Name: The Rock Went from Nice Guy to Heel by Learning to Be Himself
Uploaded: 2023-11-15T18:32:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Rock Went from Nice Guy to Heel by Learning to Be Himself' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Rock Went from Nice Guy to Heel by Learning to Be Himself' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-15. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- Dudes, I'm on the phone.
It's one of those old-ass phones that are on the wall.
I'm on the phone.
I see my dad over there in the chair.
My dad's just an old-time grizzly wrestler.
We're living in his little apartment in Tampa.
My mom's over there on the couch,
and I tell the coach quietly,
Wally Buono is his name, great guy.
I said, "Hey, thank you for the opportunity.
"I really appreciate it,
"but I'm gonna have to close this chapter in my life."
And he's like, I hear him kind of softly talk.
Okay, yeah.
And I said, "So, thank you very much.
"I appreciate it."
Hung up the phone.
My dad said, "Who was that?"
I said, "Oh, it was a coach from Calgary."
He said, "What do you want?"
Oh, he wanted to offer me another contract for next year.
By the way, the contract was,
I was making 300 bucks a week, Canadian.
- Wow.
- So, there was no money up there, at least not for me.
And he goes, "So, when are you gonna go?"
My old man said this.
I said, "I'm not."
He said, "What do you mean you're not?"
I said, "I think I'm done.
"I'm done with football and the pursuit of it.
"It's just not in my cards."
He said, "What are you gonna do?"
I said, "I'm gonna get in the business."
He went, "What business?"
I said, "The wrestling business."
Dude, we got in the biggest fucking fight.
- Really?
- The biggest, am I-
- He didn't want you to do it?
- He didn't want me to do it.
But my old man was a ground breaker.
First black tag team champions in WWE.
He was jacked.
Pull up my dad if you can.
Rocky Johnson, I want to show you.
Like he was- - Oh, I know your dad.
- Jacked, man.
- He was jacked.
- He was part of that group in the early '80s, right?
Who were like bodybuilding.
- There he is.
- Look at that shot.
- Dang it.
That's the genetics, son.
- That's it, brother.
- That's where those rock genetics come.
- That's it.
- Yeah, oh my God, he was jacked.
So, yeah, and we bonded.
He used to get me up and take me to the gym
when I was five, sit in the corner.
And I just, that's how I get to really bond with my dad.
He didn't want me to do it.
And we got into the biggest fucking fight.
My mom's crying, I'm crying.
And he said, what do you think you have to offer?
I said, I don't know.
Maybe I'm gonna fucking suck, but I gotta give this a shot.
And it ultimately, it got to a place where I said,
either you're gonna help train me,
I'm asking you to help train me,
or I'll go to somebody else.
And at that time, Bret Hart and that whole family
had his dungeon up in Calgary.
I said, maybe I'll go to Calgary.
He agreed to train me,
but I realized he didn't want to see that happen
because he was, he felt like, hey, look around.
Like I, and I was one of the successful ones in wrestling,
but I got a little fucking apartment that I gotta,
I can't even afford to pay 500 bucks a month.
I don't want this for you.
We got into a huge fight.
He eventually trained me.
I call a guy, after three months of training,
call a guy named Pat Patterson,
who was Vince McMahon's right-hand man,
very brilliant mind in the world of pro wrestling,
first openly gay wrestler, tough motherfucker.
I call him up, 'cause my parents knew him,
and I said, hey, Pat, this is Dwayne Johnson.
Who?
Dwayne Johnson, Rocky Johnson's son.
Oh yeah, what do you want?
I'm gonna, I'm trying, I'm training to get in the business.
What fucking business?
It's a recurring theme.
Everybody's like, what fucking business?
The wrestling business.
Why the fuck do you want to do that?
You're just feeling like you're just getting bombed, right,
right, left and right, by these OGs.
So I said, I'd love for you to come down
and just watch me train, and if I got anything to offer,
just let me know, and if I don't, just let me know.
That's all I want, he agreed, he came down, watch me train.
He said to me as we're training, he goes,
can you work as a heel?
Which is, as you know, bad guy in wrestling parlance.
I said, sure, I'd love to.
Start the match, I work as a heel,
more aggressive, dirty, cheating stuff, right?
