Original Heel Turn Plans For Batista

A segment was originally set for last Monday’s RAW from Green Bay that would have seen Batista turn heel but it was then pushed back to Tuesday’s SmackDown tapings.

The original plan was for Randy Orton to come out and talk about how fans boo Batista and like him more than they do Batista. That and a loss to Alberto Del Rio was supposed to be the breaking point for Batista to go “ape shit” on the fans to turn heel. The idea was that Orton “unleashed The Animal.”

The decision was made to tone the segment down for RAW. Even before he actually turned on SmackDown, the idea was to do a few segments and matches over the next week or so to build to the heel turn but they went ahead with it.