THEY call him ?The Animal,? but outside the ring, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) superstar Batista is anything but. Obviously, the four-time world heavyweight champion reserves the aggro for his opponents, because in conversation, he proves to be articulate, insightful and surprisingly candid.

Sidelined for the time being with a torn hamstring?one of the occupational hazards of his chosen profession?Batista was in town to promote the WWE roster of shows on Solar Entertainment?s Jack TV channel.

Professional wrestling is a huge draw among Filipino aficionados, I?m told (although I wouldn?t really know since I haven?t followed it since the glory days of Bobo Brazil). Batista is a particular hometown favorite, and not only because he?s half-Filipino. His imposing 6?6?, 290-pound physique and signature moves, like the power bomb and the ?thumbs down? gesture, always drive spectators wild.

Born David Michael Bautista Jr. to a Filipino father and a Greek mother, Batista grew up in tough neighborhoods in the Washington D.C. area and was trouble-bound at a young age, dabbling in crime and running afoul of the law until he discovered bodybuilding, and later professional wrestling. His rough beginnings and subsequent rise to stardom are chronicled in his biography, ?Batista Unleashed.? His website, however, reveals a more complex man with a sense of humor and unusual pursuits, which include collecting vintage lunchboxes.

In conversation with SIM, Batista reflects not only on professional wrestling but also on his own journey and where it?s taking him.

Sunday Inquirer Magazine (SIM): Are you fully recovered from the injury?

Batista: I?d say 80 percent recovered?physically I?ll be ready in another month or so. It?s just a matter of how they can fit me in in a way that makes sense, because there are other storylines in progress. Being in entertainment, I can?t just pop up and say, ?Hey, I?m back!? I want to make the most of it. It?s always good to have a big comeback after you?ve been out injured.

SIM: How big a percentage of your work is outside the ring?

Batista: God! Being in the ring is actually the easiest part, the fun part. The traveling is the hardest part of what we do. Staying in shape is fun as well?I love to work out and train. But being in the ring and wrestling is the fun part.

SIM: Did you see ?The Wrestler? with Mickey Rourke? What did you think of Randy the Ram [the character Rourke plays]?

Batista: The movie was incredible. I thought it was really, really depressing though, because it?s very true to life and I?ve seen the character he portrayed in real life 20, 30 times over. It?s a very common sight.

SIM: But it?s far, far down the ladder from where you are. It?s like a world away.

Batista: It?s about a generation removed. A lot of the guys in the past had it a lot tougher. We?re a lot more fortunate because there are more opportunities for us now. Wrestling has evolved. It?s gotten so big. It?s international now?we?re a publicly-traded company. It?s evolved so much we really can?t compare, but we still have to respect guys like Randy the Ram, who pounded the pavement all those years and kind of paved the way for us. You can?t forget them, you still have to honor and respect them. Looking at Randy the Ram?s story and where he wrestled, it?s not exactly what we do today. There?s just no comparison between WWE and the independent circuit.

SIM: At the same time the movie deals with themes like aging and injuries, the toll that the pounding takes on your body?those are things that even you in the WWE have to deal with somewhere down the line.

Batista: Sure, I deal with that everyday. But I don?t know if it?s any different from what a lot of athletes have to deal with. It?s just one of those things?if you?re an athlete, you?re gonna get injured. I think with us it?s just knowing when to call it a day, knowing when you just can?t do it physically anymore. Wrestling doesn?t have an age limit. As long as you?re physically able and the fans still want to see you, you can keep on wrestling. But it doesn?t mean you should.

SIM: Any thoughts on how long you want to keep doing this?

Batista: I turned 40 in January. I have another year left on my contract, and physically I can wrestle another year, easy. But after that, we?ll have to see. I don?t want to overstay my welcome. I want to retire with both my legs under me, and strong and able to move on to other things.

SIM: You seem to have more of a handle on the place that wrestling has in your life.

Batista: Well, I don?t know about that because it?s not gonna be easy for me to walk away, and I?ll probably never completely walk away. I can say that I won?t have a hard time walking away from the spotlight, because it?s something that wasn?t really all that big of a deal to me. I just love wrestling and I love entertaining people, but all the extra attention?that stuff never really meant a lot to me.

SIM: You came to the sport late.

Batista: Very late, and I think that has a lot to do with it. My character was formed by then; I was who I was. I got into wrestling when I was almost 30 years old, so the spotlight and all that stuff wasn?t going to change me or the way I viewed life.

SIM: By then you had already sowed your wild oats?