He goes, okay, you're done, done.
And I had trained in a boxing ring,
and as you know, boxing rings are fucking hard.
It's like this, so getting suplexed on the fucking table,
so it really hurt, that's how I came up in wrestling.
He's smoking a cigarette.
I said, what do you think, do I have anything?
He goes, yeah, you just keep working.
Take care of yourself and leaves.
And I was like, did I just fuck?
'Cause this, he had a lot of, he was, he had a lot of power.
He was like the vice president of WWE.
I said, okay, well thank you so much for coming out.
And I said, just, just keep working.
He goes, just keep working.
Kind of blew me off.
Kept smoking a cigarette and walked off.
And I was like, man, I think I really fuck things up,
or maybe I'll take his word for face value,
take it for gospel, I'll just keep working.
Little I knew, he went home, and he called Vince McMahon.
He said, you gotta see this fucking kid.
And Vince said, who, Rocky Johnson's son.
He goes, all right, let me see him.
Bring him out this Monday on Raw,
I'll throw him out in a match before the show starts.
Whoa.
Corpus Christi, 15,000 people.
Whoa.
Dude.
This is your first match?
First match.
Oh my God.
So Vince says to Pat, okay, great.
How long has he been working?
He goes, he hasn't worked.
He goes, what do you mean?
He's never had a match.
He's like, he's never had a fucking match.
I'm not bringing him out, he's never had a match.
He's gonna stink up the ring.
Pat said, just trust me.
So they fly me out, Corpus Christi,
14,000 people.
I go out and have my first match and I'm 24 years old.
Wow.
I have my first match.
'Cause usually when you break in,
you're wrestling at a farm or there's a barn, 10 people.
14,000 people.
I wrestled the Brooklyn Brawler.
This is famous in the world of wrestling.
And I get backstage.
Everyone's, hey, great job, great job, keep working.
I see Vince McMahon, he says, you did a good job.
But be prepared, I'm gonna give you a little bit more tomorrow.
I went, great.
Okay.
I see Pat Patterson smoking a cigarette.
Come here for a second.
I said, yeah.
He goes, your punches.
I went, yeah?
They fucking suck.
He was riding me, riding me, riding me.
So that was my first match, first experience, man.
Wow.
Yeah.
And then he, by the way, he said, if you're, if you have a shred of opportunity
to make it in this business,
you're gonna have to learn a lot of shit, but learn how to throw a great punch.
What was wrong with the way you were throwing a punch?
It just didn't look real.
And the best of punches, like, you gotta be snug, you lay them in a little bit.
But you pull it back a little.
You pull it, well, you can pull it back a little, but I found the best punch is
if you follow through,
but learn how to just tap a little bit.
And then, you know, that's, that's where you learn that kind of timing.
You know how some guys, they hit a rope or a piece of string or something like
that?
Right.
So, yeah, so I worked on the punches, too, as well.
Wow.
That was crazy.
That was my first match.
That's insane.
Yeah.
When was the next match?
The next match was the following night.
Whoa!
So you were right into it.
Right into it.
What's the second match like versus the first?
You've already done it, you've already been in front of 15,000 people.
I'm feeling pretty good because, as you know, and, like, people out there know,
if you prepare, then, all right, I'm as prepared as I possibly can be.
Right.
So we'll just see how it goes.
So the second night, I had a little bit of confidence, but the guy they put me
in there
with was a guy named Chris Candido, incredible wrestler, does a lot of acrobatic
stuff, flying
stuff, he had me, he called the match, had me flying all around and doing all
this stuff,
but it was, it was a, it was a great experience.
After that, I met with Vince, he said, you're not ready for WWE, you're not
ready for the big
time, I'm going to send you to down to Tennessee, and that's where you're going
to learn how
to work, and it was just a smaller company, minor leagues, he said, but you're
going to
go down there, you learn how to cut your teeth down there, learn how to work,
learn the business,
and when you're ready, if you're ready, I'll bring you up.
I was like, thank you very much, I appreciate it, and I went to work.
So dude, as I'm leaving Vince McMahon's office, he says, hey, by the way, I
turn around,
and he goes, don't go down there and cut your forehead up with razor blades.
I went, okay, got it.
