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8 Reprint from 1998 edition of The Wrestler magazine

**Contains scans....please be patient while they download** TAMPA, FLORIDA. 1995. The Phantom reached into his pants pocket and clutched the seven sweat-soaked dollar bills that threatened to burn a hole in that same pocket. Not that seven miserable bucks could burn much of a hole; seven clams could get you a standing-room-only spot in the most downtrodden arena to watch the most mediocre wrestling card ever presented. But it was far from a six-figure pro football contract, The Phantom rued. And%his was what this 24- year-old had his person-a pit- tance and a ticket back to a life he thought he had left in 1990, the year in which he left his home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to enroll at the University of Miami in Florida. I left home six years ago, and now I've come back. Dwayne Johnson, as The Phan- tom was better known, was returning to the family nest with a sheepskin from Football U-a degree in exercise physiology and criminology. His heart beheld thrilling images of life in the trenches of Miami's venerable Orange Bowl garnered from a largely suc- cessful career as a defensive end on the Hurricanes' football team. His resume also included a year with Calgary of the Canagian Football League. Now I have seven dollars to my name. He was heading back to live with Mom and Dad, back to another sports microcosm, wrestling, into which he had been born. But now Johnson was heading to the mats himself to de-Phantomize himself and become somebody. The envi- ronment into which he now walked was rich with wrestling tradition: Johnson's father, Rocky, was a successful wrestler in the 1970s and 1980s. Peter Maivia, Dwayne's grandfather, had been a wrestling legend. Although both men had been stars during their tenures, nei- ther had undertaken the daunting challenge Dwayne had accepted: to be both a pro wrestler and a pro football player. Dwayne Johnson did not ask himself if he could be the Deion Sanders of the squared circle; he only wondered how long it would take. Before arriving at his parents' Tampa apartment, Dwayne pulled out that seven-dollar stipend. I will never forget where I came from, he thought. He also vowed never to take "no" for an answer and to work harder than any man alive. He put his past behind him, the lonely days in Calgary, where he lived on a paltry $400 Canadian a week-barely enough to buy chuck ~eak, much less the T -bone or New York strip he enjoyed. He stepped forward from a disappoint- ing college senior year, degraded by a back injury that ultimately cost him a shot at the NFL. A few days later, after establish- ing a daily training regimen with his father, now a truck driver with a liquor firm, Dwayne "locked up" for the first time. He knew he had found his calling. He made a beeline for the tele- phone, called his Calgary coach, and said, "Thanks for the one year. I'll pass on the final two years of my contract." Then he committed himself to a full-time career in a sport that had first called his name when he was just six or seven. If I'm going to be the best, I will have to give 110 percent focus and commitment to this thing. He couldn't fail, for he knew that by outworking everyone else and fo- cusing exclusively on success, he would win. Training began each morning at six and continued for three hours. Then Johnson sprinted to his job as a personal trainer. The position afforded him the opportunity to work on the weights, and he happily availed himself of the excellent facilities. At 8 p.m., Johnson punched out, then raced back home to train on the mats with his father. Day after day, the same routine. On the weekends, Rocky Johnson trained his son on wrestling tech- niques from dawn to dusk. Then the whole process began again on Monday. There was no turning back for Dwayne Johnson; there couldn't be, for he had no backup plan. He knew he would soon find his way into the squared circle. He could not predict, that within months he would take on the name Rocky Maivia. Nor could he have envisioned the joy he would feel i~ng a wrestling audience in the palm of his hand. Peter Maivia had held the wrestling world in his hand, as had his son-in-law, Rocky Johnson, the husband of Peter's daughter, Ata. Growing up, Dwayne had witnessed first-hand this "palming of a wrestling crowd." Rocky, Ata, and Dwayne were one of the rare wrestling families that traveled together. In the 1970s (and through the mid-1980s), when wres- tling territories still existed, grapplers usually resided in the state in which they wrestled. For the John- sons, that meant tours in places as disparate as Hawaii (where Dwayne spent much of his youth), Florida, Georgia, and even New Zealand. All told, the Johnsons lived in some 15 different states. For young Dwayne, it was a great life, albeit a quasi-transient one. What was not to like? Living in faraway places, meeting the wrestlers, seeing his dad conquer warriors like Mr. Fuji and Prof. Tanaka. Enjoying a cool show, then heading out to a steak joint-just him, Dad, and Mom-and