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Nidia Reveals the Advice Batista Gave Her on How to Behave in a WWE Locker Room

November 24, 2020 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris

Fightful recently interviewed former WWE Superstar and Tough Enough winner Nidia Guenard. During the interview, she spoke about how Batista (aka Dave Bautista) helped give her advice on how to behave in a WWE locker room. Below are some highlights.

Nidia on her 2001-2002 OVW training class: “That was probably the funnest time during my wrestling career. It was so nice and I got so lucky because there was so many cool people there, like Cena trained with us. Shelton, Orton, Batista, O’Haire. Jindrak was there. Rob Conway. Eugene / Nick Dinsmore. We had such a fun group. Victoria. She is fantastic. We had such a great group. We became so close when we got there. I remember Jim Cornette and Danny Davis, they both ran OVW.”

Nidia on Jim Cornette’s rules on who could hang out together: “Cornette was really strict about who could hang out together. If you’re a babyface, you’re not hanging out with any of the heels. I was a babyface and most of my friends were heels—Victoria, O’Haire, Cena. They were all in that group. Shelton and I were on the outskirts looking in. So, we couldn’t hang out.We snuck out one day. Victoria and I, we went to a Hooters to watch the pay-per-view. So, we’re eating and next day we go to practice and Cornette calls us in. He’s like, ‘Hey, so, we hear that you guys were hanging out at blah-blah-blah-blah.’ It’s like, ‘Ah, shoot.’ So, we got fined for doing that. Another day it was Dinsmore’s birthday so everybody decided to go out. There was about twenty of us and you’re counting heads—babyface, heel, babyface, heel, babyface, heel. ‘This is like $10,000 worth of fines, guys. We can’t get busted today.'”

Nidia on advice she received from Batista: “I’d moved to Louisville. I didn’t think I was going to be there very long, right? I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll be there for a few weeks and then I’m on the road.’ So naïve, right? So, I stayed at an extended stay and I didn’t have a car, and I would jog to the gym, get my work out on, and jog back to my extended stay. On the way back I’m jogging and a car pulls up next to me. I look and it’s Batista. He rolls his window down. He goes, ‘Get in the car.’ I was like, ‘Shit.’ So, I get in the car, and he’s like, ‘Hey, man. You’re rubbing everybody the wrong way.’ It’s like stuff that I didn’t understand because I did get in the business so quickly. I don’t know the rules. Or these unwritten rules. He’s like, ‘You’re coming off like not respectful and then you’re winking at people.’ I was like, ‘Man, I wink at people because I’m so nervous. You guys are ginormous. It’s like a whole new world, I left my home. I don’t know what I’m doing.’ It’s actually like a nervous thing. He kinda told me how to behave in a locker room. That really helped and when I got on the road the Dudley Boyz gave me a hard time. He was with them in that group. He really stuck his neck out for me. So, I will forever be grateful. Then the Dudley Boyz were fantastic, but at first they were a little rough until they came to the rescue.”

On the backstage politics she dealt with: “From what I’ve heard, a lot of the politics in the locker room has changed quite a bit since I was there. The politics were probably the biggest issue for me. We always got our wrestling in. I was on Smackdown. They were really trying to develop that, with Fit Finlay. That was his project. That was his baby. So, we got our fix through there. For me, it was too many politics for me. It was one of those where it’s like a lot of sports, if you work hard, you’ll see it, right? You’ll see the payoff. With this one, it seemed like it didn’t really matter if you worked hard. So, there was nothing you really you could do to get ahead if somebody didn’t want you to. So, there was nothing to work towards. It’s like, ‘Oh, you plateau’d. You could work hard all your life, but it’s really not going to get you that far.’ At least, that’s what it felt like to me.”

article topics :

Batista, Nidia, WWE, Jeffrey Harris