Batista: (Laughs.) Oh, I sowed them more after that. I love other things about life. I love wrestling, I have a strong passion for wrestling, but I also have a passion for my family, whom I miss spending time with. I love entertaining and I want to move into other forms of entertainment and hopefully bring fans of other forms of entertainment into wrestling. I love life, and although wrestling is very important to me, it?s not the end-all.

SIM: Does it get harder to stay in the kind of shape you need to be in to be Batista?

Batista: It doesn?t for me because I love working out. I love challenging myself physically. I love training and I think that?s one of the things that has made me fortunate. It?s allowed me the opportunity to wrestle in my later years and it hasn?t taken that much of a toll. A lot of younger guys have suffered worse injuries than I have, and a lot more often. I love staying in shape?it?s just part of who I am.

SIM: You?ve often said that bodybuilding changed your life.

Batista: Bodybuilding gave me positive direction. I wasn?t the best kid. I got into a lot of trouble, I was constantly fighting, I was surrounded by the wrong environment, sometimes the wrong people. But when I started lifting weights, I felt it was something positive I could really do, and so I put all my energy into it. I loved being in the gym, and being in the gym kept me off the streets. It was like a domino effect. It led me into professional wrestling?and it just led to so many things for me.

SIM: How much of a transformation did you make on yourself when you started pumping iron?

Batista: Huge. I was always a muscular kid, but I was thin. I was tall and thin, and I just took to it like a duck to water. I started filling out very rapidly. It just seemed like a natural fit, and not just physically. Mentally, I was comfortable in the gym, I could go and hang out all day.

SIM: A lot of Filipinos feel they?re not suited for wrestling because of their build.

Batista: I completely disagree. I think a lot of my muscular makeup comes from being Filipino. I think it?s part of our genetic makeup to have big muscular calves and arms and shoulders. And then mixed with my Greek heritage?big and burly and hairy (laughs).

SIM: You?re huge in the Philippines because we consider you one of us, and WWE is huge here as well. What kind of an impact do you want to have, particularly with regard to your Filipino fans?

Batista: I hope that I?ll make people proud. I?ve really been embraced as a Filipino, and I hope that I actually get to inspire people, people who have not been so fortunate. I always tell people that dreams can come true, and if you look at me, I?m the perfect example. I really grew up with nothing, I was a kid headed the wrong way in life. But I turned myself around, I transformed my life and I made something out of myself. And I did it through hard work, because I had a dream. So I always tell people, if you have a dream, just pursue it. Don?t let anybody tell you that you can?t do it. Where there?s a will there?s a way. You can do it.

SIM: How much of your Filipino heritage do you feel?

Batista: If you?re born and raised in America, because America is so multicultural, a lot of times you lose touch with your heritage. My father is very Americanized, and because we were so close, my grandfather was the only person that I had contact with who could teach me about my heritage. But the first time I came back here, I was so embraced, and I never felt that before. I never felt such a strong sense of being Filipino. It made me feel very proud. I would like to spend more time over here. Hopefully when I retire, I?ll be able to. It won?t be long, it?ll definitely be within the next 10 years (laughs).

SIM: In the 10 years that you?ve been doing this professionally, how much has changed?

Batista: It seems that I was having this conversation just the other day. For one, all the guys that were in the locker room when I first came into the business are gone, except for maybe a very small handful. It seems to me that a lot of the stuff that I was taught by Rick Flair and Triple H are really being lost?the art form of wrestling?which is kind of sad to me, because it seems like nowadays a lot of kids are doing a lot of things that are more dangerous. But they?re losing that ability to tell stories, and I think that?s what really draws fans in. Who?s the good guy? Who?s the bad guy? The struggle to win, for the good guy to come out on top. They?re losing a lot of that.

SIM: Is it because of the hugeness of professional wrestling now, the huge media presence and all that?

Batista: You know, I wouldn?t even know how to answer that. Maybe it?s just me. Maybe I?m just an old guy who misses the way things used to be.

SIM: What would you like to see change or happen in professional wrestling?

Batista: I wish some of the kids would slow down a bit and go back and get more of a sense of storytelling. Rick Flair always said to me: that?s what we do, we?re storytellers. We tell stories in the ring. We tell stories with our bodies. But it seems like nowadays a lot of kids think that wrestling is just stunts. Flips here and there, and if they can crash through five tables, the next time they?re gonna crash through ten tables. A lot of kids think of wrestling as a stunt show. What?s the most dangerous thing we can do? What will make people stand up and say ?My god that?s crazy!? Rather than suck the audience into a good story.

SIM: You call yourself ?The Animal? but the fans see you as a good guy.

Batista: Actually I never called myself ?The Animal.? It was Jim Ross who started calling me that. But I hope that if I ever refer to myself as ?The Animal,? someone will come over and smack me across the head.