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Professional wrestlers and the world of Hollywood movies have always had a tumultuous relationship. On the one hand, there are some classics, like 1987’s The Princess Bride, starring Andre the Giant, and 1988’s They Live, featuring a pivotal role from Rowdy Roddy Piper. However, this crossover genre also has some badly produced features. Many of the titles in The Marine series fit this bill, with actors like John Cena, The Miz, and Ted DiBiase Jr. taking the lead role. Another example is 1989’s No Holds Barred, which was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

You probably know as Drax the Destroyer from the MCU or Glossu Rabban from the two big-screen Dune adaptations. However, none of these big-time roles would have been possible for Bautista if he hadn’t starred in a career-altering action film from 2010. You've probably never heard of it, but that’s a good thing. Directed by David DeFalco, was an action movie that brought both professional wrestlers and hip-hop artists (Ja Rule and Omarion) into a story of crime and corruption.

Alongside Dave Bautista, two other names featured in this film that would pop out to any professional wrestling fan are Rob Van Dam and Nelson Frazier Jr.(better known as Viscera). While Frazier Jr. plays a terrifying henchman for the main antagonist, Van Dam plays Bobby Kalinowski, a married man invited out by his new neighbors to a popular club.

One thing leads to another, and Bobby is hunted throughout the city for accidentally killing Ethan Bordas, the corrupt club owner’s son, while defending his wife. Bautista plays Big Ronnie, a foe turned friend, from Bobby’s days as a Navy SEAL. Aside from that egregious name, long-time fans of the former WWE superstar will surely notice something.

Wrong Side of Town is not a film you should be expecting much from in the first place. It was a straight-to-DVD movie that tried to succeed on casting and nothing more. But when Bobby first approaches “Big Ronnie” at his club, looking for help against Bordas’ men, it's clear that Bautista is still an undeveloped actor. A fight scene later in the movie gives him credibility in the physicality department, and some comedy can be found in his last lines of dialogue. Still, when it came to the slower-paced scenes, he sorely needed help with delivery. Unlike many others in Hollywood, Bautista admitted this acting shortcoming 10 years later.

While talking to Muscle and Fitness magazine in 2020 about his villainous role in the James Bond movie Spectre, the now-recognized star elaborated about his first role after leaving WWE (in 2010, the wrestling company was seemingly becoming too much of a family-friendly feature for his taste). This role turned out to be Big Ronnie in Wrong Side of Town. As Defalco was one of his good friends at the time, the director had convinced him that a rugged Navy SEAL makeup would look good on him. But Bautista’s words told a different story: “I realized what a horrible actor I was... I was so embarrassed, but it made me want to do it again and do it better.”

Even though the movie is now buried at the very bottom of the wrestler/Hollywood crossover genre, the character of Big Ronnie propelled Bautista to become something more. With the industry trying to typecast him into the action genre, . He said to Muscle and Fitness in the same interview: “If you can do Shakespeare, you can do anything,’ so we read scenes from Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew.” Who would have ever thought that such a gun-toting, muscle-clad, and fisticuffs character like Big Ronnie would lead an aspiring actor to such a place?

As bad as Wrong Side of Town was (scoring a 16% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes), . Upon realizing the error of his ways, he did much more than acquire a teacher and perfect his craft through acting out plays made in the 1500s and 1600s. He also did his best to lose some weight (to shed his professional wrestler image) and also redressed his resume so his WWE work would not be front and center. “I had to convince people that I was serious about acting and not just a wrestler who wanted to be in movies,” Bautista explained.

As we can all see, he did just that. He went from low-budget action movies that you can pick up at the back of grocery stores to big-name blockbusters like 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and 2024’s The Last Showgirl. How’s that for career trajectory? If you want to see David Bautista’s humble beginnings for yourself, .