Dwayne Johnson’s journey from being a college football star for the University of Miami to the highest paid man in Hollywood featured a long stop as The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment. Even that took time, as The Rock’s debut with the company is widely regarded as one of the silliest debuts in history.
Debuting as a smiling, no nonsense babyface, The Rock didn’t really connect with fans right away. In fact, the chants of “Die Rocky Die!” are ones that helped as an in character reason Rocky Maivia became The Rock. Speaking with Jay Glazer, Rock actually recalled the first time he spoke his mind to Vince McMahon and it changed the course of his career.
When the decision was to become a bad guy, to become a heel, I asked Vince if I could just give me two minutes on the microphone, on live Raw. I said I just wanna speak my mind. There was a faction at that time called The Nation of Domination led by Ron Simmons who was one of the greatest Florida State football players of all time. And Vince McMahon said okay you’ve got two minutes. I said alright, I grabbed the microphone on live TV, which that’s a lot man, because at that time there was just two hours of Raw, live, that’s it.”
Rock goes on to recall the remainder of that first night he got mic time and what many people think was the actual birth of The Rock persona. Rock and others think it birthed the start of a turning point for the WWE Hall of Famer. You can hear the rest below.
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