Dwayne Johnson also known by his ring name The Rock is an American actor, producer and professional wrestler. Let’ see some amazing facts and trivia about him!
1.His full name is Dwayne Douglas Johnson
2.He was born on May 2, 1972.
3. Dwayne Johnson was born in Hayward, California, the son of Ata Johnson and professional wrestler Rocky Johnson.
4. His maternal grandfather, “High Chief” Peter Maivia, was also a wrestler.
5. His maternal grandmother, Lia Maivia, was one of wrestling’s few female promoters, taking over Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling after her husband’s death in 1982, until 1988.
6. His cousin, Savelina Fanene, is also a wrestler currently working for WWE.
7. His father is a Black Nova Scotian, and his mother is of Samoan heritage.His father was part of the first black tag team to win the World Tag Team Championship in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Through his mother, he is considered a non-blood relative of the Anoa’i wrestling family.
8. Dwayne Johnson briefly lived in the suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland, New Zealand, with his mother’s family.
9. He attended Richmond Road Primary School, before returning to the United States with his parents.
10. Dwayne Johnson spent 10th grade at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii.
11. As he entered 11th grade, his father’s job required his relocation to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
12. He began playing football at Freedom High School in the East Penn Conference.
13. He was also a member of the school’s track and field and wrestling teams.
14. Dwayne Johnson was a promising football prospect, and received offers from many Division I collegiate programs. He decided upon a full scholarship from the University of Miami to play defensive tackle.
15. In 1991, he was on the Miami Hurricanes’ national championship team. After an injury kept him sidelined, he was replaced by future National Football League (NFL) star Warren Sapp.
16. While attending Miami, Johnson met his future wife, Dany Garcia, who graduated from the university in 1992 and later became a member of its Board of Trustees. She also founded a Miami-based wealth management firm. In 2006, the couple donated $2 million to build a living room at the University’s Newman Alumni Center.
17. Dwayne Johnson graduated from Miami in 1995, with a Bachelor of General Studies degree in criminology and physiology.
18. He joined the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League in 1995. He was on the practice roster as a backup linebacker but was cut two months into the season.
19. On November 10, 2007, Johnson returned to the Miami Orange Bowl to participate in the festivities surrounding the University of Miami’s last home football game at the stadium.
20. Like his father and grandfather, several of Johnson’s other (non-blood) relatives are or were professional wrestlers, including his uncles, Afa and Sika Anoaʻi (The Wild Samoans) and his cousins, Rodney (Yokozuna), Solofa (Rikishi), Matt (Rosey) and Eddie (Umaga).
21. When Johnson declared his intent to become a wrestler, his father initially resisted, but then agreed to train him himself, warning that he would not go easy on him.
22. Veteran wrestler Pat Patterson got Johnson several tryout matches with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1996.
23. Under his real name, he defeated The Brooklyn Brawler at a house show, and lost the other matches to Chris Candido and Owen Hart.
24. After wrestling at Jerry Lawler’s United States Wrestling Association, as “Flex Kavana”, and winning the USWA World Tag Team Championship twice with Bart Sawyer in the summer of 1996, Johnson signed a WWF contract. He received additional training from Tom Prichard, alongside Achim Albrecht and Mark Henry
25. After losing the Intercontinental Championship to Owen Hart on April 28, 1997 Raw Is War, and suffering a knee injury in a match against Mankind, Maivia returned in August 1997 and turned heel by joining Faarooq, D’Lo Brown, and Kama in the stable called the Nation of Domination.
26. During this time, he refused to acknowledge the “Rocky Maivia” name, instead referring to himself in the third person as “The Rock”.
27. He insulted the audience in his promos, as well as WWF television interviewers, once calling Kevin Kelly an “ugly hermaphrodite”.
28. At Breakdown: In Your House, The Rock defeated Ken Shamrock and Mankind in a triple threat steel cage match to become the number one contender for the WWF Championship. He then feuded with fellow Nation member Mark Henry, effectively breaking up the stable.
