Ring Crew Reviews: The Rock: The Epic Journey of Dwayne The Rock Johnson – Disc 1

• Disclaimers: I was a massive Rock fan when I was younger. I still think Rock is one of the most charismatic wrestlers ever and is one of the best promo guys ever. If there are two schools of promo, the quiet psychological types of Jake Roberts/Harley Race/Mick Foley and the loud, trash talking, catchphrase promos of Ric Flair/The Rock/Macho Man, then Rock is one of the best but sticks mainly to his particular style. I think Rock is better as a heel than as a face and whenever Rock was paired up against the elite faces of all-time Austin and Hogan, the crowd inevitably turned on Rock or at best were 60-40 for his opponent. But by far, my favorite version of Rock’s character was heel Rock from 97-99.

• For this DVD, we get a full blown 2 hour program so sit back and break out the popcorn.

• We start with a mild highlight reel with some inserts of Rock saying that WWE is a big family for him with a lot of tradition and he never used the WWE to further his movie career. Well, sure, except for using the name The Rock for a lot of his initial roles and coming back last year to hype Fast Five.

• Family Tradition: The Rock is the grandson of high chief Peter Maivia and the son of Rocky Johnson. They show the same five clips of both guys you’ve seen 1000x, although we do get a quick glimpse of Rocky Sr. winning the tag belts with Tony Atlas.

• Then, there’s some sweet footage of Rock as a kid sitting on his mom’s lap while his dad is wrestling in Texas at the Sportatorium. Everyone puts over how much the business runs in his family. We see other photos of Rock as a small kid with Andre the Giant and Freddy Blassie.

• Vince kind of casually admits that the WWE road schedule in the 80s was a nightmare and that growing up without his dad in the picture all the time made Rock into a stronger man.

• The U: Rock was of course was a standout football player and went to the U – Miami University. Unfortunately, he also went there the same time as Warren Sapp and they played the same position, so Rock was a backup. Rock talks about how going to Miami taught him about the importance of teamwork and such. There’s some talking head shots of Sapp talking about how they were a “tag team” even in college that reeks of hindsight kayfabe.

• Rock tried to make a go of it in the pros but wound up in Canada for the CFL. After injuries, he decided to move on. Rock’s ghost written bio from the late 90s, Rock Says, has a lot of trash in it, but there’s some solid discussion of his time playing football with the grueling summers in Miami and trying to make it as a pro football player. If you want to know more about this stuff, the book is the place to go moreso than this program.

• After football, Rock wanted to be a pro wrestler. Rocky Sr. says he tried to discourage him but if he couldn’t, he was going to train him himself. Rock was trained in a 16×16 boxing ring with a whole lot of wood framing. For comparison, WCW used to use an 18×18 ring and most fed rings are at least 20×20.

• Blue-Chip: Rock gave a call to Pat Patterson. Pat says he hadn’t seen Rock in years, but the first time he saw him as an adult, he said he had “the look.” Vince said sure, they’d give him a look and JR said you could tell after one conversation with the guy that he was going to be something special. This is all nice and everything, but it kind of perpetuates the myth about how “easy” it is to become a professional wrestler to an extent. I’m sure it didn’t hurt coming from WWE royalty like the Maivias and Johnsons.

• Then, we see some scarily early footage of Rock training with Tom Prichard. Rock still has the jheri curl on top and is huge, but is easily able to do a split leap frog and kip up. It’s crazy how smooth Rock looks in the ring this early on.

• Rock makes his debut for the WWF at MSG for Survivor Series 96. Rock ends up being the sole survivor in his first match and it’s obvious, they are strapping the rocket to his ass. WHATABLUECHIPPER! Triple H: “I think you’d have to be blind to not see that he did have something.”

