Kevin Nash Apologizes to The Rock Over How He Acted in WWE in 2002

By Connor Casey

WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson had an unexpected Twitter interaction over the weekend. It started with Nash posting a photo of himself in a hotel gym, giving "The People's Champion" a shoutout for the workout shoes he had created as part of Under Armour's Project Rock. He wrote, "Great day at Indiana Comic Con. Thanks NWO Nation for the strong showing. Fantastic hotel gym. Got arms and abs in. Thanks @TheRock for putting out these bad ass kicks. Looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow I'll hit my table at 10:30. Despite a nice wine list downstairs."

"You're an inspiration my brother," Johnson responded. "In tremendous shape!!! Holy s—. Way to raise the bar!"

"Following your lead. You're work ethic is amazing," Nash wrote. "You're filming schedule would kill most mortals but the promotion for your films is the grind. You film and promote at the same time. Sorry I was such a dick to you when I came back in 2002. Just trying to keep my spot."

Johnson accepted the apology, tweeting, "Never a need for any apology big brother, but thank you very cool of you. You guys had to come back with some bite & venom. I was living in the house you helped build, so I was pumped you, Scott & Hulk were coming back cause #1) I was always a fan and #2) most importantly.."

By 2002 Johnson was already eying his Hollywood career but would continue to wrestle on a consistent basis until his match with Goldberg at the 2003 Backlash pay-per-view. Meanwhile, Nash, Scott Hall and Hulk Hogan made their return to the company as the New World Order at the 2002 No Way Out pay-per-view, setting up WrestleMania X8 matches between Johnson & Hogan and Steve Austin & Scott Hall. Nash and Rock would wrestle five times that year, with their most famous encounter being a three-on-two handicap match right before WrestleMania X8 on the March 11, 2002 episode of Raw.

Last year, during one of his Confessions of a Hitman episodes, Bret Hart talked about the backstage bullying Johnson had to endure early in his career. 

"A lot of the wrestlers would give him a hard time in those days, a really hard time, enough to try to break him and get him to quit and they almost succeeded," Hart said. "And I can remember going to bat for Dwayne quite a few times and kind of looking out for him, Owen too. I think Owen and I had a lot to do with sort of looking out for him when he first came down. [The Rock] was kind of a marked guy."

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