chomp- ing on the best steaks they could find. Idle time meant breaking out his wrestling toys, pretending he was the next great WWF champion. A headlock applied to the bedpost ...an elbowdrop to the pOOfy hypo- allergenic pillow that always bounced back when you smashed it in the gut. Whenever he could get to a video store, Dwayne Johnson rent- ed every wrestling video he could get his hands on: It was a practice he would continue throughout his own wrestling career. You couldn't spend days cram- med into little hotel rooms with Mom and Dad without having their morals rub off on you. Dwayne Johnson's childhood maintained an ongoing semblance of normalcy because Ata and Rocky instilled in their son ethics and a code of honor that he has carried with him all his life. Ata was the backbone of the family, and Rocky was there to "lay the smack down" when the time was right. His parents ensured that Dwayne stayed focused on his edu- cation: He averaged only two or three missed dftys of school a month. Since Rffcky Johnson was a proud man, proud of his work ethic.. proud of his ability to entertain a crowd, proud of his family, he saw to it that his son learned about fami- ly values, right and wrong, honor, and truth. After you've made all the money and pleased all your fans, what remains is family. But a 10- or 12-year-old boy does not always recognize the pit- falls of a business viewed by most fans as glamorous, as a world full of shiny new cars, big, expensive homes, and bigger, more expensive egos. Most outsiders were blinded to the demons of the business, the six-packs that in time expanded into bigger and bigger cases of beer... the women... all the excess. While television brought anklelocks and face gouges to the forefront, it never found its way to the bank vaults, to the wrestlers' accounts that shrunk commensurably with each paycheck deposited. Dwayne Johnson saw wrestling families shattered by poor financial planning-bad invest- ments, or worse, no investments. Over a period of years he began to recognize that his parents had fallen into the same financial quagmire as so many other wres- tlers. The most puz- zling aspect of the Johnsons' financial woes was that ulti- mately, nobody knew where the money went. During Rocky's career, he and his wife never owned their own home. They never gambled, never spent lavishly. Sure, they had their road expenses, just like every other wrestler. Airfare was provided by the company, but nothing else. That left motel bills, food bills, and the other necessities of living. But when Rocky Johnson official- ly retired from the sport, he was living from paycheck to paycheck, as were his wife and his son. So much hard work, so little to show for it. By age 18, Dwayne Johnson had learned some of life's lessons. A high school football star, he had one driving conviction: to be some- body. Rocky Johnson, for whom Dwayne had immense respect, had been somebody both in and out of the ring. But what did he have to show for it? Dwayne, seeing his father's life in the rearview mirror, vowed to avoid the pitfalls of sports business. / won't forget where / came from, and I outwork everyone. He parlayed his excellent high school gridiron career into a full ath- letic ride at Miami, where he would play four years under head coach Dennis Erickson. It was not easy juggling the books, the football, the pressure to succeed at Pigskin U. He played for a pat on the back and a "Yeah, Dwayne!" from the fans instead of a well-earned buck. But Johnson forged on, refusing to betray his personal standards, and practicing in 95-degree heat as if there was no tomorrow. Many times, instead of heading back to the dorm room after practice, Johnson received intravenous fluids at a nearby hospital. Starving financially and, to a degree, emotionally, Johnson refused to wilt. He was a preseason all-American entering his senior campaign, and an NFL career seemed like a distinct possibility. But early in the 1995 football season, Johnson ruptured two disks in his back. He spurned surgery, choosing to rest the injury briefly and to play through the pain. On many flights home from road trips, Johnson was forced to rest in the aisle, for the excruciating pain prohibited him from sitting down. He made it from huddle to huddle and game to game on will and occasional shots of cortisone. His subpar play told him he should have rested the injury for more than four days. But that's college football, especially at this level. The coaching staff had not ignored his injury, but never had Erickson, the team trainers, nor physician said, "Hey, what you need to do is you need to come back and you need to take this week off." No one ever forced Johnson to sit and heal; ultimately, that cost him a shot at the Big Show. Instead, he signed a three-year deal to play football in Canada. From high school in Allentown to college in Florida to the lonely world of Calgary. A preseason AII- American a year earlier, a part-time bench-warmer in frigid Canada. Everything happens for a reason. God has his plan for me. By May 1996, when he still had not realized the fruits of