The Rock On His Current Favorite Wrestlers, If Match With Cena Was His Last, Favorite Promos
As noted earlier, The Rock spoke with WOIO-TV entertainment reporter Chris Van Vliet about his future in the business. Here are some more highlights from the interview.
How he is letting pain be his guide (in relation to the injury he sustained at Wrestlemania): "Yeah, which I think is something important when you come back from any type of surgery, in this case, I got to let pain be my guide. I've had, over the years, a multitude of things. I've had for knee surgeries, shoulder reconstruction, Achilles' reattached. When you have triple hernia surgery, when you're dealing with your lower abdomen, you really have to be careful and let pain be your guide. In this case, whether it comes to any type of cardio I'm doing, any type of light training, working out, that I'm doing, got to let pain be your guide."
If he is done with wrestling, is he okay with his Wrestlemania 29 match being his last: "That's a great question. I grew up in wrestling, as you know. So for me, that was a dream scenario, going into the biggest Wrestlemania of all time, at MetLife Stadium, breaking records and going in as WWE Champion. Losing the belt to John Cena and in the world of wrestling, you're probably familiar with this, there is the passing of the torch so to speak and doing the right thing for business. So, it was a dream scenario and if in fact that was my last match, man, I'm happy with it because I wound up not only having three hernial tears, but I also tore my adductor tendon as well as rectus tendon clean off my pelvis. So to be able to finish the match and not let anybody know, kind of walk out on my own, it's going out on my shield(?) And I loved it."
Who he thinks is a young wrestler fans need to keep their eye on: "Let's see, I would say probably, let me speak on the WWE. I would say Roman Reigns, who's a cousin of mine, I think he looks great, very talented in the ring. The Shield, all those three guys by the way, are doing a great job. I'll say this, and he knows this, but Fandango is one of my favorites. Now what makes him such an interesting character and wrestling fans understand this when I tell them this, to play a character like that you've got to embrace it and that's not an easy character to embrace. He embraces it, which tells me that he's got a lot going on, I think, in terms of his depth and how far he can go in terms of character. So, I would say those guys. The four month run that I had in WWE was really eye opening and I was able to see a lot of young talent who are very very hungry, very humble, and what's interesting is there was some talent there who, you know, just the nature of the business, have become soured grapes and miserable. But the younger guys, good to see, were very excited and there was that hunger there. It reminds me of myself about 10, 15 years ago when I first started."
What's the most memorable promo he has ever cut: "I have two. I would have to say that when I first turned heel, and for non wrestling fans that means when I became a bad guy, at that time The Rock was just starting to understand what the character of The Rock is: entertaining, loud, funny, not loud, not funny, whatever he could be. I remember being in the ring and we were live, and I said, "I may be a lot of things, but sucks isn't one of them and you'll soon find out," and it was a turning point for me, in terms of my career.
"The other promo, I had a sit down interview with Gennifer Flowers, the infamous Gennifer Flowers, and she had asked me if I were the judge and jury, how would I handle something. I can't remember, whatever was happening in society at that time, she asked me about that. I said, "well first of all, if I were the judge and jury I'd be a hung jury [wink], if you know what I mean," and then I said, out of the blue, "if you smell what I'm cookin." That kind of took off into part of the lexicon."
You can listen to the whole interview above.
Source: Chris Van Vliet