Dwayne Johnson

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For other people with similar names, see Duane Johnson.

Dwayne Johnson

Johnson in 2013

Born May 2, 1972 (age 49)

Hayward, California, U.S.

American
Citizenship
Canadian

Occupation Actor

producer

professional wrestler (retired)

businessman

Years active 1990–1995 (football)

1996–2004; 2011–2013; 2016

(wrestling)

1999–present (acting)
 Dany Garcia
Spouse(s)

(m. 1997; div. 2008)

Lauren Hashian

(m. 2019)

Children 3

Family Anoa'i

Professional wrestling career

Ring name(s) Dwayne Johnson[1]

Flex Kavana[2]

Rocky Maivia[2]

The Rock[2]

Billed height 6 ft 5 in (196 cm)[3]

Billed weight 260 lb (118 kg)[3]

Billed from Miami, Florida[3]

Trained by Pat Patterson[4]

Rocky Johnson[2]

Tom Prichard[5]

Debut 1996

Retired 2019

Signature
Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name the
Rock,[3] is an American actor, producer, businessman, and retired professional wrestler.
[6][7]
 Regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, [8][9] he wrestled for
the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as WWE) for eight years prior to
pursuing an acting career. His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and
over $10.5 billion worldwide,[10] making him one of the world's highest-grossing and
highest-paid actors.[11][12]
Johnson was a college football player at the University of Miami, with whom he won
a national championship in 1991. He aspired to have a professional career in football
and entered the 1995 NFL Draft, but went undrafted. He signed with the Calgary
Stampeders of the Canadian Football League (CFL), but was cut from the team in his
first season. Shortly after, he began training as a professional wrestler. [13]
An honorary member of the Anoa'i family, his father Rocky Johnson and maternal
grandfather Peter Maivia were both professional wrestlers, so Johnson secured a
contract with the WWF in 1996.[2] He rose to prominence after developing the gimmick of
a charismatic, boastful, trash-talker. He won his first WWF Championship in 1998,
becoming the promotion's first world champion of African-American descent. Johnson
helped usher in the Attitude Era, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early
2000s.[14]
In 2004, he left the WWE to pursue an acting career. He returned in 2011 as a part-time
performer until 2013, and made sporadic appearances until retiring in 2019. [15] Johnson
headlined the most-bought professional wrestling pay-per-view (WrestleMania XXVIII)
and was featured among the most watched episodes of WWE's two flagship television
shows (Raw and SmackDown).[16][17] He is a 10-time world champion,[18] a two-
time Intercontinental Champion, a five-time Tag Team Champion, the 2000 Royal
Rumble winner, and WWE's sixth Triple Crown champion.
Johnson's first leading film role was as the titular character in The Scorpion King (2002),
having previously briefly portrayed the character in The Mummy Returns (2001). He has
since starred in many successful films, including The Game Plan (2007), Tooth
Fairy (2010), Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), G.I. Joe:
Retaliation (2013), Hercules (2014), San Andreas (2015), Central
Intelligence (2016), Moana (2016), Rampage (2018), and Skyscraper (also 2018). His
role as Luke Hobbs in the Fast & Furious films, beginning with Fast Five (2011), helped
it become one of the highest-grossing film franchises.[19] Johnson also stars in
the Jumanji films, appearing in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji:
The Next Level (2019).
Johnson produced and starred in the HBO series Ballers (2015–2019), which ran for
five seasons and was ranked as HBO's most-watched comedy in six years. [20] He also
stars and produces the autobiographical series Young Rock (2021). In 2000, Johnson
 released the autobiography The Rock Says, a New York Times bestseller.[21][22] In 2012,
he founded the entertainment production company Seven Bucks Productions.[23]
In 2016 and 2019, Johnson made the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World list.
[24][25]
 He is the co-owner of the American football league, the XFL.[26][27]