his labor, the voice inside him (which he called "Be Somebody") beckoned him back to Tampa, to come full cir- cle with his family. And with the wrestling business. After training intensively with his father, Dwayne got his shot at the squared circle and the WWF during a tryout match against the Brooklyn Brawler in Corpus Christi, Texas. The WWF was impressed but want- ed him to get more experience wrestling for a smaller federation. Dwayne got that experience in Memphis' USWA. He made his debut in May 1996 and, along with Bart Sawyer, captured the vacant tag team title in a tournament final from Brickhouse Brown and Reggie B. Fine by June. Dwayne returned to the WWF in November and was matched against Owen Hart in Ohio. Hart, then a veteran of seven WWF sea- sons, had been charged to "take Johnson through the paces." What Hart learned was that Johnson was the real thing. "He's better than half the guys you've got in the ring now," Hart told WWF executives. Like his father and grandfather, Dwayne had superior athletic skills and work ethic. He also had charis- ma and a sincere desire to learn and improve. The WWF signed him to a con- tract. But there was one step to take before he could step into the ring for his WWF debut: He needed a name, a persona. He didn't want to continue to use the Flex Kavana name he adopted in Memphis. The name Dwayne Johnson was on the bland side. The WWF suggested the Rocky Maivia persona. "No way," responded Johnson. Although he held a deep respect for his family, Dwayne had forged his way through high school, col- lege, and the CFL on his own. He was going to make it in the WWF the same way, not by prospering from his father's name and reputa- tion. But his rebuke was met sharply by his father and his grandmother Lia (Peter Maivia had died in 1982). "I'd rather be called Joey Smith," Johnson reaffirmed. But after a cooling-off period, and after discussing the matter with his new wife, Dany, Dwayne real- ized that it wasn't the name that bothered him, but rather the possi- bility of duplicating his father's style. No Ali shuffle, no jabs, Dwayne insisted. Then he respectfully agreed to carryon the Maivia name. Dwayne's first opportunity to dis- play the persona of Rocky Maivia came during the November 1996 Survivor Series, held at New York's Madison Square Garden-the world's most famous arena. Seventeen thousand screaming maniacs wondered who this flashy, clean-cut guy was. Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. Rocky Maivia, wasn't the least bit nervous, howev- er. He had found his calling once again, and now he was cashing fin on those six penniless years. Dwayne Johnson had made it,! "Now I know how the fans feel when they are emotionally spent," Dwayne Johnson reflected in an electric Broadway theater, in the city in which he finally realized his dreams. The final act of The Phantom Of The Opera had just concluded, and the actors were taking their bows. Johnson looked around and saw thousands of faces wearing masks of hypnotic delight. My fans look the same way when I've put on a good show. Johnson called it the "X-factor," that intangible that allowed the star to hold thousands of hearts and souls in his hands simply with a word or a raised eyebrow. Dwayne and his wife had just witnessed the greatest of all shows; now they were among the cheering crowd, honoring the real Phantom with a rousing standing ovation. Adoring him. The man on stage, paid to play the protagonist's role, was listed in the program's credits as The Phantom of the Opera. But when Dwayne gazed up at that stage at the show's hero, he saw not an actor, but himself, back at MSG, or on a pay- per-view, at center stage. Start those chants. Show me how much you hate me. With a shiver, Dwayne knew he was The Phan- tom, the man behind the mask worn by a character known as "The Rock." "The Rock is [a jerk]," Johnson declares with a measure of authority. He should know. At Wrestle- Mania XIV, the consis- tently selfish and impu- dent "Rock" told the area's homeless to "stay off my finely manicured lawn." That's what makes The Rock so successful-his utter disdain for anything wholesome and positive. It is also what makes Dwayne JohnsonfThe Rock a paradox. "Of course the homeless prob- lem is a big problem," he admits. "I feel for it; it's unbelievable. We have money for wars. We don't have money for the poor." If Johnson seems sensitive to the struggles of the less fortunate, it's because he refuses to forget where he came from. From that four-month period in Tampa, train- ing day and night... to the day he arrived with a soggy roll of dollars. Since his high school and college days, he has participated in anti-drug programs; today, hardly a day passes when he isn't visiting a sick or drug-dependent child at an area hospital. "It goes back to the say- ing, 'If I could help just one kid. ..' I've gotten a lot of responses, whether through the mail or through parents, things like how I've influ- enced kids. To me, that's important." "Get your high school diploma first," Dwayne Johnson said to the 16- year-old young man who sat before him. Johnson