29. The success of Johnson’s wrestling character allowed him to cross over into mainstream pop culture. He appeared on Wyclef Jean’s 2000 single “It Doesn’t Matter” and in its music video.
30. He also recorded “Pie” with Slick Rick for WWF The Music, Vol. 5.
31. In 2000, he hosted Saturday Night Live. Fellow wrestlers Triple H, The Big Show, and Mick Foley also appeared on the show.
31. Dwayne Johnson has stated the success of that episode is the reason he began receiving offers from Hollywood studios. Johnson had guest roles on Star Trek: Voyager, as an alien wrestler that uses The Rock’s famous moves, and on That ’70s Show, as his father, Rocky Johnson.
32. In 1999, The Rock was listed #5 on Entertainment Weekly’s Top 12 Entertainers of the Year.
33. In 2000, on an Access Hollywood’s prime-time special, The Rock was ranked number six in the Top 10 Celebrities Of 2000
34. Rock was also listed in Forbes Celebrity 100 that year and People Magazine’s 25 Most Intriguing People.[184][185]
35. The Rock made a surprise appearance at the official Xbox unveiling during Bill Gates’ keynote speech at the ongoing Computer Electronics Show in 2001.
36. Rock was also listed on E!’s 20 Top Entertainers and Entertainment Weekly’s 101 Most Influential People that year and the previous year (2000).
37. In 2002, Rock was listed on E!’s 25 Toughest Stars. In 2003, Rock was listed in VH1’s 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons and #13 on People Magazine’s 50 Favorite TV Stars.
38. Dwayne Johnson’s motion picture debut was a brief appearance as The Scorpion King in the opening sequence of The Mummy Returns. The character appears in the movie’s climax in CGI form.
39. The movie’s financial success led to his first leading role, in the spin-off The Scorpion King
40. He was listed in the 2007 Guinness World Records as the highest-paid actor in his first starring role, receiving US$5.5 million for this movie.
41. The Mummy Returns, featuring The Rock, shattered a two-year record by earning $28,594,667, making it the highest-grossing single day for any film in history.
42. The Rock has been listed as one of the all-time greatest professional wrestlers as well as one of the top box office draws in wrestling history.
43. WWE legend Hulk Hogan called The Rock “the biggest superstar in this business”, 15-time world champion John Cena described him as “the biggest superstar in the history of WWE” and “the most successful WWE superstar ever”.
44. WCW icon Diamond Dallas Page described him as “the biggest star in our business, of all time”. Vince Russo, the head writer of WWE’s most popular era The Attitude Era, stated: “I don’t think there’s ever going to be a star in the history of this business that is bigger than The Rock”.
45. Many WWE legends and superstars placed The Rock on their “Mount Rushmore of Wrestling” including Hulk Hogan,Ric Flair, Chris Jericho and John Cena.
46. In “Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting”, The Rock was described as “for a long time, the WWE’s biggest star and probably held the greatest international appeal”.
47. R.D. Reynolds stated in his book “The WrestleCrap Book of Lists” that The Rock was “the biggest star for WWE from 1999 until 2004.”
48. He main evented the most bought pay-per-view (PPV) worldwide in WWE history (WrestleMania XXVIII), the most bought pay-per-view (PPV) domestically in WWE history (WrestleMania XVII), the second highest attended event in the history of WWE (WrestleMania 29), the highest rated Raw in history, and was part of the highest rated segment in Raw history.
49. In addition, The Rock main evented the nine highest rated Raws in history and 10 out of the 15 highest rated SmackDowns in history.
50. His return in 2001 did a 7.1 rating which was the highest rated segment of the entire year
51. The Rock was also part of the highest rated match of 2000. His steel cage match with Shane McMahon on 1 May did a 8.3 rating on the regular time and a 9.1 on the overrun making this match the most watched professional wrestling match in the United States of this millennium.
