, making the animal "the man" in sports entertainment.