had heard the story before: Here was yet another teenager entertaining wild notions of quitting school, joining the WWF, and making a nifty six-figure salary before he was 20. This young man was just another in a long list of potential high school dropouts, except this time, his parents con- tacted Johnson for help. "Set him straight," the teenager's father had pleaded. So now Johnson was giving it his level best, imparting the Johnson code in order to save the teen's education, and possibly his future. "I respect that you have goals and aspirations and want to be- come a professional wrestler," he said. "But a high school diploma is something they can never take away." For more than an hour, John- son, the teen, and his father dis- cussed the matter. At the end of the meeting, the teen was con- vinced that the squared circle could wait. He returned home to Omaha, Nebraska, back to his homeroom and his textbooks. Over the next few months, he wrote to Johnson. "I'm still in school, still doing okay. I'll get my diploma." His father even wr :2te t John- son: "Thank you." Neither father nor ever re- quested that Johnson write back; in fact, as the calendar year flipped from 1997 to 1998, Johnson could no longer remember the teen's name. It didn't matter. To save one person ... As tough as it is for Dwayne to for- get where he came from, it is equally difficult for him to allow others to for- get their past, to ignore lessons at hand. You learn lessons every day, he says, unless you live under a rock. Perhaps that is why Dwayne Johnson is an unknown commodi- ty-because wrestling fans are deluded into thinking The Rock does reside under the stickiest, mossiest of emotional boulders. Ergo, since The Rock is Johnson, it follows that Johnson is also a pariah. But there are those rare moments when someone in just the right town and at just the right restaurant will emerge from the lobby at just the right time. Recently, such an incident oc- curred, at a restaurant, on the road, where Johnson was approached by a couple who looked to be in their 20s. "Hi, I'm your biggest fan," said the woman, a sheepish smile adding to her simple beauty. "Would you sign this?" "No problem," said Johnson. He cast the woman's partner a glance. This guy looks funky, Johnson thought. His testosterone's going uggghhhh. Johnson smiled and signed the scrap of paper the woman had offered. Suddenly, the man spoke. "She always told me if there was one man she would leave me for, it's you." "For me?" blushed Johnson, honestly flattered. He looked over at the woman, down her slim arm to her delicate hand. A diamond ring shimmered back at him. "Let me ask you something," Johnson said as the couple was walking away. The man turned back and shot a what, are you try- ing to steal my wife? look at the wrestler with the deep, silky voice. "Are you engaged?" "Yeah, we're engaged," shot back the woman. "I think that's wonderful!" The pair stared at Johnson as if he were the Grinch wearing a Santa's suit. "Oh, man, I just got married, and it's our anniversary!" Dany Johnson is the financial whiz of the family, the sentinel over her and her husband's finances. She should be, because at age 29, she is a senior financial ana- lyst for Merrill Lynch. She and The Rock met eight years ago when she was just starting with the firm. "Here I was, a bug just out of high school, thinking I was a super- stud," laughs Johnson. "Here I am trying to con- vince this woman to lis- ten to me. 'I'm the one for you for the rest of your life.' It was a tough thing to do." Fortunately, Dany grew to love Dwayne Johnson, not "The Rock." Theirs is a love stretched not by miles, but steeled by a sense of faith in each other and their place together. They are family, much as Ata and Rocky and Dwayne were. They occasionally travel together, sometimes to PPVs or occasionally to other important shows. But main- ly it's The Rock on the road, "The Cornerstone" back at home. Their marriage works for a few reasons. They have learned from the mistakes of their elders, and they don't make things more diffi- cult than they are. Dany Johnson, like her mother-in-law, knows that at the end of a night's work, her husband will shower, drive to the nearest steakhouse, and wolf down a tenderloin and baked potato. Then he will return to his hotel room and call her; she will feel his warmth, his love. After a few days on the road, Dwayne Johnson will leave The Rock on a faraway turnbuckle to return home to Florida. To Rocky and Ata, to Dany. He has money now, lots of it. More than he ever dreamed of having. But he never strutted into the squared circle with that olive skin, those chop side- burns, and those damned psychotic eyes just to make some bucks. I want to be somebody. He has become somebody, not because "The Rock's" popularity translates into money for the com- pany. And not because of a new car, new home, and new bride. It is because when the spoils of suc- cess threaten to burn a $100,000 hole in his Armani pants pocket, he still has his family to which he can come back.

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