Contents

 1Early life
 2Football career
 3Professional wrestling career
o 3.1Early career (1996)
o 3.2World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
 3.2.1Debut and Intercontinental Champion (1996–1997)
 3.2.2The Nation of Domination (1997–1998)
 3.2.3WWF Champion and rise to superstardom (1998–2000)
 3.2.4Record-breaking world champion (2000–2002)
 3.2.5Final feuds and first retirement (2003–2004)
 3.2.6Non-wrestling appearances (2007–2009)
o 3.3Independent circuit (2009)
o 3.4Return to WWE
 3.4.1Feud with John Cena (2011–2013)
 3.4.2Sporadic appearances (2014–2019)
o 3.5Impact Wrestling (2020)
o 3.6Mainstream crossover
o 3.7Legacy and career assessment
 4Acting career
o 4.1Early years
o 4.22010s and mainstream success
 5Producing
 6Other work
 7Activism and philanthropy
 8Personal life
 9Filmography
 10Championships and accomplishments
 11Awards and honors
 12See also
 13Notes
 14References
 15External links

Early life
Dwayne Douglas Johnson was born in Hayward, California[28] on May 2, 1972,[29] the son
of Ata Johnson (née Maivia; born 1948)[30] and former professional wrestler Rocky
Johnson (born Wayde Douglas Bowles; 1944–2020).[31][32] Growing up, Johnson lived
briefly in Grey Lynn in New Zealand with his mother's family,[33] where he
played rugby[34] and attended Richmond Road Primary School before returning to the
U.S.[33] He attended Montclaire Elementary School in Charlotte, North Carolina, before
moving to Hamden, Connecticut, where he spent a couple of years at Shepherd Glen
Elementary School and Hamden Middle School. [35][36] He attended President William
McKinley High School in Honolulu, Hawaii, then Glencliff High School and McGavock
High School in Nashville, Tennessee, and finally Freedom High School in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania.[37] Before the age of 17, he struggled, being arrested multiple times for
fighting, theft, and check fraud.[38] A gifted athlete, he was on his high schools' gridiron
football, track and field, and wrestling teams.[31]
Johnson's father was a Black Nova Scotian, with a small amount of Irish ancestry.[39]
[40]
 His mother is Samoan. His father was part of the first black tag team
champions in WWE history, along with Tony Atlas.[41][42] His mother is the adopted
daughter of Peter Maivia, who was also a pro wrestler, and his wife. [43] Maivia's wife, Lia,
was the first female pro wrestling promoter, taking over Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling
after her husband's death in 1982, and managing it until 1988. [44][45] Through his
grandfather Maivia, Johnson is considered a non-blood relative to the Anoa'i wrestling
family.[46][47][48][49][50] In 2008, Johnson inducted his father and grandfather into the WWE Hall
of Fame.[51]

Football career
Dwayne Johnson

No. 94

Position Defensive tackle

Personal information

Born: May 2, 1972 (age 49)

Hayward, California

Career history

Miami (FL) (1990–1994)
College

Bowl games Cotton Bowl Classic (1991)

Orange Bowl (1992)

High school Freedom (PA)

 Career highlights and awards

 AP Poll national champion (1991)

Johnson was a promising football prospect and received offers from many Division I
collegiate programs. He decided on a full scholarship from the University of
Miami where he mostly played defensive tackle. In 1991, he was on the Miami
Hurricanes' national championship team.[52][31] Johnson would appear in a backup role,
starting only one game in four years, playing behind players such as Pro Football Hall of
Famer Warren Sapp.[53][54]
After Johnson graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of General
Studies in criminology and physiology,[55] he signed with the Calgary Stampeders of
the Canadian Football League as a linebacker. He was assigned to the practice roster
but was cut two months into the season.[31][56][57]

