I almost met The Rock

For what it's worth- Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, has been working out at the Baton Rouge Downtown YMCA. I just missed him the other day and today everybody was talking about (1) how he looks even bigger in real person than on the movie screen, and (2) what a prince of a man he is.

I already knew he was a prince of a man. I tried to explain what a legendary wrestler he was, but my enthusiasm was not as infectious as it should have been.

Anyhow, I conjecture that The Rock is currently in some manner taking advantage of Louisiana's generous movie tax credits. But more importantly, he's going to be headlining Wrestlemania. Wikipedia is actually a little out of date on this, because it's not too clear how the C.M. Punk insults (calling him Dawayne and saying that he does gross things with WWE boss Vince McMahon) will ultimately affect storyline. But here's where they were going with it as of a few weeks ago.

On the February 14, 2011 episode of Raw, The Rock was revealed as the Host of WrestleMania XXVII, appearing live on Raw for the first time in almost seven years. During a lengthy promo that ran 20 minutes over the usual Raw end time, The Rock addressed the fans, Michael Cole, The Miz, and John Cena, calling him a "big fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles", as a response of a shoot interview Cena did on The Rock a couple of years ago .^[111]

After numerous via satellite appearances, The Rock made a live appearance on Raw to confront Cena, whom he had been feuding with through social networking. At the beginning of The Rock's live promo, he again made fun of Cena's accessories, calling him a "homeless power ranger" and "Vanilla Ice". After an exchange of words with Cena, The Miz and Alex Riley appeared and attacked The Rock. The Rock fended off Miz and Riley, but Cena then blindsided The Rock with the Attitude Adjustment on The Rock in retaliation to their feud.^[112]

At WrestleMania XXVII on April 3, The Rock opened the show by cutting a "promo". After numerous backstage segments that aired on camera, The Rock appeared during the main event between Cena and The Miz to restart the match that ended in a draw, making it a No Disqualifications match. However, in response to the Attitude Adjustment that Cena performed on The Rock on Raw, The Rock hit Cena with his finisher, the Rock Bottom, this allowed The Miz to pin and retain his title. However, Rock then nailed The Miz with The People's Elbow right after The Miz retained his title.^[113]

The next night on Raw, The Rock and Cena had a confrontation, after Cena called out The Rock and challenged him to a match which he accepted for WrestleMania XXVIII on April 1, 2012. The two of them then came together to fend off an attack by The Corre (which at that time consisted of Wade Barrett, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel and Ezekiel Jackson).^[114] The Rock made an appearance live on Raw in his hometown of Miami on May 2, 2011 to celebrate his 39th birthday.^[115] On the same night John Cena stated that he would keep the WWE Championship until WrestleMania XXVIII so that their match would be for the WWE Championship.

I never know what to say when I meet celebrities. My null hypothesis is not to bother them. It did make me sad that nobody talking about The Rock appreciated his true genius on the microphone and in the ring. So if I meet him I think I'm going to discuss his match with Cena and not break kayfabe for a second. It would be incredibly cool if he thought a university professor had no idea that the outcomes were predetermined (shh! don't let the kids hear you say that). But probably I just won't bug him though. Here's another cool fact about The Rock; his wife is a university professor. So he's sort of the patron wrestler of all of us in the biz.

The closest I've ever come to a professional wrestler is that my brother's rural land in Texas is next to a goat farm owned by the Undertaker's brother. The Undertaker's brother told the Undertaker about my brother's pet cocker spaniel Brodie, and in some truck stop while on the road the Undertaker actually purchased a stuffed animal cocker spaniel and gave it to his brother to give to my brother. Of course my brother didn't give me the stuffed animal. My brother also was the executor of a will that included a guitar that belonged to Lightening Hopkins which he also didn't give to me (albeit it would have been criminal to do so, and let me make clear that my brother has given me all sorts of beautiful things he's designed such as an upright spinning copper sprinkler with a flor de lis in the middle of it, pot holders with wine corks; so it's very remiss for me to complain about the stuffed animal and guitar).

Anyhow, if there's anything you want me to say to The Rock, just let me know.