Dave Bautista Just Took A Huge Shot At Dwayne Johnson

WWE superstars are no strangers to performing, and some of sports entertainment's best and brightest have been known to leap from the squared circle to the silver screen. As anyone who's seen Hulk Hogan's turn as Thunderlips in Rocky III or "Rowdy" Roddy Piper's 1988 cult classic They Live, this isn't a new phenomenon.

However, few have been able to turn their wrestling fame to Hollywood success as well as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Dave Bautista. The two giants of the entertainment industry once held WWE championship belts, and today, they hold something that's arguably even more valuable: The ability to sell movie tickets.

Johnson broke through in Hollywood as the villainous Scorpion King in 2001's The Mummy Returns and its prologue-slash-spin-off The Scorpion King. This established him as a fine action-adventure leading man, setting him on a path that he's walked ever since. Meanwhile, Bautista's first major movie role was a slightly less successful action turn in the direct-to-DVD feature Wrong Side of Town, released in 2010. As he worked through villain roles in movies like The Man with the Iron Fists and, as luck would have it, The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption, Bautista realized how difficult it was to transition from a WWE wrestler to an actor. He soon hired an agent, who helped him score an audition for the role of Drax the Destroyer in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. The rest, as they say, is history...Weird, uncomfortable, socially awkward history.

One might expect these two successful veterans of the ring and the movie set to have nothing but respect for one another. While that's mostly true, Bautista actually took a huge shot at Johnson in a recent interview.

It's true that Bautista and Johnson both come from a wrestling background, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they're on the same page when it comes to the art of acting. Speaking to The Tampa Bay Times in September 2020 about his role in Denis Villeneuve's highly anticipated sci-fi epic Dune, Bautista shared that he and Johnson have some significant differences when it comes to their thespian careers and, specifically, their level of talent. In fact, it appears Bautista sees Johnson as just a blockbuster movie star as opposed to a true actor.

Bautista said:

"[Johnson and fellow wrestler-turned-actor John Cena] are wrestlers who became movie stars. I'm something else. I was a wrestler. Now, I'm an actor."

To be fair, Bautista did share that Johnson has a certain star quality that justifies his A-list status. He admitted:

"There is something about him that's really special. I'd never take that away from him."

However, when it comes to sheer acting talent, the Guardians of the Galaxy star didn't mince words:

"Would I consider him a great actor? F--- no."

Regardless of any fallout that Bautista's comments may incite, it's interesting to note that there may be a wild card in the equation. Apart from Johnson, Bautista also took a shot at John Cena, whose Hollywood star has been on the rise for a while now.

Incidentally, Cena seems to be following both Bautista's and Johnson's career paths. In his role as the character Peacemaker in the upcoming film The Suicide Squad, he appears to take a page from Bautista's playbook by playing a goofy superhero in a James Gunn-directed blockbuster based on a comic book universe. Cena's evidently also following Johnson's footsteps by joining the Fast & Furious franchise as Jakob Toretto, the possible villain of the upcoming Fast & Furious 9. It'll be interesting to see which man's career path Cena ultimately goes for. Watch the video to learn how Dave Bautista Just Took A Huge Shot At Dwayne Johnson!

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