Because in wrestling, there was a time where that's how you bled, with razor
blades, and
he goes, I want to protect this.
I said, good, I do too.
All right.
Then years later, I'm fucking doing this up in WWE, but.
That had to be a good feeling, though, that he had some real hope in you.
That is my second match.
This is insane.
Right there, look at that.
This is insane.
Wow.
Does it seem surreal watching this?
This is so surreal, man.
Look at this.
By the way, you see people still coming in, right?
Yeah.
Empty seats.
That was it.
Wow.
That was it, man.
First match.
Memories.
First match.
Wow.
That's crazy.
It's incredible.
And then to go from there to where you became, how did it be surreal?
It was the most surreal thing, because finally when they called me up to WWE,
it was November.
Vince brings me in, and I go to a big pay-per-view called Survivor Series.
All the wrestling fans out know what this pay-per-view is.
It's November 1996.
There it is.
Here it is.
Dude.
Look at that fucking haircut.
Look at you.
Ray Charles cut my hair back then.
I was like.
Wow.
So this is Madison Square Garden.
22,000 people.
This is, there's Jerry the King Lawler.
The guy's a legend.
This is great.
There's a little bit of, watch this.
There we go.
There's a double leapfrog here.
Wow.
Dropkick is coming up.
A little punch.
So even if you see that punch, it was a little shitty punch anyway.
But this is, so that was Madison Square Garden.
Sold out.
Vince McMahon tells me an hour before I go out, you're going to win the whole
thing tonight.
Whoa.
I went, what do you mean?
He goes, you're going to win the whole thing.
I'm throwing you right into the fire.
I'll never forget this.
He said, you're either going to fucking sink or you're going to swim.
It's New York City.
It's up to you.
And I went, okay, great.
I talked to all the guys.
And by the way, in order to make someone like that, you need the other guys,
right?
To say, because I always like to say, you never beat anybody in wrestling.
Truly beat you.
The guy allows you to beat them.
Right.
So all those guys in that ring right there, I'll forever be grateful for them
because they allowed that to happen.
So I win the match.
New star is born in the world of pro wrestling.
This rookie kid, Rocky Maivia, this is the one, two, three here.
That wrestler is Goldust.
Comes from a very famous family.
That guy was amazing.
You remember him?
He was amazing, man.
The whole Goldust thing was crazy.
So can you pause that for a second?
Go back to my hair.
So I didn't know.
Look at this.
Pause.
I didn't know that I went to the hair person who was backstage.
I said, can you give me something that's going to make my hair like nice and
like go down?
And she gave me like a thing that made it frizzy.
And then that's what you get, by the way.
Just a fucked up haircut on your debut.
Like luckily, the people of New York was like, we kind of like this kid.
His haircut is really fucked up.
You look like Kid N Play.
You look like the bigger version of Kid N Play.
Look at this.
Look at that thing.
Like, fuck.
That's a solid foot above your head.
That's awful.
Right this time, the referee's like, hey, get the fuck out of the ring.
Come on.
We got a show.
So you.
So, well, so what, go ahead.
No, no, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say, so we win this match and things are ascending.
The dream is coming true.
Like, this is it, man.
I finally feel like this is what I was born to do.
And man, it's feeling so fucking good.
Guys in the locker room, everybody take me under their wing.
There's some political bullshit that you always want to stay away from.
I've always stayed away from that.
But for the most part, everybody's supportive.
Because even though it's a cutthroat business backstage, you still need some
guys who are going to show you the way.
So I wound up becoming the youngest Intercontinental Champion, beating Triple H,
or he let me beat him.
Everything was doing this.
So at that time, this interesting thing was happening in the world of pro
wrestling where it was fans were cheering the heels.
And anti-authority, fuck the boss, led by Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Giving everybody the bird, fuck Vince McMahon.
Fans were loving that, gravitating towards this.
That guy drives a pickup truck, drinks a beer, tells everybody to go fuck
themselves.
Now, in wrestling world, that's supposed to be a bad guy.
But now he's becoming a hero.
Then you have this kid who's 25 who's coming out.
Here we go.
You know, the fucking old school.
And Vince and the company always told me, hey, you can't smile enough.
I was like, what do you mean?
