Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson celebrated his 47th birthday on Thursday, and the WWE helped celebrate by putting together a collection of his 10 world championship victories onto the WWE YouTube page. Debuting in 1996, Johnson finished his career as a 10-time world champion, winning the WWE Championship eight times and the WCW Championship twice (though both wins came after the WCW had folded as a company). Johnson’s first win came at the 1998 Survivor Series, where at the end of the “Deadly Game” tournament he turned heel and aligned himself with Vince and Shane McMahon to create The Corporation by cheating to beat Mankind.
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Johnson and Mankind would trade the title back and forth in the months that followed. Mankind won it back on an episode of Raw in January 1999 thanks to interference from “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Johnson cheated to win it at the Royal Rumble in an “I Quit” match by airing audio of Foley screaming “I Quit!”, Mankind won it again at Halftime Heat in an Empty Arena match, and Johnson won it a third time in a ladder match on Raw thanks to interference from Paul Wight (better known as Big Show).
After dropping the title to Austin at WrestleMania XV, Johnson would not win it again until Backlash when he pinned Triple H via a People’s Elbow. Hunter won the title back three weeks later at Judgement Day in a 60-minute Iron Man match, leading to a six-man tag match at King of the Ring where Hunter’s title was on the line. Johnson pinned Vince McMahon to win the title, kicking off his longest reign as WWE Champion at 119 days.
Johnson would eventually drop the title to Kurt Angle, but won it back at the 2001 No Way Out pay-per-view in order to set up his iconic rematch with Austin at WrestleMania X-Seven, which he lost thanks to an Austin heel turn. Later that year Johnson got involved in the Invasion storyline with WCW and ECW, and defeated Booker T to become WCW Champion at the 2001 SummerSlam event. He dropped the title to Chris Jericho at No Mercy, won it back on an episode of Raw and lost it again to Jericho at Vengeance (with help from Booker T) — the same night the Canadian star became the first Undisputed Champion.
With his Hollywood career taking off, Johnson would not hold the WWE Championship again until January 2013 when he ended CM Punk’s famous 434-day reign at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. He’d hold the title for 70 days before losing it to John Cena at WrestleMania 29.
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