Dwayne Johnson

**Dwayne Douglas Johnson** (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name **The Rock**, is an American actor, producer, and former professional wrestler.[9] Johnson was a professional wrestler for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) for eight years prior to pursuing an acting career. His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and over $10.3 billion worldwide,[10] making Johnson one of the highest-grossing box-office stars of all time.[11]

Johnson was a college football player for the University of Miami, with whom he won a national championship in 1991. He initially aspired for a professional career in football and entered the 1995 NFL Draft, but he went undrafted. As a result, Johnson signed with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League (CFL), but was cut from the team in the middle of his first season. Shortly after, he began training as a professional wrestler.[12]

In 1996, Johnson secured a contract with the WWF and was promoted as the first third-generation wrestler in the company's history, as he is the son of Rocky Johnson and grandson of Peter Maivia. He rose to prominence after developing a charismatic persona of a boastful trash-talking wrestler named The Rock. He subsequently won his first WWF Championship in 1998 and helped usher the WWF into the "Attitude Era", a boom period in the company's business in the latter 1990s and early 2000s which still hold professional wrestling records for television ratings.[13] In 2004, he left the WWE to pursue an acting career and went on a seven-year hiatus before returning in 2011 as a part-time performer until 2013, before wholly retiring in 2019.

Considered to be one of the greatest professional wrestlers and biggest draws of all-time,[14][15] The Rock headlined the most bought professional wrestling pay-per-view event, WrestleMania XXVIII, and was featured in among the most watched episodes of WWE's television shows, *WWE Raw* and *WWE SmackDown*.[16][17] He has won several championships, being a two-time Intercontinental Champion, a five-time tag team champion, and a ten-time world champion.[18] He was also a Royal Rumble match winner and WWE's sixth Triple Crown champion.

Johnson had his first acting role in *The Mummy Returns* (2001), and played his first lead role in the spin-off *The Scorpion King* (2002). He has since starred in numerous other films, including *The Rundown* (2003), *The Other Guys* (2010), *Moana* (2016), and *Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle* (2017). Johnson's most successful box office role has been Luke Hobbs in *The Fast and the Furious* franchise. He first appeared as the character in *Fast Five* (2011) and helped catapult the film series into one of the top-grossing movie franchises in history.[19] The character's popularity led to *The Fast and the Furious* spin-off movie *Hobbs & Shaw* (2019).[20]

Johnson has also attained success as an author and producer.[21][22] In 2000, he released an autobiography titled *The Rock Says...* which debuted at number one on *The New York Times* Best Seller list.[23][24] In 2012, he founded the entertainment production company Seven Bucks Productions, which has since produced several films.[25] Consistently ranked among the world's highest paid actors,[26] Johnson made the *Time* 100 Most Influential People in the World list in both 2016 and 2019.[27][28]