You go out, you smile, I want to make sure everybody knows you're grateful,
gratitude of attitude.
And I said, no, okay.
And it started not to feel good to me because I said, well, you know, these
nights I'm getting beat.
But I still want you to smile anyway.
So you have this thing happening over here, the rise of the attitude era.
And then you have this kid who's just smiling away.
Everything is good, even when he fucking loses.
And it never felt right to me here.
And then fans started to turn.
Booing every night.
Got to a point, dude, going into my first WrestleMania, Chicago.
I'll never forget it.
Every night they were chanting Rocky sucks.
Whoa.
And I had to smile through it.
The bosses were telling me, no, you got to smile.
Don't keep smiling.
Ignore it.
Ignore it.
Just ignore it.
If you're paying your hard-earned money as a fan, even though this world is
fiction and it's not real,
the best of the wrestlers always came from a real place.
So I was smiling away.
I get to WrestleMania, Chicago.
Sold out.
Stone Cold Steve Austin's on top in the main event.
I'm defending my title.
WrestleMania.
20,000 people start chanting Rocky sucks.
So imagine that.
You're a kid, 25 years old.
You got the belt on you.
Pressure.
You're in there.
And the guy who I was wrestling, the Sultan, who was actually my cousin, Rikishi,
from my Samoan side,
he had me in a rear chin lock.
Whole arena's chanting Rocky sucks.
He's whispering to me, don't listen to him.
Don't listen to him.
Now I'm like, fuck.
This is my life now.
Right.
We get out of the match.
I go backstage.
Vince looks at me and Pat and just says, I don't know what we did wrong, but we
have to make a change.
I know what that means.
Two days later, I drop the belt to somebody else.
Now I'm getting beat every night, getting beat every night.
And then I get hurt.
I tear my PCL, a wrestling guy named Mick Foley.
Now by this time, it's May.
Vince says, take time off.
Heal your knee.
I don't know what we did wrong or where we went wrong, but we got to really
figure things out with you.
I don't know if this is going to work out.
Oof.
Yeah, man.
And this is 1997, summer of 97.
Now, you'll appreciate this part.
In 97, during that time, while I was still going out to L.A. and working out,
we were crossing all the MMA guys.
Pride just opened up in Japan.
So I was seeing all these MMA guys going over to Pride.
You remember that time, right?
I think you might have been with UFC at that time, right?
Yeah.
And at that time, I was making $150,000 wrestling 235 days a year.
So do the math of that and how much you're making per match.
We start hearing, hey, these guys over in Pride are making $250,000, $350,000,
$500,000.
And I thought then, well, fuck, I don't think I'm going to make it in WWE.
People are booing me out of the arenas.
I can't be myself.
They're telling me to fucking smile.
I don't want to fucking smile.
It's not who I am.
I start talking to Ken Shamrock at that time who was wrestling with us.
I run into Mark Kerr.
I start talking to him.
He told me a little bit about Pride.
And I have this idea in my head.
Well, maybe I should train to MMA and go to Pride and make money, real money.
And then I don't have to smile.
I'm sure I'm going to get fucked up over there and knock one of my lungs loose.
But maybe I could do something like that.
Find the right coach and train.
So I had this whole thing in my head.
I was talking to my wife at that time.
I said, I think that's the way to go because those guys are paying real money.
And these fans are booing me over here for $150,000.
I get a call from Vince.
And he says, how's your knee?
I said, it's healing up.
I don't tell him about this idea after I've talked to Shamrock and Kerr and all
these guys.
He goes, I want to try and bring you back one time.
See how it works out.
I want to turn you heel.
And we have a faction called the Nation of Domination.
Who DC loves, by the way.
That was his famous.
His favorite, Daniel.
The Black Militant Group.
He goes, I want to have you join them and we'll see how it works out.
I come in.
I said, okay.
But I still got this MMA thought in my head.
Again, I just want to make money and I want to be myself.
Right.
When I get to the arena that night, I'm going to join the Nation.
I went to Vince and at that time there was only just two hours of live show,
Monday Night Raw.
Now there's six hours of show on two different programs.
So I said to Vince, hey, tonight when I go out there, could I just have two
minutes on the microphone?
And he's like, I don't know.
