After accepting an athletic scholarship to play football at the University of Miami, he was a member of the 1991 national championship team but was largely a backup player.[20] Despite aspirations to professional football, he went undrafted in the 1995 NFL draft, and briefly signed with the Calgary Stampeders before being cut in his first season.[21] In 1996, Johnson's father Rocky assisted in helping him secure a contract with the WWF.[2] Johnson quickly rose to global prominence, aided by a gimmick he employed as a charismatic trash talker. Johnson left the WWE in 2004 and returned in 2011 as a part-time performer until 2013, making sporadic appearances from thereon until 2019[22] where he quietly retired until 2023, where he returned once again on a part-time basis. A 10-time world champion, including the promotion's first of African-American descent,[23] 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 multiple pay-per-view events, including WWE's flagship event WrestleMania six times (15, 16, 17, 28, 29 and 40) which includes the most-bought professional wrestling pay-per-view (WrestleMania 28) and main evented the most watched episodes of WWE's flagship television series (Raw and SmackDown).[24][25]
By his senior year at Freedom High School, Johnson had played only two years of football, but was offered a full athletic scholarship offer from the University of Miami, whose football program was beginning to emerge as one of the nation's top-level NCAA Division 1 teams.[20]
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After graduating, Johnson was signed by the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League. Calgary moved him from defensive tackle to linebacker. He was assigned to Calgary's practice roster, but was cut two months into Calgary's 1995 season.[39][67][68]
After being cut by Calgary, Johnson began his professional wrestling career the next year, in 1996.[39] 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.[69][41] 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.[5][41]
Johnson made his WWF debut as Rocky Maivia, a combination of his father and grandfather's ring names, although announcers acknowledged his real name.[70] He was initially reluctant to take this ring name but was persuaded by Vince McMahon and Jim Ross.[50][71] He was given the nickname "The Blue Chipper", and to play up his lineage, he was hyped as the WWF's first third-generation wrestler.[3] A clean-cut face character, Maivia 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.[72] His first match came at Survivor Series on November 17, 1996, 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.[73] On February 13, 1997, he won the Intercontinental Championship from Hunter Hearst Helmsley on Monday Night Raw.[74][75][76] Maivia then successfully defended the title against Helmsley at In Your House 13: Final Four.
Johnson's first WrestleMania match came at WrestleMania 13 on March 23, 1997, where he was victorious in his Intercontinental Championship defense against The Sultan. WWF fans started to reject his character and push from the company.[77] He defeated Bret Hart by disqualification in a title defense on the March 31 episode of Raw is War.[78] Behind the scenes, Hart mentored Johnson for his first year in WWF and refused to be booked to take the title from him.[79][80] 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][50]
At D-Generation X: In Your House on December 7, 1997, Stone Cold Steve Austin defeated the Rock in under six minutes to retain the Intercontinental Championship.[83] 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.[84][85] The Rock feuded with Austin and Ken Shamrock through the end of 1997 and beginning of 1998.[86][87] On January 19, 1998, at the 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".[88]
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.[89] This led to a ladder match at SummerSlam on August 30, 1998, where the Rock lost the title.[90]
In the latter half of 1998, The Rock saw a big uptick in fan support. He also started consolidating his famous persona during this time, which would last until 2000.[91] His popularity caused 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 on October 18, 1998, after interference from Brown, effectively breaking up the stable.[92][93]
In the main event of the January 4, 1999, episode of Raw Is War, Mankind defeated the Rock for the championship after interference from Stone Cold Steve Austin.[98] Then at the Royal Rumble on January 24, 1999, the Rock regained the title in an "I Quit" match, a type of submission match that only ends if one of the combatants says "I quit" on a microphone. Intended to show a vicious streak in the Rock's character, the Rock hit Mankind in the head with a steel chair 11 times instead of the scripted five, five shots already being risky (most wrestling matches in the Attitude Era involving steel chairs had at most 2 or 3 shots to the head). After the fifth shot, Mankind was still ringside instead of two-thirds up the entrance ramp where he was supposed to be, and after the eleventh shot, which knocked Mankind out, a recording of Mankind saying "I Quit" from an earlier interview was played over the public address system.[99][100] On January 31, during an episode of Sunday Night Heat, the Rock and Mankind participated in an Empty Arena match, a match that took place in an arena with 22,000 empty seats where any part of the facility could be used to contest the match. After 20 minutes of chaotic brawling in the ring, the stands, a kitchen, the catering area, an office, the arena corridors and finally a basement loading area, Mankind pinned the Rock using a forklift truck to win the WWF title.[101] The two faced off again, at St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House on February 14, 1999, in a Last Man Standing match which ended in a draw, meaning Mankind retained the title. Their feud ended on the February 15 Raw Is War, when the Rock won his third WWF Championship in a Ladder Match after a debuting Big Show interfered on his behalf.[102][103] The Rock then lost the WWF Championship to Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania XV on March 28, 1999.[104]
The Rock's popularity continued to grow and audiences still cheered for him even though he was a heel. He then lost the title rematch against Stone Cold Steve Austin at Backlash: In Your House on April 25, 1999.[105] The next night on Raw is War he was fired from the Corporation after he was betrayed by Shane McMahon, turning him face again and starting a feud with Triple H, The Undertaker and The Corporate Ministry. On April 29, 1999, WWF aired the pilot episode of SmackDown!, a term derived from one of the Rock's catchphrases. In the episode, the Rock continued his feud with The Corporate Ministry. This led to a match with Triple H, at Over the Edge on May 23, 1999, which the Rock won, and a match for the WWF Championship against The Undertaker, at King of the Ring, which the Rock lost.[106][107] The Rock then lost a number one contender's match to Triple H, at Fully Loaded, after interference from "Mr. Ass" Billy Gunn.[108] The Rock then defeated Gunn in a Kiss My Ass match at SummerSlam on August 22, 1999. The Rock was also given the privilege of having his own signature match, like The Undertaker with the Buried Alive match, Kane with the Inferno Match and Mankind with the Boiler Room Brawl: the Brahma Bullrope match, a variant of a strap match was a normal singles match where the components are tied together with a rope used for cattle farming, and the rope and its attached cowbell could both be used as weapons. The Rock contested this match twice, both times in Texas (vs Triple H in Dallas, and vs Al Snow in Houston).[109] 0852c4b9a8
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