Smackdown!: Batista, Part 5

At Saturday Night's Main Event, Batista won his first televised match since his return, a six man tag match with Rey Mysterio and Lashley taking on King Booker, Finlay and Mark Henry. In a bizarre twist of fate, during the match Mark Henry was legitimately injured, and was ruled out of the scheduled match between the two at The Great American Bash (thus further delaying a potential feud between the two, which was already delayed by Batista's injury).

Batista would put out an open challenge to replace the injured Henry which was answered by Mr. Kennedy. Batista would lose this match via DQ for failing to stop choking Mr. Kennedy into the turnbuckle with his boot, but continued to attack Kennedy which resulted in Mr. Kennedy suffering a laceration on his forehead so severe that it exposed his cranium and required 20 stitches to close. Batista would go on to lose another match with Kennedy via count out in a rematch on SmackDown! before finally defeating Kennedy by pinfall on the August 4, 2006 edition of SmackDown!.

During this time Batista would try to regain a world title, facing both Big Show for his ECW World Heavyweight Championship during an ECW show, and King Booker for his World Heavyweight Championship during SummerSlam and SmackDown!. Batista won these matches but not the title as the contests ended via disqualification. Batista continued on as a top contender to the World Title; competing against King Booker on several occasions while feuding with Finlay, before finally defeating King Booker to regain the World Heavyweight Championship at Survivor Series 2006 at Philadelphia's Wachovia Center, the same arena where he surrendered the title in January.

At the beginning of the new year, it was announced that Batista would defend the World Heavyweight Championship at the Royal Rumble 2007 against an opponent to be decided through a Beat the Clock series called the SmackDown Beat The Clock Sprint. At the Rumble, Batista successfully retained the title against the Sprint winner, Mr. Kennedy.