He goes, it's live.
You know, all our time's accounted for, allocated.
I said, I just need two minutes.
He goes, why?
I said, I just want to be real and just tell the fans how I feel.
And I feel like I need to recalibrate things here.
He said, fine.
A minute you got.
Great.
Get on the microphone.
Now I'm walking out.
They're booing me.
Rocky sucks.
But now I'm a heel with this heel group.
I grabbed the microphone and I say something like, listen, I'm a lot of things,
but sucks isn't one of them.
And joining the nation isn't a white thing.
It's not a black thing.
It's a me kicking your ass thing.
And I'm going to earn this respect one way or the other.
Dude, that was the most freeing thing.
For me in my career, it was like, you know how you have these defining moments?
Even in that one little moment, I was just fucking ripping all this open.
Saying, here I am.
Now you can fucking boo me, but now watch how I respond.
I'm going to be real.
Not enough to smile anymore.
I don't fuck the smiling.
I'll smile when I want to smile.
Right, right, right.
But now watch how I can respond.
Watch my words now.
Watch my actions.
Dude, the fans felt something that night within...
A month, I became the hottest heel in WWE.
Wow.

The Rock Went from Nice Guy to Heel by Learning to Be Himself

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- Dudes, I'm on the phone.
It's one of those old-ass phones that are on the wall.
I'm on the phone.
I see my dad over there in the chair.
My dad's just an old-time grizzly wrestler.
We're living in his little apartment in Tampa.
My mom's over there on the couch,
and I tell the coach quietly,
Wally Buono is his name, great guy.
I said, "Hey, thank you for the opportunity.
"I really appreciate it,
"but I'm gonna have to close this chapter in my life."
And he's like, I hear him kind of softly talk.
Okay, yeah.
And I said, "So, thank you very much.
"I appreciate it."
Hung up the phone.
My dad said, "Who was that?"
I said, "Oh, it was a coach from Calgary."
He said, "What do you want?"
Oh, he wanted to offer me another contract for next year.
By the way, the contract was,
I was making 300 bucks a week, Canadian.
- Wow.
- So, there was no money up there, at least not for me.
And he goes, "So, when are you gonna go?"
My old man said this.
I said, "I'm not."
He said, "What do you mean you're not?"
I said, "I think I'm done.
"I'm done with football and the pursuit of it.
"It's just not in my cards."
He said, "What are you gonna do?"
I said, "I'm gonna get in the business."
He went, "What business?"
I said, "The wrestling business."
Dude, we got in the biggest fucking fight.
- Really?
- The biggest, am I-
- He didn't want you to do it?
- He didn't want me to do it.
But my old man was a ground breaker.
First black tag team champions in WWE.
He was jacked.
Pull up my dad if you can.
Rocky Johnson, I want to show you.
Like he was- - Oh, I know your dad.
- Jacked, man.
- He was jacked.
- He was part of that group in the early '80s, right?
Who were like bodybuilding.
- There he is.
- Look at that shot.
- Dang it.
That's the genetics, son.
- That's it, brother.
- That's where those rock genetics come.
- That's it.
- Yeah, oh my God, he was jacked.
So, yeah, and we bonded.
He used to get me up and take me to the gym
when I was five, sit in the corner.
And I just, that's how I get to really bond with my dad.
He didn't want me to do it.
And we got into the biggest fucking fight.
My mom's crying, I'm crying.
And he said, what do you think you have to offer?
I said, I don't know.
Maybe I'm gonna fucking suck, but I gotta give this a shot.
And it ultimately, it got to a place where I said,
either you're gonna help train me,
I'm asking you to help train me,
or I'll go to somebody else.
And at that time, Bret Hart and that whole family
had his dungeon up in Calgary.
I said, maybe I'll go to Calgary.
He agreed to train me,
but I realized he didn't want to see that happen
because he was, he felt like, hey, look around.
Like I, and I was one of the successful ones in wrestling,
but I got a little fucking apartment that I gotta,
I can't even afford to pay 500 bucks a month.
I don't want this for you.
We got into a huge fight.
He eventually trained me.
I call a guy, after three months of training,
call a guy named Pat Patterson,
who was Vince McMahon's right-hand man,
very brilliant mind in the world of pro wrestling,
first openly gay wrestler, tough motherfucker.
