Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American and Canadian actor, producer and semi-retired professional wrestler, signed with WWE.
Johnson was a college football player for the University of Miami, winning a national championship on the 1991 Miami Hurricanes football team. He later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, and was cut two months into the 1995 season.
This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson (from whom he also inherited his Canadian citizenship). Originally billed as "Rocky Maivia", he gained mainstream fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF/E) from 1996 to 2004 as a major figure in the company's Attitude Era, and was the first third-generation wrestler in the company's history.
He returned to wrestling part-time for WWE from 2011 to 2013 and continues to make sporadic non-wrestling appearances for the company. As of June 2016, he has had 17 championship reigns in WWE, including 10 as a world champion, winning the WWF/E Championship eight times and the WCW/World Championship twice. He won the Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Tag Team Championship five times. He is the sixth Triple Crown Champion in WWE history, and won the 2000 Royal Rumble. The Rock is considered by many to be the biggest superstar in WWE history, as well as one of the top box office draws in wrestling history. WWE legend Hulk Hogan called The Rock "the biggest superstar in this business", 15-time world champion John Cena described him as "the biggest superstar in the history of WWE" and "the most successful WWE superstar ever".
WCW icon Diamond Dallas Page described him as "the biggest star in our business, of all time". Vince Russo, the head writer of WWE's most popular era, The Attitude Era, stated: "I don't think there's ever going to be a star in the history of this business that is bigger than The Rock". The Rock is also the first African-American WWE champion in the history of the company. Johnson's autobiography The Rock Says..., co-written with Joe Layden, was published in 2000.
It debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, spent 20 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and sold 720,000 copies in hardcover alone. Johnson's first leading film role was in The Scorpion King in 2002. For this role, he was paid US $5.5 million, a world record for an actor in his first starring role. He has since appeared in various films, and become known for his ability to reinvigorate film franchises. Perhaps his greatest success in his acting career can be sourced to his role as Luke Hobbs in The Fast and the Furious franchise. He hosted and produced The Hero, a reality competition series; and has since continued to produce TV series and films through his production company Seven Bucks Productions, each of which he also stars in. Forbes listed Dwayne Johnson #25 in the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities in 2013. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016.
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