Dwayne Johnson

I was making $150,000 a year in 1997, wrestling 235 dates a year.

When you break that down and do the math, that's not a lot of money per match.

No, those guys in wrestling, they get injured all the time.

And even though it's performative and fictionalized, the wear and tear comes in the falls, the slams, and also the wear and tear comes in the form of just consistently doing it every night in a different city.

So in the world of pro wrestling, our goal was to entertain the fans, and our goal was to really protect each other in the ring so we can move on to the next town tomorrow night, hopefully not injured.

But if you were injured,

We all worked injured, even the guys and the girls today.

Everyone is injured to some capacity and everyone just protects each other as best they can.

So my original name when I went in to WWE was Rocky Maivia.

And I hated that name because it was when I got into wrestling, as you said in my introduction, my grandfather was a pro wrestler.

My dad was a pro wrestler.

My grandmother was one of the first female promoters.

in pro wrestling, so I came from a long lineage.

And while very proud of my family's history in pro wrestling, I also wanted to make it on my own, and I wanted to carve my own path.

And so they came up, WWE came up with this name, Rocky Maivia, a combination of my dad's name, Rocky Johnson, and my grandfather's name, High Chief Peter Maivia.

So it was showing respect to my family lineage.

And all part of the good guy, baby face persona.

And I remember having a conversation with Vince McMahon, who was the owner at that time of WWE.

And he said, when you go out every night, I want you to smile.

I said, can I ask you why?