Dave Bautista Biography

Dave Bautista went from being a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) champion to a crowd favorite on the big screen, as Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians of the Galaxy film franchise.

From the mean streets of Washington, D.C. and immigrant Filipino parents, Bautista started bodybuilding and then professional wrestling in the late 1990s.

He wrestled early in his career as Kahn or Leviathan, starting out in Ohio. He made the leap to WWE in 2002 as Batista, and for the next eight years played the villain in the ring, winning a total of 6 world championships along the way.

Bautista caught the acting bug around 2006, and after retiring from WWE in 2010 (with the exception of some special matches), focused on his screen career.

His first big breaks came with 2012’s The Man with Iron Fists and 2013’s Riddick (starring Vin Diesel), and his turn as the literal-minded, deadpan Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) cemented his place in Marvel moviedom.

Bautista’s other film roles include the James Bond movie Spectre (2015, starring Daniel Craig), Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017, also starring Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana).