AEW star Mark Henry has spoken about The Rock almost leaving WWE over frustrations about his character.
The Rock is known as one of the biggest stars ever produced by WWE and he has long since swapped the ring for global megastardom in Hollywood. However, the path to worldwide fame wasn’t an easy one for The People’s Champion.
Early in The Rock’s career, he was known as Rocky Maivia in homage to his father, Rocky Johnson, and grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia. At the time, he portrayed a happy-go-lucky babyface and wore baby blue ring gear. Although things started well, the crowd quickly turned on him, with chants of “Rocky Sucks” becoming commonplace.
As it turns out, it wasn’t just the fans who were against the character, Dwayne Johnson himself was also frustrated with the direction he was taking.
On a recent edition of Busted Open, Mark Henry revealed that there was a point where The Rock confided that he wanted to quit.
“He fought that tooth and nail [to move away from his original gimmick]. It got to that point where he was like, ‘Man, I wish I could get to the quarterback because I will go back and play football.’ He hated it. He wanted to quit.”
However, Henry says things quickly turned around when The Great One started trying out new things, something he would do while on the road with the WWE Hall of Famer.
It got to the point where he finally said, ‘Hey, let me try some stuff,’ and when he started trying, he started trying it in the car.”
“He was like, ‘Hey, Mark, what did you say your last name was?’ And I was like, ‘Fool, you know my last name, [imitates The Rock’s catchphrase] It doesn’t matter what your name is.'”
While The Rock is no longer appearing regularly on WWE TV, his daughter, NXT’s Ava Raine, is only just starting out. Recently, she cut her first promo in front of a live audience and The Rock couldn’t be more proud.
H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the above transcription.