52. In 2011, The Rock’s return generated a lot of buzz, an average of 4.7 million people watched that episode of RAW, but 7.4 million tuned in just during The Rock’s promo.
53. His return also led the following episode of Raw on March 7 to be the highest rated episode of that year.
54. In that same year, The Rock wrestled his first match in years at 2011 Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden. The event sold out in less than 90 minutes and was the highest attended Survivor Series in almost a decade (since 2002). T
55. he Rock was also part of the highest rated Raw segment in 2012 in a segment on Raw 1000 with WWE superstars CM Punk and Daniel Bryan which drew a 4.3 rating and was also part of the highest rated overrun of that year (4.4)the same night.
56. The Rock’s highly anticipated WWE title match at the 2013 Royal Rumble led the event to be the most bought non-WrestleMania PPV in 7 years.
57. The night after the 2013 Royal Rumble on January 28 which saw The Rock win the WWE Championship for the first time in over a decade was the highest rated Raw episode of that year.
58. During that night, The Rock’s segment with CM Punk did a 4.03 rating which was the highest rated segment since Raw 1000. The Rock would also be part of the highest rated segment of 2013 in his segment with John Cena on Old School Raw which did a 4.1 rating.
59. Rock headlined five WrestleManias (XV, 2000, X-Seven, XXVIII, and WrestleMania 29), and wrestled in five additional WrestleManias in non headlining matches. In 2011, he became the first wrestler to ever host a WrestleMania (WrestleMania XXVII).
60. Derived from one of his catchphrases “lay the smackdown”, WWE introduced its second flagship program SmackDown! which would later become television’s second longest-running weekly episodic program.
61. The term “Smackdown” also has been included in Merriam-Webster dictionaries since 2007.
62. The Rock was the first wrestler to win the WWF/E Championship six times, then seven times.
63. Rock’s Intercontinental Championship’s reign in 1997–98 lasted 265 days and is the longest intercontinental title reign of the modern era (the last 24 years).
64. Rock is the only wrestler to introduce a different design of both the Intercontinental Championship (shortly after WrestleMania XIV) and the WWE Championship (on February 18, 2013 episode of Raw).
65. He was the youngest Intercontinental Champion as well as the youngest WWF Champion of his time.
66. Rock was also the first wrestler to be part of a title match at five consecutive WrestleManias, having competed for the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania 13 and WrestleMania XIV, and for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania XV, WrestleMania 2000, and WrestleMania X-Seven.
67. He is one of three wrestlers (along with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker) to main event WrestleMania in three different decades, doing so in the 90s (WrestleMania XV), the 2000s (WrestleMania 2000 and WrestleMania X-Seven) and the 2010s (WrestleMania XXVIII and WrestleMania XXIX).
68. He is also one of three wrestlers (along with Hulk Hogan and Triple H) to win the WWE title in three different decades doing so in the 90s, the 2000s and the 2010s.
69. The Rock also holds the record for most Raw shows main evented in one year (38 in 2000), most Smackdown shows main evented in one year (36 in 2000) and tied with Stone Cold Steve Austin (in 2001) for most PPV shows main evented in one year (12 in 2000).
70. Overall The Rock has headlined 35 PPV events in WWE (including two Royal Rumble matches).
71. Rock was on the cover of the first three video games of the WWE games series including WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role which ended up being the best-selling combat sports game on a single format (PlayStation 2) with 3.2 million copies sold.
72. WWE listed The Rock as the funniest WWE superstar in history.
73. His height is 1,96 metres!
74. In addition to his Polynesian ink, which obviously has an incredibly important and personal meaning for the actor, Johnson also has a tattoo on his upper right arm of a bull, which is a reference to his old nickname “The Brahma Bull.”
75. The Rock’s tattoo comes down to three things: family, protecting his family and having “a very aggressive warrior spirit
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