Dwayne Johnson sport professional wrestling
Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor, film producer, and former professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he was integral to the development and success of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) during the Attitude Era, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Johnson wrestled for the WWF 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, making him one of the world's highest-grossing and highest-paid actors.After accepting an athletic scholarship to play at the University of Miami, he was a member of the 1991 national championship team, but largely spent his four college football years in backup roles behind elite players, including future NFL player and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Warren Sapp. Johnson aspired to play professional football but went undrafted in the 1995 NFL draft. Following his graduation, he signed with the Calgary Stampeders but was cut from the team in his first season. In 1996, Johnson's father Rocky, a longtime professional wrestler, assisted in helping him secure a contract with the WWF. Johnson quickly rose to global prominence, aided by a gimmick he employed as a charismatic trash talker. Johnson left WWE in 2004 and returned in 2011 as a part-time performer until 2013, making sporadic appearances until retiring in 2019. A 10-time world champion, including the promotion's first of African-American descent, he is also a two-time Intercontinental Champion, a five-time Tag Team Champion, the 2000 Royal Rumble winner, and WWE's sixth Triple Crown champion. Johnson headlined the most-bought professional wrestling pay-per-view (WrestleMania XXVIII) and was featured among the most watched episodes of WWE's flagship television series (Raw and SmackDown).Johnson's first film appearance was in The Mummy Returns (2001). The following year he played his first leading role as the titular character in the sword and sorcery action fantasy film The Scorpion King (2002). He has since starred in family films The Game Plan (2007), Race to Witch Mountain (2009), Tooth Fairy (2010),  and Jungle Cruise (2021), as well as the action adventure films Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), Hercules (2014), Skyscraper (2018), San Andreas (2015) and Rampage (2018). He also starred in the action comedy films Get Smart (2008), Central Intelligence (2016), Baywatch (2017), and Red Notice (2021). In 2016 he voiced Maui in the Disney animated film Moana (2016). His role as Luke Hobbs in the Fast & Furious films, beginning with Fast Five (2011), helped the franchise become one of the highest-grossing in film. Johnson also stars in the Jumanji films, appearing in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), and voices Bark Kent / Krypto / Superdog, Anubis, and Teth-Adam / Black Adam in the animated film DC League of Super-Pets (2022), before starring as the latter in the live-action superhero film Black Adam (2022).
Johnson produced and starred in the HBO comedy-drama series Ballers (2015–2019), and the autobiographical sitcom Young Rock (2021). In 2000, Johnson released his autobiography, The Rock Says, which was a New York Times bestseller. In 2012, he co-founded the entertainment production company Seven Bucks Productions, and is co-owner of the XFL a professional American football league, which he acquired from WWE owner Vince McMahon for $15 million in 2020. In 2016 and 2019, Time named Johnson one of the world's most influential people.Professional wrestling career
Early career (1996)
After being cut by Calgary, Johnson began his professional wrestling career the following year, in 1996. Veteran wrestler Pat Patterson secured several tryout matches for Johnson with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1996. Wrestling at first under his real name, Johnson defeated The Brooklyn Brawler at a house show on March 10 and lost matches to Chris Candido and Owen Hart. After wrestling at Jerry Lawler's United States Wrestling Association under the name Flex Kavana and winning the USWA tag team championship twice with his partner Bart Sawyer in the summer of 1996, Johnson was signed to a WWF contract. He received additional training from Tom Prichard, alongside Achim Albrecht and Mark Henry.Legacy and career assessment
The Rock has been listed as one of the all-time greatest professional wrestlers as well as one of the top draws in wrestling history. Many have placed the Rock on their "Mount Rushmore of Pro Wrestling", including Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and John Cena. 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". 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".The Rock main-evented the most bought pay-per-view worldwide in WWE history (WrestleMania XXVIII), the most bought pay-per-view domestically in WWE history (WrestleMania X-Seven), the highest rated Raw in history, the highest rated SmackDown in history, and was part of the highest rated cable segment in WWE history with Mankind entitled "This is Your Life", in which Mankind would honor The Rock with various gifts and reunions. His return in 2001 did a 7.1 rating which was the highest rated segment of the entire year. The Rock was also part of the highest rated match of the 21st century with his WWF Championship defense, on May 1, 2000, against Shane McMahon did an 8.3 rating making it the highest rated segment of all time behind 'This is your life'.
In 2011, the Rock's return to an episode of Raw generated an average of 4.7 million viewers in the United States, with 7.4 million tuning in during his promo. Raw 1000 was the highest rated Raw episode of 2012 and his segment with CM Punk and Daniel Bryan was the highest rated segment of the show. In 2013, the night after the Rock won the WWE Championship for the first time in over a decade, at Royal Rumble, Raw got its highest rating of that year.Derived from one of his catchphrases "lay the smackdown", WWE introduced its second flagship program WWE SmackDown in 1999 which later became television's second longest-running weekly episodic program in history. The term "smackdown" was instituted in Merriam-Webster dictionaries since 2007. He is also known for popularizing the term "jabroni", derived from "jobber", although it was originally introduced by The Iron Sheik.The Rock 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).At the 2021 Survivor Series, WWE held a 25-man Battle Royal to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of The Rock's WWE debut.  The match was won by Omos.
athletics competitive physical activity physical competition