• Within 3 months, Rock is IC champ, but because his character was too gullible, too pure-hearted, too “just happy to be here,” he was getting booed. Even in his IC win against Triple H. Foley makes his first appearance and says that at IYH 15 in Richmond, the biggest face reaction he had in the WWE to that point was beating Rock. Pat tries to spin the backlash as good by default because he’s still getting a reaction. Rock says it was part of the Attitude era shift in face/heel lines which is true to an extent. Just read Jericho’s account of his face character starting out in WCW.

• Rocky Sucks: The boos were clearly getting to Rock and he wanted to do something about it. After saying it was part of the Attitude era though, he admits it was something deeper: people thought he was a phony. Whether it’s the 50s, the 80s, the Attitude Era, or “the PG era” (Rock’s words), the fans want authenticity and The Bluechipper was not authentic. It’s easy enough to read these comments as some kind of shoot on Cena; more realistically though, it’s true and just makes easy cannon fodder for a feud with Cena rather than the other way around.

• ROCKY SUCKS! ROCKY SUCKS! Then the chants start. Farooq: “He wasn’t the character that he wanted to be and he was sucking at it, because that’s not what he wanted to do. And when you’re doing something you don’t want to do, you’ll suck at it.” Pat chimes in to say that it’s important to “understand your audience” which is true x1000 – I just wish they showed it more today.

• Nation of Domination: Rock gets hurt and when he comes back, they decide to turn him heel and put him with the Nation of Domination and he’s now known as The Rock. Rock says he’s great with it, but just wants a short promo to explain his real feelings: “I’ve got 3 words: Die, Rocky, Die. That’s the gratitude I get from you pieces of crap. It’s not a white thing, it’s not a black thing, it IS a me kicking your ass thing. In arenas across the country, I heard chants of ‘Rocky sucks.’ I am a lot of things but sucks isn’t one of them.” They intercut the real footage with Rock talking his way through the promo today. Good stuff.

• As part of the Nation, Rock gets more mic time and doing what he wants, and suddenly everyone (again) sees that he’s a star. Vince says Rock’s role was only supposed to be a small one, but quickly, he starts to overshadow Farooq as the one with the charisma. He starts interrupting Farooq, controlling the microphone, and even gives Farooq a present of an autographed picture of the Rock himself. Rock then kicks Farooq out of the Nation and starts to take over the world.

• Enter the Triple H rivalry. H is on the rise with DX at roughly the same time. Rock says they all had egos but they checked them at the door. Their matches were very give and take and just flowed well. We get footage of their CLASSIC ladder match from Summerslam 98. Trips says they changed the perception of the match from being a high-flyer match to a brawl.

• The Corporate Champion: Rock starts to get a lot of face pops heading into the Survivor Series tournament for the belt. Triple H: “We were all in the same place. Austin didn’t want any of us to be champion but him. I didn’t want anyone to be champion but me. I hadn’t been there yet but it didn’t matter. Rock didn’t want anyone to be champion but him.” Rock re-turns or reaffirms he’s heel by joining the Corporation and winning the belt as the youngest WWE champ at the time. Rock: “That shit was SWEET! HAHAHA!”

• Rock’s next major feud is with Mankind. It basically was the storyline of Rocky: the good-looking arrogant champ underestimates the downtrodden, beaten up nobody. The I Quit Match from RR 99 is their most famous encounter. Rock: “The things that Mick would allow me to do to him was incredible.” Of course, we’re talking about the 11 or so unprotected chairshots. In Mick’s book and in Beyond the Mat, there’s a slight sense that Rock was going beyond the pale of what they agreed on, but none of that is talked about here. Foley: “It was a brutal match. Too brutal.” Rock: “I didn’t hold back that night. I was baseball swinging every single one of those chairshots as if I were aiming for those fences.”

