Okay, I will admit it – I am a wrestling fan! I loved it as a youngster growing up in Memphis. I had no idea how fake it was, but even when I found that out, I still watched. But, I missed a lot of it during the 90s when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson came onto in the wrestling scene. But, although I don’t know much about him as a wrestler, I do like The Rock as an actor. He is the only thing that made The Scorpion King watchable for me.
His new movie is an inspirational film titled “Gridiron Gang” and it came in at #1 this weekend. The storyline is about young troublemakers who form a football team to gain self-confidence. Apparently, the story closely resembles The Rock’s own youth. Wrestling was a family tradition and The Rock’s dad, wrestler Rocky Johnson, was gone frequently on tour, leaving his mother to raise him basically alone. It seems that the lack of a father figure led The Rock to get in trouble as a youth. He had been arrested several times by the time he was 17. The last time his mom picked him up from jail, she didn’t yell, she just cried. Realizing he was breaking his mother’s heart, he decided at that point to clean up his act.
He loved football and excelled at it in high school. He attended the University of Miami and made their football team (one of the best in the country) as a walk on. He was injured, but he still signed a three-year contract with the Canadian Football League after graduating from college. He was cut after the first year and finally decided to give wrestling a try. The rest is wrestling history.
What’s up next for The Rock? The action/adventure movie Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run is in pre-production as is The Game Plan, where The Rock will play a bachelor NFL quarterback that discovers he has a daughter.