The Rock took to Instagram to reveal that he endured internal bleeding during his match with Ken Shamrock at WrestleMania 14.
The WWE will always have a special place in Dwayne Johnson’s heart, as he regularly talks about his wrestling past. This past week he published a photo of himself, captured in Ken Shamrock’s infamous ankle lock submission – blood trickling out of his mouth.
The graphic throwback photo of the pairs match at 1998’s WrestleMania 14 was accompanied by a caption explaining what exactly went down that night – pointing to a legitimate injury caused by the impact of one of many suplex’ he received.
Not the most elegant or sexy #throwbackthursday back when I had a lil’ internal bleeding (not planned) while wrestling @UFC Hall Of Famer, @kenshamrockofficial aka “The World’s Most Dangerous Man”.
I loved wrestling Kenny around the world and we had some classic matches. On this night I took a hard suplex and the impact damaged blood vessels in my lungs causing the blood to come up.
Kept composed, made sure I could breath and continued with the match. I’d like to think Ken would’ve shown me some compassion, but his facial expression says “f*** your bleeding lungs” as he tries to rip my ankle from my tibia.
These were good days and this was how I proudly made my bones. As always, “thank you for house”, brother
Their WrestleMania match came about when Shamrock became entangled in the ongoing scuffles between The Rock and Farooq about who was the leader of the Nation of Domination.
The fight for The Rock’s Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship was a messy affair, the Nation of Domination getting involved any which way they can. Eventually, Dwayne retained, the bout ending when Howard Finkel announced that Shamrock had been disqualified for not breaking his ankle hold.
The Rock would go on to become the new leader of the Nation of Domination, ousting Farooq from the group.
Shamrock bounced-back from this defeat, becoming the 1998 King of The Ring months later.
Interestingly, that same year in September, Shamrock would form a very (very) short lived stable with The Rock and Mankind in which they did defeat The Undertaker and Kane in a 3 on 2 handicap match on Monday Night RAW.
Did you know that Ken Shamrock originally owned “The Rock’s” name? Read all about it HERE!