• Fighting for Number One: Rock. Austin. Wrestlemania XV. This was a battle for who was “number 1.” We get a cool anecdote from Rock about how he took it a bit personally that Austin signed his autograph with the “#1” moniker that motivated Rock. Everyone from Cena to Jericho to Vince to Pat to Foley gets in their say about how great the rivalry was. Foley calls the WMXV match “one of the greatest matches of all time.” Personally, I prefer the matches between Rock-Trips, but it’s hard to argue against two of the biggest stars ever in Rock and Austin feuding. I will add though, this is my favorite stretch of Rock as a performer and especially as a character. He’d come out and give 20 minute rambling promos week to week essentially rewriting the Bible with Austin as the antagonist that was going to get his ass kicked “all over God’s green Earth.”

• The People’s Champion: Pat and the narrator both mention how Rock’s charisma essentially made his win-loss record irrelevant. The Corporation heel turn and feuding with Austin was only good enough to keep Rock heel for another six months or so until the fans went back to cheering him and singing/chanting along with his catchphrases. CM Punk: “To talk on the microphone is the best way to connect with the people…. I don’t think you can relate to the fans as much getting beat up or beating somebody up as you can by just talking.” Even though Punk is talking about Rock, it’s evident he holds the same philosophy for himself.

• Jericho briefly fawns over Rock’s ability to ape Flair in talking about how expensive his shirts, shoes, and watches were. But when you can raise your eyebrow and get a pop, there’s no stopping that. He says part of Rock’s genius is involving the crowd and each hometown.

• Rock had almost unprecedented freedom in his segments to do and say as he pleased. Vince: “No one’s ever really had carte blanche to just go do what they wanted. At the same time, once talent earns the right to be able to without some sort of framework, be themselves, by all means, have at it.” Then, we get lots of small clips of plenty of famous and also lesser known Rock promos.

• Rock & Sock Connection: Foley says the genius was the improv and that they didn’t talk out their segments beforehand. Foley would parody his catchphrases to humorous effect (“the dozens…[and dozens] of Mankind fans,” “if you smell what the Sock is cooking,” etc.). The DVD and Foley both repeat the urban legend (not sure if it’s true because I’ve read conflicting things) that “This is Your Life” was the highest rated segment for RAW ever – 8 million people.

• Rock-Triple H rivalry part II. With Austin sidelined in 99-00, they become the top stars and gave each other everything they had in the ring.

• Mainstream Star: Rock launches into the stratosphere as a star. Foley says he had more mainstream popularity than any wrestler ever. COUGHHOGANCOUGH. We get brief snippets of the fantastic SNL episode. They show Rock at the Republican National Convention in 2000 and holy shit, he has better seats than George HW Bush, the former president. When the ex-president sits behind you, you know you’re a big deal.

• In The Mummy Returns, Rock had a bit role as the Scorpion King. He had no English dialogue and only 5 minutes on screen. Rock seems very humble and realistic about his role there: “My line was ‘aku mashinte.’ I don’t even know what that translates to. It probably translates to, ‘You only have a few minutes on screen so take advantage of it.’” Luckily, there’s no mention of the CGI.

• Rock. Austin. Wrestlemania XVII. Jericho says he remembered wrestling in the opening match that night and then watching the main event and being awed and thinking he had a long way to go if he ever wanted to reach their level.

• Rock got a starring role in The Scorpion King and there’s buzz that he should/would be the “next” action superstar on the level of Stallone/Schwarzenegger. I think that’s a nice sentiment and I know Arnold kind of played along for the beginning of The Rundown, but not sure why they’d include it much here because it didn’t happen.

• Electrifying: After he returns, Rock and Jericho start working together and feuding and making a lot of jokes about Stephanie McMahon and her breast implants. Rock starts drifting more and more into talking about his “strudel” and using sound effects, baby talk humor that still carries on to this day.

• Icon vs. Icon: Hogan returns to the WWE in 2002. Vince approached Rock about the idea of working with Hogan. They gloss whether or not Austin was an option to work with Hogan, but it’s Rock’s DVD, what do you expect? Triple H says that it was only fitting since Andre passed the torch to Hogan for Hogan to pass the torch to Rock. Can we stop with this canard? Rock was PLENTY made before the match with Hogan and was actually on the downside of his career (to this point). I really hope no one says that if Rock loses this year, he passed the torch to Cena considering he’s been the top guy for the last SEVEN YEARS.

