While he will likely never leave the wrestling business entirely, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson confirmed during an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan that he has retired from in-ring competition.
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During the appearance, Johnson said he has “quietly retired” and stated that he has accomplished everything that he ever set out to do in the wrestling business. You can check out the video below.
Officially, Johnson’s last match for WWE was an unannounced, six second, bout with Erick Rowan at WrestleMania 32 in Dallas. His last advertised, full length contest came over six years ago, at WrestleMania 29 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey against John Cena. Johnson walked into that bout the WWE Champion, having won it from CM Punk at the Royal Rumble, and dropped the title to Cena in the match.
The bout with Cena resulted in significant injury as Johnson tore his abdominal and adductor tendons from his pelvis. He underwent surgery and the injury pushed the filming of Hercules back, which resulted in millions in expenses for Paramount and MGM and undoubtedly made film studios reluctant to have one of the most successful actors in Hollywood possibly compromise projects by returning to a wrestling ring.
Even so, Johnson explained during the Live With Kelly and Ryan appearance why he misses wrestling:
“I miss wrestling, I love wrestling. Yes, I do,” he said. “I quietly retired from wrestling because I was lucky enough to have just a really wonderful career and accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, but there’s nothing like a live crowd, a live audience, a live microphone as you both know. Plus, I grew up in wrestling. For a lot of you guys that don’t know, my grandfather wrestled, my dad as well, my whole family. And I actually had my very first match ever in the WWE, was in Madison Square Garden and it was a big pay-per-view, and it was funny because I credit my time and my journey in pro wrestling to getting me to where I am at today.”
You are still likely to see Johnson make appearances for WWE. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has reported that WWE is pushing hard to get him to appear on the first edition of SmackDown on FOX on Friday, October 4th.
[H/T to Complex for the transcript.]
