In her recent chat with Wrestling Shoot Interviews, former WWE Superstar Shelley Martinez, aka Ariel, reflected an issue she had with Batista in 2007.
According to Shelley, the issue led to backstage heat with Batista, which she believes led to her eventual release from WWE. Check out Martinez' comments below.
On her issue with Batista:
“He was dating Melina at the time, and I got to know him and felt he was my friend. I liked him a lot, and they were just kind of having relationship problems and because he didn’t he come out so good in the relationship problems and she was my friend, of course, I was there for her. She was venting to me one day after a show, and then I opened the door. He was like listening in on us. And I was like, “Ugh.” So that didn’t help his situation of how I viewed him.”
On the days that followed the incident:
“So, I was real short with him after that because that’s my homegirl, like, ‘Ugh. Gross.’ And so then, he started getting like annoyed like, ‘Oh! You and Melina have the same mind!’ ‘Like, no, dude. You were a dick to my girlfriend. Not cool. I’m gonna have her back.’ And so, next thing I know, I get called into Johnny Ace’s office, and there’s old Batista. And I’m thinking, ‘What the hell’s going on right now?’ Because to me, it wasn’t even that big of a deal. I wasn’t causing trouble. I was just short with him and maybe not as nice to him anymore. And so Johnny Ace is like, ‘I can’t have two talents not getting along, blah blah blah. Can you tell me what’s going on?’ So I looked at Dave, ‘Can you tell me what’s going on? Like what is the problem?’ And then he’s like, ‘It’s like you and Melina have the same mind!’ And he just on this whole thing. And he wasn’t making sense of what the problem was. And so he stormed out, and I looked at Johnny Ace, and like a little b****, I started crying, ‘I thought he was my friend!’ He [John Laurinaitis] was like, ‘Look. Just go up to him, shake his hand, we don’t have to be best friends here.’ He seemed he felt bad for me. He saw that I was upset because you know, whatever. And I would go up to Batista to shake his hand like we were supposed to, and he wouldn’t shake my hand.”
On clearing the air with Batista:
“On 11-11-11, I went to a red carpet premiere for the movie Immortals, and he was there. I went up to him, and I was like, ‘Positive vibes to you,’ and we had this conversation. I go, ‘You probably think I’m crazy.’ He goes, ‘Oh you must not know my mom then.’ We had this conversation. We took a picture together.”
On being released by WWE:
“The way I look at it now, I used to think for a long time he was responsible for my firing, but then I remembered, dude, I told off Shawn Michaels. Dude, I told off Randy Orton. Like that was the last straw, and my reasoning behind telling all three of those guys off was all for me sticking up for myself. So, I figured that’s just not the place for me if I get punished for sticking up for myself.”
