Dave Bautista, 55, shares astonishing throwback to when he was 16 and had NO tattoos… during rough childhood blighted by poverty and crime

Dave Bautista, 55, shared an amazing throwback to the time when he was 16 years old and didn’t have any of the tattoos that now cover his body.

In his 30s, he embarked on a successful career in professional wrestling and MMA, before becoming a movie star at the age of 45 in Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Over the course of his adult life, his arms and torso gradually became covered in tattoos, including the Greek and Philippine flags in honor of his heritage.

But in the flashback he posted to Instagram this week, he stood in a swimsuit in front of an ocean view, revealing he had no body art at the time.

The photo was taken at the end of a rough childhood, plagued by poverty and crime, during which he himself was arrested in his early teens.

Dave Bautista, 55, shared an amazing throwback to the time when he was 16 years old and had none of the tattoos that now cover his body

Dave had a difficult upbringing, including living in the more dangerous neighborhoods in and around Washington DC.

When he was a little boy, a body was discovered in his front yard and he saw a shooting victim die in the street in front of his house.

He, his sister, and some other neighborhood children were “all standing around looking at this poor man dying,” Dave later recalled in his memoir. “I think some of us even told jokes.”

Dave confessed, “By the time I was thirteen, I was getting in a lot more trouble for skipping school. I was also arrested for small things. I was given detention or a juvenile prison, but the punishment was not severe; I have never been in jail for more than a day.”

He insisted he was “not stealing or breaking the law to get back at anyone or because I was angry or anything like that. I was stealing because all my friends were doing it. It was no problem. It just wasn’t unusual. It was what you did.”

Dave added: “It wasn’t like I was stealing cars or doing drugs or anything really bad. But I was definitely a criminal, and everyone was afraid of where I was going.”

At 17, he was on his own, eventually starting a career as a nightclub bouncer until he became involved in a workplace brawl that resulted in another arrest.

He finally escaped poverty in his 30s, when he launched his hugely successful run in professional wrestling and became a four-time world heavyweight champion.

Dave endured a difficult upbringing that included living in more dangerous neighborhoods in and around Washington, DC; photographed on Instagram in recent years

He finally escaped poverty in his 30s, when he launched his hugely successful run in professional wrestling; pictured at WrestleMania Goes Hollywood in Los Angeles in 2005

He also slowly built an acting career in the mid-2000s, culminating in his rise to international film stardom in the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy (pictured)

He also slowly built an acting career in the mid-2000s, culminating in his rise to international film stardom in the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Amid a cast including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, Dave played the hulking Drax The Destroyer.

The film launched Dave’s lucrative career in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including appearing in Avengers: Endgame, the second highest-grossing film of all time.

He has also made his mark in a number of other franchises, including the Knives Out film series and the Dune films starring TImothee Chalamet.

Dave currently has a wide range of projects in the pipeline, including a role as Beowulf in the upcoming film Grendel, based on a novel that inverts the Old English epic to tell the story through the eyes of its evil monster.