Note: Please keep this page to Trivia about Johnson's wrestling career. Trivia about his acting career and other entertainment ventures go in his Creator page.
Actor Allusion: Even in the WWE itself Rocky's media roles are referenced. For example, when he goes on a rant about how The Hurricane pales in comparison to other superheroes ("Batman could beat the Hurricane" etc.), the Hurricane responds with "there's one person The Hurricane can beat... The Scorpion King". In The Mummy Returns, Richard "Rick" O'Connell beat the Scorpion King (played by The Rock.)
Author's Saving Throw: His 2024 Face–Heel Turn, coming on the back of extremely misguided booking at the expense of audience darling Cody Rhodes, attracting a unprecedented level of X-Pac Heat to one of WWE's biggest stars ever before successfully being converted into genuine heat at the following press conference by reworking the storyline with Rock joining the Bloodline and Cody regaining his rematch against Roman Reigns, such that many fans are now intrigued to see where the story goes rather than disgusted by it as they were initially. To illustrate the severity of the situation they managed to bail out of, a grand total of six days passed between Rock's return and the aforementioned press conference that mostly righted the ship.
Averted with regards to wrestling itself. His distance from wrestling was due to pressure from his old agent. Before he got involved with WWE again in 2011, he fired said agent and is now represented by his ex-wife, to whom he was married to during his full-time WWE career.
From his 2011 return until he put over John Cena in 2013, there was the matter of the IWC consistently putting low expectations on his measure of commitment, him exceeding these expectations, them putting another benchmark to test him, and him exceeding those: First he was only gonna show up to host WrestleMania XXVII but that would be it, and he certainly would never wrestle again. Then the night after he came back and accepted Cena's challenge to a match and scheduled it a year in advance for WrestleMania XXVIII, which for bonus points came at a time where The Rock had no movie to promotenote (Journey 2 was released prior to Elimination Chamber 2012, too late to generate any real box office bump; G.I. Joe: Retaliation was still months away from release) Then it was said he'd be done after that—which didn't help the mood with some of his detractors after he beat Cena. Then the night after that one he announced his intent to go after the WWE Championship. He followed up on that on Raw 1000 and announced that he had a title shot at Royal Rumble 2013. Before long people started saying he'd become an absentee WWE Champion before WrestleMania XXIX if he didn't lose. Now before he's even returned for 2013, what's been announced of his WrestleMania season schedule already rivals what a typical second-run Shawn Michaels schedule would look like in the same amount of time, with him set to appear live on the majority of Raw episodes and at least three SmackDowns. At this rate it was thought the cycle would only stop when either most wrestling fans actually expected him to return full time or when his eventual retirement match and/or Hall of Fame induction was finally announced. Bonus points for largely rectifying the issue of CM Punk's Badass Decay before taking the title from him. This finally stopped after he put over Cena, making only rare appearances since then. That said, he did sustain a number of injuries during the second Cena match yet still finished it, and he would later tentatively cite it in interviews as his final match while still leaving the door opening for future match work if the right timing and occasion were to pop up. Suffice to say, if you were someone who thought The Rock wanted nothing to do with wrestling ever again (a popular sentiment on the IWC once "The Rock" was dropped from his name for a few years), The Rock promptly laid the smackdown on your candy-ass notion.
There were also numerous opportunities to trash the business in his time away, most notably during the Chris Benoitmurder-suicide scandal where the media dragged pro wrestling through the mud. However when he was interviewed about it during that time he gave his take on what needed to be done without throwing WWE under the bus and in fact gave them credit for the Wellness initiative. He also incorporated his wrestling style into his fight scenes in at least one of his early movies, he's had wrestling rings to work in near the sets of his latest movies as well as trained with WWE wrestlers Michael McGillicutty and Curt Hawkins in his free time so as to make sure he'd be in match shape, and he's even taken the time to watch TNA enough to be impressed with Bobby Roode to the point of tweeting him some props during his World Championship heel run. His ambitions may not be tied down to wrestling anymore (and it's debatable that they ever truly were), but he does still love the business as much as ever.
Also, those first two years back had consistently seen him appear easily more than The Undertaker and, were it not for Triple H's involvement in the Punk and Laurinaitis storylines in summer-to-fall 2011, about as much as the Game as well. Sure, it's understood why they're not full time wrestlers anymore, what with HHH being on the new boss path and Undertaker's body being broken down. However, Rock's movie career is just as valid a cause for inactivity.