• Wrestlemania XVIII. The crowd turns on Rock to the surprise of a lot of the talking heads. We get a phantom Hogan quotation probably from one of his dozens of archived interviews in the past: “If I was to get cheered more than him for some reason, the people just don’t understand how good he really is.” Rock says it was amazing just simply because the entire crowd was into every move and invested in the outcome. Cena is more direct and says that the match makes technical wrestling purists throw up, especially if you mute it, which the DVD actually does. Cena says that’s irrelevant because what they do is not about that, it’s about creating moments using the energy in the crowd and then he calls the Rock-Hogan match one of the “best ever.” I wouldn’t say that, BUT one of the things that makes that match great is that Rock goes with the crowd and isn’t afraid to shift to snarling and heeling it up because they are booing him.

• Backlash: Rock goes off to make The Rundown but returns later in 2002. He calls WWE his home and says that 99.9% of the fans get “it” – that he makes movies and then comes back to wrestling. After leaving again to make Walking Tall, the fans begin to turn on Rock… again. This time, his opponent is Brock Lesnar. Brilliantly, The Rock… again is able to effortlessly slip back into heel Rock that tells the fans to shove it in his match with Lesnar.

• Rock Concert: In 2003, Rock returns yet again as a heel based off the idea that he had “gone Hollywood.” We see footage of the RAW where Hurricane goes over Rock. Rock starts bringing his guitar and doing Rock Concerts.

• The Rock Has Done It All: Rock. Austin. Wrestlemania XIX. Rock finally beats Stone Cold.

• Hollywood Sensation: Rock goes back to Hollywood to make more movies including Be Cool, Gridiron Gang, etc. In complete fairness, Triple H puts over Rock huge every time he opens his mouth on the DVD especially in regards to his acting success.

• Twentieth Anniversary: Rock briefly comes back to help Foley defeat Evolution at Wrestlemania XX. Then doesn’t make another appearance until 2008 to induct his father and grandfather into the WWE HOF.

• Rock Comes Home: Februrary 14, 2011. Rock returns again to accept hosting duties for Wrestlemania XXVII. Triple H: “Sometimes you gotta lose what you got before you realize how good it was. Once it was gone, Rock realized as much as he likes the red carpets, the movie debuts, all that stuff, there aren’t 20,000 people cheering you when you do a good scene.”

• A Year in the Making: Rock and Cena start throwing verbal jabs and it’s go time at WM XXVIII. Blink and you’ll miss The Miz getting spinebustered at Wrestlemania and not getting mentioned at all in the entire clip.

• Happy Birthday: RAW hosts a huge birthday for Rock in 2011. Vince comes out and delivers a moving speech and then cues up a video package and Rock seems genuinely choked up about the forthrightness of it all. More various clips of Rock since his return including footage from Survivor Series 2011 but I guess that wasn’t a big enough deal (see: success) to merit a direct mention.

• And that’s it for the program. No extras on the first disc.

The 411: I'm rating the whole set 7.5 but only commenting on the program in this blurb. I'm a sucker for almost all of the documentaries that the WWE has on their sets, so that allow makes this worth the price for me. How good is the program? Well, it's not up there with the best docs on the Rise and Fall of ECW, the Bret DVD, the second Flair DVD, the WCCW, or the Bret vs. Shawn DVD. This is solidly in the second tier with the Jericho, Austin, Foley, Piper, Jake the Snake DVD programs. It seems like I recall little anecdotes on previous DVDs about some of Rock's inspirations for the "If you smell..." catchphrase, the eyebrow, etc. but much of that is absent from here. I feel a bit spoiled because we're entering into a period where all the DVDs are of people whose careers we know from top to bottom down cold, so nothing on the DVD can surprise us and we only notice things they didn't include. That being said, this is still a good, breezy 2 hour retrospective on the Rock's career up to 2011.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]