The ROCK Talks About Race, Wrestling And Women - professional wrestler - Interview

Ebony, July, 2001 by Zondra Hughes

FIVE years ago, he was a down-and-out semi-pro football player who slept on a dirty mattress and had only $7 to his name. Today, at the tender age of 29, Dwayne Douglas Johnson (aka the Rock) is one of the most recognizable athletes since Michael Jordan. His image is plastered on everything from T-shirts and Web sites to Halloween masks. He has penned a New York Times best seller, The Rock Says ..., and reportedly earns $15 million a year. He is currently featured in Universal's The Mummy Returns as the villainous assassin Scorpion King, and is also starring in the scheduled prequel to the Mummy series, The Scorpion King. The word in Hollywood is that the sculpted, athletic sex symbol is America's next great action hero.

But the world is not enough for the wrestling icon, who is well aware of the highly publicized transition of professional wrestler Jesse Ventura to the Minnesota governor's mansion, and who could end up in politics as well. After all, he did attend the Republican and Democratic conventions.

"The Rock is synonymous with president," he says, adding: "I might win a race or two. I would make an entertaining president. Hey, people, [vote for me and] I'll lay the smackdown on taxes!"

Laying "the smackdown" is what the Rock does best. At 6-foot4 and 270 pounds, he is mountainous and mesmerizing. And when he enters a sports arena, wearing nothing but black boots, black briefs, and the signature Brahma Bull (after his zodiac sign, Taurus) tattoo on his 22-inch bicep, the crowd of wrestling fans (especially the throngs of women) goes wild. For the Rock and his fans, wrestling is entertainment, and he is known for taking the excitement to the next level. Some women clap until their hands ache. Others chant his name until they're hoarse. Still others spend much of the night bobbing and weaving through the crowd, trying to get a more intimate glimpse of him.

The Rock has been credited with nearly doubling the World Wrestling Federation's female fan quotient, and when he meets his femme fans in person, they claw at him, hug him, throw kisses and, many times, cry. "It's really humbling when the women cry," he says.

The World Wrestling Federation superstar is surprised by the reactions of his female fans. "I see what I look like in the morning, when my hair is half an afro and leaning to the side," he says. "So I don't consider myself a sex symbol."

The Rock came by his wrestling credentials earnestly and honestly. He's a third-generation wrestler, born of a Samoan mom, Ata Maivia, and the Black wrestling great Rocky Johnson. The Rock's maternal grandfather, the late High Chief Peter Maivia, was a Samoan wrestler who wore long silky hair and tattoos of his homeland over much of his body.

These two men instilled a passion for greatness into the young Dwayne Johnson. They taught the once feisty and uncontrolled teen a healthy work ethic, survival skills and the method behind the madness of wrestling. They taught him to funnel his spurts of anger and anxiety in a positive fashion. But perhaps the most important lesson they taught him was how to embrace two heritages without abandoning either one.

Unlike some biracial celebrities who deny one race or the other when it's convenient or popular, the Rock's fan-base--which includes hip-hoppers, little old White ladies and every group in between--is not an ode to marketing savvy; instead his enviable crossover success is proof that the wrestling champ keeps it real. Throughout his career, the Rock has managed to uphold and celebrate his Black and Samoan heritages simultaneously.

"When he was a child, Dwayne asked me what he was, and I told him," says Rocky Johnson. "And I taught him to appreciate and represent the Black race because that's what I did."

The son learned his lesson well, and today the Rock has a sure footing in the Black community. Early on in his World Wrestling Federation career he joined "The Nation of Domination," as he describes it, a "hard-core, militant Black group [of] bad guys." Today he performs with rap stars like Method Man and Wyclef Jean, and is this/close with acclaimed actor Michael Clarke Duncan of The Green Mile, who's also starring in The Scorpion King.

And like many other minorities, the Rock has had painful brushes with racism. In fact, he says that his wife's parents didn't consider him the best choice for their daughter, mainly because he was half-Black.

"Her parents were Cuban immigrants who were adamant about being American," he says. "English was always the first language in their home. They wanted their children to assimilate, adapt and succeed. What they did not want was their daughter dating me, a person of color. I was half-Black, and that made an unsuitable suitor."

The Rock dated financial Consultant Dany Garcia, 32, for a full six years and didn't meet her parents formally until he informed Dany's father that the two planned to marry. Love prevailed for the college sweethearts, who were wed in May of 1997, with her parents' blessing. Today the couple exists in a long-distance relationship because the wrestler is on the road for up to 200 days out of the year. They share a home in Miami, and to keep the love strong, The Rock says he turns his homecomings into honeymoons every time.