Professional wrestling career

Early career (1996)
After his football career, Johnson decided to pursue a career as a professional wrestler.
[31]
 Veteran wrestler Pat Patterson got Johnson several tryout matches with the World
Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1996. Under his real name, he defeated The Brooklyn
Brawler at a house show on March 10[58] and lost matches to Chris Candido and Owen
Hart.[33] 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.[5][33]
World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment
Debut and Intercontinental Champion (1996–1997)
Johnson made his WWF debut as Rocky Maivia, a combination of his father and
grandfather's ring names, although his real name was acknowledged by the
announcers.[59] He was initially reluctant to take this ring name but was persuaded
by Vince McMahon and Jim Ross.[45][60] He was given the nickname "The Blue Chipper"
and his lineage was played to on TV, where he was hyped as the WWF's first third-
generation wrestler.[3] Maivia, a clean-cut face character, was pushed heavily from the
start despite his wrestling inexperience. He debuted on Monday Night Raw as a
member of Marc Mero's entourage on November 4, 1996.[61] His first match came
at Survivor Series, on November 17, in an eight-man elimination tag match; he was the
sole survivor and eliminated the final two members of the opposing
team, Crush and Goldust.[62] On February 13, 1997, he won the Intercontinental
Championship from Hunter Hearst Helmsley on Monday Night Raw.[63][64][65] Maivia then
successfully defended the title against Helmsley at In Your House 13: Final Four. He
had his first WrestleMania match at WrestleMania 13 where he was victorious in his
Intercontinental Championship defense against The Sultan. WWF fans started to reject
his character and push from the company. [66] He defeated Bret Hart by disqualification in
a title defense on the March 31 episode of Raw is War.[67] Behind the scenes, Hart
mentored Johnson for his first year in WWF [68] and refused to be booked to take the title
from him.[69] On April 20, at In Your House 14: Revenge of the 'Taker, he lost to Savio
Vega by countout but retained the title. Audiences became increasingly hostile toward
Maivia, with chants of "die, Rocky, die" and "Rocky sucks" being heard during his
matches.[2][45]
The Nation of Domination (1997–1998)
After losing the Intercontinental Championship to Owen Hart on the April 28, 1997
episode of Raw Is War[70] and suffering a legitimate knee injury in a match
against Mankind,[2] Maivia returned in August 1997 and turned heel for the first time in
his career by lashing out at fans who had been booing him and joining Faarooq, D'Lo
Brown and Kama in the stable called the Nation of Domination.[71] He then refused to
acknowledge the Rocky Maivia name, instead referring to himself in the third person as
the Rock, though he would still be billed as "the Rock" Rocky Maivia until 1998. The
Rock would then regularly insult the audience, WWF performers, and interviewers in
his promos.[71]
At D-Generation X: In Your House, Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated the Rock in under
six minutes to retain the Intercontinental Championship. [72] The next night on Raw Is
War, Austin was ordered by Mr. McMahon to defend the title in a rematch, but forfeited
it to the Rock instead, handing him the title belt before hitting him with the Stone Cold
Stunner.[73][74] The Rock feuded with Austin and Ken Shamrock through the end of 1997
and beginning of 1998.[75][76] On January 19, 1998, at Royal Rumble, the Rock defeated
Shamrock by disqualification to retain the Intercontinental title. Later that night, he
entered the Royal Rumble match and lasted until the final two before he was eliminated
by Stone Cold Steve Austin. On March 29, at WrestleMania XIV, he defeated Shamrock
by disqualification once again to retain the title. The next night, on Raw is War, the Rock
debuted a new Intercontinental Championship design and would later overthrow
Faarooq as leader of the Nation of Domination to spark a feud between the two. He
then successfully defended the Intercontinental title against Faarooq at Over the Edge:
In Your House on May 31. The stable would then refer to themselves as simply "The
Nation".[77]
The Rock and The Nation then feuded with Triple H and D-Generation X, with the two
stable leaders first meeting in the quarter-final of the 1998 King of the Ring tournament,
which the Rock won. At King of the Ring, the Rock defeated Dan Severn in the semi-
final match and lost to rival Ken Shamrock in the final. The Rock then resumed his feud
with Triple H, as the two had a two out of three falls match at Fully Loaded: In Your
House for the Intercontinental title, which the Rock retained in controversial fashion.
[78]
 This led to a ladder match at SummerSlam, where the Rock lost the title.[79]
The Rock saw a big uptick in fan support during this time, causing him to be booked in a
feud with fellow Nation members Mark Henry and D'Lo Brown, turning babyface in the
process. Henry defeated him at Judgment Day: In Your House, after interference from
Brown, effectively breaking up the stable.[80][81]
WWF Champion and rise to superstardom (1998–2000)