David Bautista, 43, has agreed to debut in MMA on a 10/16 show in Providence, RI, for the CES MMA promotion. Bautista will face Rashid Evans, 33, a 6-foot-2, 230 pounder who has no professional fights but is 6-2 in amateur competition which gives him a big fighting experience edge, and Evans has done some boxing as well. Bautista did an interview and said the fight would be on DirecTV, so it could be limited to PPV or a television deal at this point. Size wise Bautista isn’t as big as he was in WWE since he started training heavily in cardio. Doing MMA at his age is never a good idea unless you’re someone like Randy Couture or Herschel Walker. Although, Bautista has been training for years in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with former Ultimate Fighter/pro wrestler Sean Rafferty as well as under Cesar Gracie, and has probably done Filipino Martial Arts for near 20 years. He was in talks to fight in Strikeforce, including a possible match with Bobby Lashley, but when UFC bought Strikeforce, all negotiations ended since UFC isn’t always big on celebrity fights. His agreeing at this point to do the fight would indicate little or no interest in doing WWE any time soon. Bautista is also starring in the movie “The Man with the Iron Fist,” a martial arts movie filmed in China, that hits theaters on 11/2. He also announced he’s making his debut as a music video director this week for the song “Decisions Over Leaf Orloff,” for the upcoming album “Russian Roulette” by Alchemist, that drops on 7/17. The song has a mention of Jim Neidhart in the opening seconds.
Here’s tape of him doing some MMA training w/ former WWE Superstar and son of Davey Boy Smith, Harry Smith:
