WWE legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson discussed various topics with Sports Illustrated, including the impact WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin had on him.
Rock said, “Speaking of good guys, this guy helped me so much, Mark. He was on top of the world. He saw just a little bit of potential in me, but also smart enough to know, he’s like, man, we got some chemistry, man. Me and you. And I was not in a position to say, hey, let’s me and you work together. Let’s go headline WrestleMania. He had to say it. And he went on, he went to Vince McMahon in 1999, in January of 99, I think. He said, ‘I wanna main event WrestleMania with The Rock.’”
He continued, “The rest is history. We went on and I went on to have just the greatest rivalry with him.”
On their match at Wrestlemania XIX and what he whispered to Steve Austin after the match:
“That, what you just saw, that picture, that was his very last wrestling match. I had the honor of wrestling him his final match. As you leave the business, it’s the right thing to do and the respectable thing to do is to lose as you leave and put this guy over. Let this guy who’s going to go on. Let him win, and he didn’t have to because he was the biggest star in wrestling. But he did, he put me over.
Rock added, “And as I was pinning him, I rock bottomed him three fucking times, by the way. You know, he, like Kurt Angle, he had a broken neck. He was wrestling with a broken neck. After the one, two, three, I leaned down in his ear, I said, I love you, man. He was like, I love you too. We had that moment.”
You can check out The Rock’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
