Batista was a recent guest on “Talk Is Jericho”. During the interview, he confirmed that he is retired and elaborated on why he won’t return to the ring. Here are the highlights:

On Retirement:

I’m done, yeah. My in-ring career is over. I would go back if they invited me on the show to go back and be a personality, or just to go back and say hi to the fans, cut a really bad promo [laughs]. I would do it, because you know, I just love it. I love professional wrestling. But I will never, I will not go back [to wrestle]. I will not disrespect myself or my career and wrestle. I just won’t do it. And I wanted to retire the way I did because I didn’t want to make a big stink out of it. I didn’t want to give some speech that some writer has written out for me. It wasn’t like, you know, it was just for me. It was just a way for me to personally say [goodbye]. And that’s why I did it over my social media, because I’m speaking to my fans. Because nobody else other than my fans give a s**t. I wanted to let them know that I just enjoyed everything, I enjoyed the ride, thank you for everything. I’m done, I’m just so done.

On If He Knew His Match Against Triple H Would Be His Last:

Oh yeah, yeah. One way or another, whether it was horrible or not. That’s why I was like, when it was over I was so relieved. I was so relieved, because it couldn’t have been — that match could have been disastrous. I mean, it could have been a horror show, but I think it — you know, we accomplished, two old guys got in there and we put it on the line. And I think we gave them our money’s worth. And I think we both proved a point to the fans and to ourselves that we deserved to be on that card.

On Why He Wanted To Face Triple H:

It was the way I wanted to go out. That’s why I tell people it was a story book ending for me, it really was. I envisioned this for years, it was the way I wanted to go out. It was my storybook ending, and it happened. But I had to make it happen. Like, I had to scratch and claw and fight for this to happen, and it happened, and it was just — it couldn’t have gone better for me.

I needed it to be Hunter because I couldn’t see myself closing out my career with anybody else, because he just made my career, you know? I mean, literally he put me over when he was at the height of his career, put me over three times clean, never got it back, just so I could go on within the company and be a star. And that was what started everything for me was the whole — my whole career took off after that, and it just wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t done that for me. And that says a lot. He worked really hard, it was three clean matches where he put me over, like right in the middle of the ring, just to build me.

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Credit: Talk is Jericho. H/T 411Mania.