I call him up, 'cause my parents knew him,
and I said, hey, Pat, this is Dwayne Johnson.
Who?
Dwayne Johnson, Rocky Johnson's son.
Oh yeah, what do you want?
I'm gonna, I'm trying, I'm training to get in the business.
What fucking business?
It's a recurring theme.
Everybody's like, what fucking business?
The wrestling business.
Why the fuck do you want to do that?
You're just feeling like you're just getting bombed, right,
right, left and right, by these OGs.
So I said, I'd love for you to come down
and just watch me train, and if I got anything to offer,
just let me know, and if I don't, just let me know.
That's all I want, he agreed, he came down, watch me train.
He said to me as we're training, he goes,
can you work as a heel?
Which is, as you know, bad guy in wrestling parlance.
I said, sure, I'd love to.
Start the match, I work as a heel,
more aggressive, dirty, cheating stuff, right?
He goes, okay, you're done, done.
And I had trained in a boxing ring,
and as you know, boxing rings are fucking hard.
It's like this, so getting suplexed on the fucking table,
so it really hurt, that's how I came up in wrestling.
He's smoking a cigarette.
I said, what do you think, do I have anything?
He goes, yeah, you just keep working.
Take care of yourself and leaves.
And I was like, did I just fuck?
'Cause this, he had a lot of, he was, he had a lot of power.
He was like the vice president of WWE.
I said, okay, well thank you so much for coming out.
And I said, just, just keep working.
He goes, just keep working.
Kind of blew me off.
Kept smoking a cigarette and walked off.
And I was like, man, I think I really fuck things up,
or maybe I'll take his word for face value,
take it for gospel, I'll just keep working.
Little I knew, he went home, and he called Vince McMahon.
He said, you gotta see this fucking kid.
And Vince said, who, Rocky Johnson's son.
He goes, all right, let me see him.
Bring him out this Monday on Raw,
I'll throw him out in a match before the show starts.
Whoa.
Corpus Christi, 15,000 people.
Whoa.
Dude.
This is your first match?
First match.
Oh my God.
So Vince says to Pat, okay, great.
How long has he been working?
He goes, he hasn't worked.
He goes, what do you mean?
He's never had a match.
He's like, he's never had a fucking match.
I'm not bringing him out, he's never had a match.
He's gonna stink up the ring.
Pat said, just trust me.
So they fly me out, Corpus Christi,
14,000 people.
I go out and have my first match and I'm 24 years old.
Wow.
I have my first match.
'Cause usually when you break in,
you're wrestling at a farm or there's a barn, 10 people.
14,000 people.
I wrestled the Brooklyn Brawler.
This is famous in the world of wrestling.
And I get backstage.
Everyone's, hey, great job, great job, keep working.
I see Vince McMahon, he says, you did a good job.
But be prepared, I'm gonna give you a little bit more tomorrow.
I went, great.
Okay.
I see Pat Patterson smoking a cigarette.
Come here for a second.
I said, yeah.
He goes, your punches.
I went, yeah?
They fucking suck.
He was riding me, riding me, riding me.
So that was my first match, first experience, man.
Wow.
Yeah.
And then he, by the way, he said, if you're, if you have a shred of opportunity
to make it in this business,
you're gonna have to learn a lot of shit, but learn how to throw a great punch.
What was wrong with the way you were throwing a punch?
It just didn't look real.
And the best of punches, like, you gotta be snug, you lay them in a little bit.
But you pull it back a little.
You pull it, well, you can pull it back a little, but I found the best punch is
if you follow through,
but learn how to just tap a little bit.
And then, you know, that's, that's where you learn that kind of timing.
You know how some guys, they hit a rope or a piece of string or something like
that?
Right.
So, yeah, so I worked on the punches, too, as well.
Wow.
That was crazy.
That was my first match.
That's insane.
Yeah.
When was the next match?
The next match was the following night.
Whoa!
So you were right into it.
Right into it.
What's the second match like versus the first?
You've already done it, you've already been in front of 15,000 people.
I'm feeling pretty good because, as you know, and, like, people out there know,
if you prepare, then, all right, I'm as prepared as I possibly can be.
