WrestleMania 35 - No Holds Barred: Triple H versus Batista

[FunKay]

Kurt Angle's won't be the only career to come to an end on April 7th. Batista has vowed to end his own in-ring wrestling career and take Triple H with him. His motives? Unclear. His means? Effective. He battered an unsuspecting, 70 year old Ric Flair just under a month ago and deliberately frustrated "The Cerebral Assassin" by not showing up the following week. This drove Papa Haitch into a furious rage (you can always tell when this happens because he rocks the leather jacket/jeans combo) and challenged big Dave to face him in a straight up fight. Batista obliged... sort of.

This past week on Monday Night Raw, "The Animal" heeded the call, but only in appearing inside the arena. He made it clear he wanted to finish Trips at WrestleMania, and that it was him who was in control of the game, and not the man who wears that moniker and wields creative control in WWE. Why Batista has designs on taking Triple H out, we may never fully know, but we do know that its going to be No Holds Barred, a crutch added to help a no doubt rusty, 50 year old Batista and a still healing "Game" (after the pec tear at Crown Jewel).

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This should be fine, possibly even fun. Batista's surprise cameo/destruction of Ric Flair a few weeks ago was perfectly executed. Triple H's retort about characters and whatnot had fire and fury, but lacked substance. Last week's face-to-face was... weird. I don't know what to make of this at this juncture, and I don't expect it to be any good frankly. Indeed, I fear Triple H's obsession with making every match he's in "epic" may lead to a loooooong slug fest. But there is potential here and it'll be cool to see Batista go out in style on the "Grandest Stag of 'Em All"!

[Jack-Hammer]

One positive aspect of WWE loading up WrestleMania to such an obscene degree is that programs like this don't eat up TV time as it would have just a few years ago. If WrestleMania was back down to around 10 matches, with two of them almost certainly taking place on a kickoff show, I have a feeling WWE would devote massive amounts of TV time to something like this both in terms of in-ring segments and recaps. Again, however, they simply don't have the time because there's simply too much other content for the show to sift through.

Neither of these guys are in ring shape. Batista hasn't wrestled in almost 5 years and is officially 50 years old while Triple H turns 50 later this year and probably isn't 100% recovered from the torn pectoral muscle he received at Crown Jewel. Even if he was, Trips is getting older, there's definite ring rust to him as well since his last few outings in the ring haven't exactly been the stuff that dreams are made of. Don't needlessly drag this out, give them maybe 15 minutes or so to beat the crap out of each other with some chair shots, kendo sticks, maybe put someone through a table, hit a few big spots and call it a day. As long as it doesn't overstay its welcome, this should be a solid little brawl.

[Y 2 Jake]

I'd given them a Lesnar/Goldberg 5 minute barn burner, but that's just me.

If Batista hadn't killed Flair a few weeks ago I'd even have suggested some sort of D-X/Evolution face-off mid-match with Princess Triple H as piggy in the middle.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

I still don't understand the appeal of this match. Not complaining since this going to give us more wrestling.

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

A Triple H match can surprise every now and then, never count out what he has planned for his own match. His tag match pretty much stole the show last Mania. Plus a Triple H entrance at Mania is always a high budget affair. Plus there will probably be half a dozen run-ins being No Holds Barred.

[A11]

I feel like Batista has to win this or whats the point of coming back, but if it is the retirement match he's been stroking himself over surely he goes out on his back. Plus you cant really have a bloke beat up a 70 year old man and win. Cant really pick which way this is going to go

[BestSportsEntertainer]

If Batista is retiring, then he should lose. I’m not overly excited to see Triple H win another WrestleMania match, but I’m fine with it if the only other option was Batista not returning at all.

As for the match, I’m not expecting a classic, but it could be a fun spotfest if they keep it under 15 minutes.

[Y 2 Jake]

Triple H should win, which will make a refreshing change from the matches he won but shouldn't have. Booker, Sting, Lesnar, primarily.