Enforced Method Acting: The Rock and John Cena legitimely did not get along at he time they were having their WrestleMania feuds, but both wanted to give the people what they wanted. In particular, the infamous moment during the buildup where Cena pointed out that the Rock had notes for his promo written on his forearm (which some viewers at home also noted, if the memes showing the writing afterwards is any indication) was wholly unscripted. The seething rage and humiliation Rock feels in that segment is 100% real. The two learned to get along afterwards, though.note Cena even stated that him accusing The Rock of leaving WWE in favor of a career in Hollywood were his legitimate feelings on the issue, only for Cena to end up eating a lot of crow when his own well-received acting roles forced him to essentially do the same, after which he stated he understood The Rock's POV.
His upset victory over Hunter Hearst Helmsley for the WWE Intercontinental Heavyweight Title at Thursday RAW Thursday, February 13, 1997, led to WCW trying the same thing with Prince Iaukeanote Mike Haynor, who was supposed to be the "son" of King Curtis Iaukea, who had last been seen in WCW in 1995 as The Master of the Dungeon of Doom. by having him defeat Lord Steven Regal for the WCW World Television Championship a mere four days later on WCW Monday Nitro, proof that they really did write their TV based on what was on Raw. Unlike Rocky, though, Iaukea never got his redemption. He wasn't even booed the way Rocky was, which would have actually been an improvement for him. After doing nothing of note for three years, he was repackaged as "The Artist Formerly Known As" Prince Iaukea, a No Celebrities Were HarmedCaptain Ersatz for Prince. It was as successful as you probably imagined it was.
And that's not even mentioning how, once Rocky Maivia turned into The Rock and became an overnight sensation in the WWF, other wrestlers in WCW were booked to ape the mannerisms of The Rock, while coming nowhere near close to what made The Rock popular. The most blatant example was Juventud Guerrera being nicknamed "The Juice", but at one point even Randy Savage (who at that point in his career didn't need to copy anybody) finished a promo saying "If you smell what The Mach is cookin'!"
The first round of the June 18, 2019 episode of Jeopardy!, part of their Teen Tournament, had a whole category dedicated to him, titled "Mr. Dwayne Johnson."
"I'm hot-scorchin' but Stone Cold like Steve Austin If you smell what Tical's cooking"
Throw It In!: According to Mick Foley, most of The Rock's catchphrases started this way. His most famous, "Do/If you smell what The Rock is cooking," was dropped in an interview with a female commentator after one of his famous double entendres. Mick once said that The Rock was so over that just about anything he said would become a catchphrase a week later. He could have said, "my ass itches" and a week later "20,000 people would be parroting it back to him."
According to Hunter and the Undertaker, the People's Elbow itself is this, with Rock first doing it on the latter in a triple-threate match where everyone was secretly trying to get 'Taker to break character and laugh. However, the move got so much pop that it ended up becoming a staple and eventually the iconic move it is today.
Before coming into wrestling, Dwayne Johnson was a talented collegiate footballer, playing four seasons with the Miami Hurricanes but retiring after failing to get a spot in the CFL. Many players who worked alongside him say he could’ve legitimately had a career in football, but that he was just crowded out by merely being a good player in several rosters that were stacked with talent. Dwayne himself blames the fact that he was playing the same position as future hall of famer Warren Sapp, which kept him off the starting lineup.
During the "Monday Night Wars", Ted Turner tried to bring The Rock in WCW by offering double the salary he had in WWE. The Rock refused, saying that his goal was to "move the crowd" first, because at that time he was loathed by fans, and money would come later.
At one point in about 2005 or so, he said that he was going to enter the Presidential Primary for the 2008 election cycle as a Republican. Eerie thing is, Barack Obama sounds exactly like the Rock, just less awesome. It's said that those listening to the 1960 Kennedy v Nixon debates on the radio thought Nixon won; if you listened to Obama vs Johnson, you'd probably have a hard time figuring out who was speaking. One person at film.com even suggested that Johnson should drop forty pounds and play Obama in the inevitable movie. To which Obama used in his appearance on WWE RAW during the primaries to determine the Democratic Presidential Nominee, as he ended his segment with "...if you smell what Barack is cookin!"
The Brahma Bull championship belt. He was supposed to carry it around as champion in the same manner "Stone Cold" Steve Austin did with the Smoking Skull belt. As detailed here, the belt's creator claims it was lost in the mail, while The Rock himself claims it was used "for a hot minute", but quickly dropped because it wasn't an original idea. This didn't stop the belt from gaining mythical status and many replicas are available, including official ones from WWE themselves. During the Hall of Fame Ceremony in 2024, Rock would be presented with the belt as "the People's Championship" which he then carried with him to his match at WrestleMania XL.
Reportedly, in the match he had on Raw defending the Intercontinental Title against Bret Hart, Rock was planned to drop the title to Bret, but Bret refused, not wanting to take it off him that quickly. It was eventually settled for Rock winning by DQ to keep Bret looking strong.
partner Bart Sawyer had success in southern independents but was never anything more than a Jobber in WWE or WCW.