During a recent Instagram Q&A, The Rock revealed that his “Rocky Sucks” period when he was a babyface was the low point in his career. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On the ‘Rocky Sucks’ chants: “In that time, in the world of pro wrestling, is it started to shift, and no longer did fans want tradition. They wanted to buck tradition. They didn’t like cookie-cutter. They didn’t want stale. And they wanted anti-authority. Anti-authority came in the form of Stone Cold Steve Austin…I represented everything, at that time, that was wrong with pro wrestling, and the fans turned on me. They started chanting, ‘Rocky sucks, Rocky –‘ at every arena that I went to. Now imagine, I’m the champion and at every arena that I went to they were chanting, ‘Rocky sucks.’ And it was hard for me, as you can imagine, psychologically, but also hard as a company. The company’s scrambling like, ‘What do we do?’ They’ve never seen anything like this before. Vince McMahon said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this, a visceral reaction that is so anti what we want.’”
On the low point of his career: “It was my very first WrestleMania as Intercontinental Champion. I wrestled The Sultan, who’s also Rikishi. He’s my family, my ainga. And 15,000 people in Chicago were chanting ‘Rocky sucks.’ And this is WrestleMania. And I remember Rikishi telling me, ‘Don’t listen to them.’ But you can’t help it. You’re listening to them. That was the culmination that the company felt like we can’t do anything anymore with Rocky — me — Rocky Maivia. They took the belt off me. They gave it to somebody else — Owen Hart I think it was. My dear friend. Rest in peace. And I got hurt and was sent home for the summer.”
On considering a new career at that point: “Now, that was my low because now I’m at home, I have no money, and I’m thinking my wrestling career is just like my football career. It’s all just gonna end before it actually begins. I’m thinking, ‘Jesus Christ. Do I go to law school, because I wanted to work for the CIA? And I thought, ‘Well, I can’t afford law school, and my study habits are the s**ts. Do I even consider UFC? Do I do UFC?’ And I went ‘Well, I’d prefer not to get punched in the face. Do I go to Japan to wrestle in Japan? I don’t know even if I could do that. I’d need a fresh start.”
On the realization that brought it all around for him: “So I had a lot to reconcile. But the main thing I needed to reconcile was the fans booing me. But I realized over that summer, they weren’t — they didn’t hate me for me, being me. They didn’t actually hate me. They hated that I actually wasn’t being myself. Because I would go out as a babyface and they would be like ‘Rocky sucks.’ And I was told by the company, ‘You gotta smile because you’re happy to be there.’ So I would go out and fans would chant, ‘Rocky sucks,’ and I would say ‘Hey, yeah, thank you.’ [The fans would yell] ‘Die, Rocky die!’ ‘Yeah, all right.’ I wouldn’t respond, and they hated that. And of course they did. That was my career low.”
On turning it around after joining the Nation of Domination: “I went out [on Raw], and I said it, ‘Rocky Maivia is a lot of things but sucks isn’t one of them.’ And this is on live TV, on Monday Night Raw. I said, ‘It’s not a black thing. It’s not a white thing. It’s a me whopping your ass thing,’ something to that effect. And I just kept there, dropped the mic. Fans were kind of booing, kind of chanting ‘Rocky sucks,’ but they could feel something. They could feel like a difference because I was just being me.”
On that change turning into his career high: “The next PPV I had was in Chicago. The place that booed me out of the building. The Nation of Domination, our music hits — and The Nation of Domination was this badass music. It had a thumping drive to it. ‘We are The Nation of Domination.’ We would walk out. And now I’m walking out. And in this syncopated beat, you start to hear 15,000 people, ‘Rocky sucks! Rocky sucks! Rocky sucks!’ I mean hard, blowing the roof of the place. I got goosebumps now thinking about that, and I had goosebumps then walking to the ring. I get in the middle of the ring. I pause. I want to see what happens to this crowd. ‘Rocky sucks!’ It got stronger. And all I did, I kind of turned around. I look, look this way. It got so strong. That place was f**king vibrating, that arena. I knew in that moment that I was in rarefied air. And that rarefied air in professional wrestling is me doing absolutely nothing and having the crowd [snaps] right there in the palm of my hand. Did nothing. ‘Rocky sucks!’ Looked at them. ‘Rocky sucks!’ And all I did was go, [shakes finger] ‘Mmm-mmm. No, no, no, no.’ And when I went home that night, back at the hotel, I realized that I had something special, and I was so elated. It was like a weight was lifted off my body. It was almost like a resurrection like a religious experience when you catch the holy ghost because then I realized ah, now with the people, we can dance. Now with the people, we’re gonna have a real relationship.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
