This week’s Young Rock episode centers around Dwayne Johnson’s short stint with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League during the mid-90s. The episode, just like in real life, shows Johnson getting cut from the practice squad just two months into the regular season, resulting in him moving back to the United States and first considering a career in professional wrestling. He then calls his family and his father, former WWF Tag Team Champion Rocky Johnson, immediately drives to Miami to pick him up and head back to Tampa. It then cuts to them on the highway, where Rocky asks Dwayne how much money he had in his pocket. It turned out to be eight dollars, but one bill flew out the open window.
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“It makes for a hell of a story now, knowing how everything turned out,” Johnson tells Randall Park in the 2032 setting. “But man, that was a rough time.”
Seven Bucks Production is now the production company owned by Johnson and his ex-wife Dany Garcia. Brian Gewirtz, who works for Seven Bucks and is the executive producer for Young Rock, talked with ComicBook last week about how the show will tackle Johnson’s complicated relationship with his father.
“It all starts with Dwayne himself and wanting to be truthful about the situation and the truth is Rocky wasn’t immediately into the idea of Dwayne entering the business, the wrestling business, for a variety of reasons,” Gewirtz said. “Ultimately, his mindset was, ‘Well, if I can’t stop you, I’m sure as hell not going to have someone else train you. We’re going to do this together and we’re going to do it my way.’ Yeah, obviously too for the purposes of the television show, that real life conflict creates a lot of drama, creates stories and creates some pretty humorous situations as well. You’ll see. Joe [Lee] Anderson who plays Rocky, is so innately charming and likable. It’s not necessarily the easiest thing on paper to have Rocky be so combative and almost like an antagonist, but we want to stay true to the real story.”
Previews for the second season of Young Rock have already confirmed the show will reach Johnson’s WWF in-ring debut at the 1996 Survivor Series pay-per-view in Madison Square Garden. Gewirtz also confirmed that, provided the show gets a third season, the show will tackle Johnson’s time in the Attitude Era.