Right.
So we'll just see how it goes.
So the second night, I had a little bit of confidence, but the guy they put me
in there
with was a guy named Chris Candido, incredible wrestler, does a lot of acrobatic
stuff, flying
stuff, he had me, he called the match, had me flying all around and doing all
this stuff,
but it was, it was a, it was a great experience.
After that, I met with Vince, he said, you're not ready for WWE, you're not
ready for the big
time, I'm going to send you to down to Tennessee, and that's where you're going
to learn how
to work, and it was just a smaller company, minor leagues, he said, but you're
going to
go down there, you learn how to cut your teeth down there, learn how to work,
learn the business,
and when you're ready, if you're ready, I'll bring you up.
I was like, thank you very much, I appreciate it, and I went to work.
So dude, as I'm leaving Vince McMahon's office, he says, hey, by the way, I
turn around,
and he goes, don't go down there and cut your forehead up with razor blades.
I went, okay, got it.
Because in wrestling, there was a time where that's how you bled, with razor
blades, and
he goes, I want to protect this.
I said, good, I do too.
All right.
Then years later, I'm fucking doing this up in WWE, but.
That had to be a good feeling, though, that he had some real hope in you.
That is my second match.
This is insane.
Right there, look at that.
This is insane.
Wow.
Does it seem surreal watching this?
This is so surreal, man.
Look at this.
By the way, you see people still coming in, right?
Yeah.
Empty seats.
That was it.
Wow.
That was it, man.
First match.
Memories.
First match.
Wow.
That's crazy.
It's incredible.
And then to go from there to where you became, how did it be surreal?
It was the most surreal thing, because finally when they called me up to WWE,
it was November.
Vince brings me in, and I go to a big pay-per-view called Survivor Series.
All the wrestling fans out know what this pay-per-view is.
It's November 1996.
There it is.
Here it is.
Dude.
Look at that fucking haircut.
Look at you.
Ray Charles cut my hair back then.
I was like.
Wow.
So this is Madison Square Garden.
22,000 people.
This is, there's Jerry the King Lawler.
The guy's a legend.
This is great.
There's a little bit of, watch this.
There we go.
There's a double leapfrog here.
Wow.
Dropkick is coming up.
A little punch.
So even if you see that punch, it was a little shitty punch anyway.
But this is, so that was Madison Square Garden.
Sold out.
Vince McMahon tells me an hour before I go out, you're going to win the whole
thing tonight.
Whoa.
I went, what do you mean?
He goes, you're going to win the whole thing.
I'm throwing you right into the fire.
I'll never forget this.
He said, you're either going to fucking sink or you're going to swim.
It's New York City.
It's up to you.
And I went, okay, great.
I talked to all the guys.
And by the way, in order to make someone like that, you need the other guys,
right?
To say, because I always like to say, you never beat anybody in wrestling.
Truly beat you.
The guy allows you to beat them.
Right.
So all those guys in that ring right there, I'll forever be grateful for them
because they allowed that to happen.
So I win the match.
New star is born in the world of pro wrestling.
This rookie kid, Rocky Maivia, this is the one, two, three here.
That wrestler is Goldust.
Comes from a very famous family.
That guy was amazing.
You remember him?
He was amazing, man.
The whole Goldust thing was crazy.
So can you pause that for a second?
Go back to my hair.
So I didn't know.
Look at this.
Pause.
I didn't know that I went to the hair person who was backstage.
I said, can you give me something that's going to make my hair like nice and
like go down?
And she gave me like a thing that made it frizzy.
And then that's what you get, by the way.
Just a fucked up haircut on your debut.
Like luckily, the people of New York was like, we kind of like this kid.
His haircut is really fucked up.
You look like Kid N Play.
You look like the bigger version of Kid N Play.
Look at this.
Look at that thing.
Like, fuck.
That's a solid foot above your head.
That's awful.
Right this time, the referee's like, hey, get the fuck out of the ring.
Come on.
We got a show.
So you.
So, well, so what, go ahead.
No, no, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say, so we win this match and things are ascending.
The dream is coming true.
Like, this is it, man.
I finally feel like this is what I was born to do.
And man, it's feeling so fucking good.
Guys in the