“Rock Hated It,”: Dwayne Johnson Did Not Want to Sacrifice His Stardom for His Rival After Their Disastrous First Encounter

When there are new opportunities, Dwayne Johnson always tries his hand at it and has achieved success several times. A similar thing happened in his career when he got cut from CFL and a pro wrestling opportunity came by. However, after becoming a top WWE superstar, he saw giving an opportunity to one particular star as a “demotion”. This statement came from a top WWE official a few years back. 

The WWE official also went on to say The Rock didn’t like to work with this now-AEW star. The 60-year-old WWE legend justified the comments he made.

Dwayne Johnson hated putting a WWE superstar over!

There is no length to how much bigger star The Rock became in the Attitude Era along with others. While WWE had Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Triple H, Mankind, etc, the company tried to push Billy Gunn as a singles competitor.

After winning the King of the Ring in 1999, WWE positioned Billy Gunn against DJ for a feud. Surprisingly, in a video clip shared in 2020 from the podcast Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, the WWE legend claimed The Brahma Bull hated putting one-half of The New Age Outlaws star over.

Prichard said, “Rock hated it. No other way to explain it. I mean, Rock hated it…He saw it as not a demotion but, ‘Okay, I’m the guy that has to get this guy over?’ and not like, ‘I’m over, put me on top. Instead, I’m put in the role of trying to get this guy over?’”

He added, “And I don’t know that Rock really had the confidence in Billy. This was a time when we were looking to get a singles run out of Billy and see what the hell he had.”

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The Great One and the current AEW star had a ‘Kiss My A**’ match at SummerSlam 1999. The Rock won the match which was the semi-main event of the show. However, post this Gunn was back to tag team wrestling as it seemed WWE dropped the ball on his massive singles push.

Nevertheless, he did have a successful singles career in WWE. Gunn is a two-time Hardcore Champion and one-time Intercontinental champion. Also, his feud with The Rock gave one of the best promos of the Attitude Era.

The Rock’s iconic ‘God’ promo didn’t stop Billy Gunn’s WWE push

One of the iconic promos of ‘The People’s Champion’ came against Billy Gunn. Many fans often say this quote-unquote conversation with ‘God’ promo stopped the AEW star’s massive push. But as per Prichard, that is not true.

The 60-year-old said, “No, it was really, ‘Okay, here’s your opportunity. Come out of it and go out and deliver.’ But the audience wasn’t ready for him, and I don’t know that Billy was ready for the push at that time.”

However, all those years later, Gunn is still an active star and making his mark in AEW. After his sons turned on him, the 59-year-old is a member of The Acclaimed as “Daddy Ass” a reference to Gunn’s 1999 WWF “Mr. Ass” persona.

What do you make of Bruce Prichard’s comments? Share your opinion below.

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