The Rock on the left, Vince McMahon on the right
WWE Superstar The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) recently recalled nearly quitting the company back when he started his career in the Stamford-based promotion.
The People’s Champion joined World Wrestling Entertainment in 1996 under the ring name Rocky Maivia. The WWE Universe knows him as one of the greatest heels in the pro wrestling world. However, that wasn’t the case when he started his career, as he was introduced as a babyface, which did not sit well with fans during the rise of The Attitude Era.
On the latest edition of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, The Rock talked about his gimmick as a babyface. He further explained how people started booing him because Vince McMahon told him to smile even if he lost a match. This led to him wanting to leave WWE and join PRIDE.
“So you have this thing happening over here, the rise of The Attitude Era, and then you have this kid who’s just smiling away, everything is good, even when he fu**ing loses and it never felt right to me, and then fans started to turn, booing every night. Going into my first WrestleMania, Chicago. I’ll never forget it, every night they were chanting Rocky s**ks and I had to smile through it.”
Dwayne Johnson further revealed that Vince McMahon admitted that he did something wrong with The Rock’s character and wanted to make a change. However, The People’s Champion got hurt during a match, and McMahon told him to take some time off, hinting at possibly letting him go off his contract.
“Vince looks at me [after the match at WrestleMania 13] and Pat [Patterson] and just says I don’t know what we did wrong, but we have to make a change. Two days later I drop the belt to somebody else. Now I’m getting beat every night and then I get hurt.
I tear my PCL against Mick Foley. By this time it’s May, and Vince says take time off, heal your knee. I don’t know what we did wrong or where we went wrong but we got to really figure things out with you. I don’t know if this is going to work out.” [1:58:30 – 1:59:06]
You can check out the whole podcast below:
The Rock revealed what Vince McMahon told him after his second WWE match
In the same podcast, The Rock revealed that Vince McMahon told him to go down to Tennessee for development after his second WWE match as the latter wanted him to work on his craft.
“[After my second match] I met with Vince.
He said, you’re not ready for WWE, you’re not ready for the big time. I’m going to send you down to Tennessee, and that’s where you’re going to learn how to work. He said, but you’re going to go down there, you learn how to cut your teeth down there, learn how to work, learn the business and when you’re ready, if you’re ready, I’ll bring you up.” [1:50:37 – 1:51:02]
Fans want Johnson to return to WWE and confront Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. It remains to be seen if that will happen or not.
Do you want to see The Rock go against The Tribal Chief in WWE? Let us know in the comments section below