History YMMV / DwayneJohnson

* DoingItForTheArt: Johnson doesn't need the money to [[CatchPhrase come BACK to WWE]]]. His ''[=WrestleMania=] 28'' feud with Cena came at a time with no movie to promote (''Journey 2'' was released prior to ''Elimination Chamber 2012'', too late to generate any real box office bump; ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'' was still months away from release). He showed his goosebumps to the camera while in the middle of the ring during a ''RAW'' episode. If you were someone who thought The Rock wanted nothing to do with wrestling ever again (a popular sentiment on the IWC once "The Rock" was dropped from his name for a few years), The Rock promptly laid the smackdown on your candy-ass notion.

* AscendedMeme: When The Rock returned to the WWE, he called Wrestling/JohnCena a "big fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles". Not long after, Post made a marketing deal with Cena for...you guessed it, Fruity Pebbles.

* ItGetsBetter: He's always been regarded as a "pretty good" at worst when it came to wrestling but his "Flex Kavana" which he admitted to thinking sounded cool when he first came up with it, wasn't one of his best ideas, which he also admitted. Rocky Maivia was even worse, and he knew it the moment it was suggested, repeatedly shooting it down until he got to the WWF main roster and no longer had a choice. All the boos he got proved him correct, but then things got better.

** an attempt to invoke this recently backfired... [[InternetBackdraft very]] [[TheScrappy badly]] as an attempt to put over Wrestling/RomanReigns at the 2015 Royal Rumble. To say this didn't work is quite the understatement.

*** He followed up on that on ''[[MilestoneCelebration Raw 1000]]'' and announced that he had a title shot at Royal Rumble 2013. Before long people started saying he'd become an absentee WWE Champion before [=WrestleMania=] XXIX if he didn't lose. Now before he's even returned for 2013, what's been announced of his [=WrestleMania=] season schedule already rivals what a typical second-run Wrestling/ShawnMichaels schedule would look like in the same amount of time, with him set to appear live on the majority of ''Raw'' episodes and '''[[CueTheFlyingPigs at least three]] ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackDown Smackdowns]]'''''. At this rate the cycle's only gonna stop when either most wrestling fans actually expect him to return full time or when his eventual retirement match and/or Hall of Fame induction is finally announced.

** Even the mere fact of his feud with and wins over Wrestling/CMPunk have caused this, arguably due to Punk's massive popularity. Many fans hated Rock for being the part-timer who dared to end Punk's historic 434-day reign as WWE Champion. Made worse by the fact that this was done just in time for the road to the Wrestling/WrestleMania main event, with many questioning whether Rock deserved the spot over Punk and others still who had no problem with Rock himself being there felt that it was wasted on what was widely considered a ForegoneConclusion with Wrestling/JohnCena getting his win back and being solidified as the top dog over both men. On the other hand, others credited the Punk-Rock feud for restoring Punk's credibility as a badass after months of the WWE Champion being booked as an ineffectual chickenshit heel against Wrestling/{{Ryback}} and especially Cena, with Punk going from running away and ducking his challengers at all times to outright calling out and challenging Rock, even getting the better of him once or twice before the Rumble title match, and losing both that match and the next year's rematch under controversial circumstances. Then there was the pattern of Punk losing to [[Wrestling/TheUndertaker major]] [[Wrestling/BrockLesnar part-timers]] that eventually formed from this, which only frustrated fans further in the aftermath. Even Punk himself was not happy about this, though he didn't hold it against Rock, Taker, or Lesnar, all of whom he's cool with, but against the internal logic of the company's booking.

** Even the mere fact of his feud with and wins over Wrestling/CMPunk have caused this, arguably due to Punk's massive popularity. Many fans hated Rock for being the part-timer who dared to end Punk's historic 434-day reign as WWE Champion, while others credited the Punk-Rock feud for restoring Punk's credibility as a badass after months of the WWE Champion being booked as an ineffectual chickenshit heel against Wrestling/{{Ryback}} and especially Wrestling/JohnCena.

** His years back have consistently seen him appear easily more than Wrestling/TheUndertaker and, were it not for Wrestling/TripleH's involvement in the Punk and Laurinaitis storylines in summer-to-fall 2011, about as much as the Game as well. Sure, it's understood why they're not full time wrestlers anymore, what with HHH being on the new boss path and Undertaker's body being broken down. However, Rock's movie career is just as valid a cause for inactivity--something his HateDumb refuses to accept because to them his movie career is exactly the problem.
** There were also numerous opportunities to trash the business in his time away, most notably during the Chris Benoit murder-suicide scandal where the media dragged pro wrestling through the mud. However when he was interviewed about it during that time gave his take on what needed to be done without throwing WWE under the bus and in fact gave them credit for the Wellness initiative. He also incorporated his wrestling style into his fight scenes in at least one of his early movies, he's had wrestling rings to work in near the sets of his latest movies as well as trained with WWE wrestlers Michael [=McGillicutty=] and Curt Hawkins in his free time so as to make sure he'd be in match shape, and he's even taken the time to watch Wrestling/{{TNA}} enough to be impressed with Bobby Roode to the point of tweeting him some props during his World Championship heel run. His ambitions may not be tied down to wrestling anymore (and it's debatable that they ever truly were), but he does still love the business as much as ever.

** Bonus points now for largely rectifying the issue of Wrestling/CMPunk's BadassDecay before taking the title from him. Although, his victory over Punk has produced a BrokenBase all its own…
* FandomRivalry[=/=]FoeYay: With Cena's fans at present. WWE's trying to play this up for all it's worth.

* HilariousInHindsight: On January 28, 2013, the night after ending CM Punk's 434-day reign as WWE Champion, The Rock called CM Punk a "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60xtTJun-Zc punk ass bitch]]". While it seemed like a great monniker to use in a promo against Punk, Website/{{YouTube}}rs might get an extra kick out of it if they remember a short video spliced together from May 1, 2009 with a clip of then-long-haired Money in the Bank holder CM Punk saying his name, only to be interrupted by a clip of The Rock saying…well…"[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zTLYOBAIHI punk ass bitch]]".

** There's also the matter of the IWC consistently putting low expectations on his measure of commitment, him exceeding these expectations, them putting another benchmark to test him, and him exceeding those.

* CreatorsPet: Hard as it may be to believe now, he debuted as this in 1996-1997 under his original WWF ring name, Rocky Maivia. To elaborate: he started off hot as the first third-generation superstar, but pretty soon, his smiling-babyface schtick began to wear very, very thin, especially in a landscape where Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin was already redefining the company's direction. By the time ''Wrestling/{{Wrestlemania}} XIII'' rolled around (with a match between him and [[Wrestling/{{Rikishi}} The Sultan]], that didn't exactly blow the roof off), it was obvious fans were just not into the guy at all, no matter how hard they were pushing his happy-go-lucky persona. Of course, as we all know now, [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap things got better]].

* CreatorsPet: Hard as it may be to believe now, he debut as this in 1996-1997 under his original WWF ring name, Rocky Maivia. To elaborate: he started off hot as the first third-generation superstar, but pretty soon, his smiling-babyface schtick began to wear very, very thin, especially in a landscape where Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin was already redefining the company's direction. By the time ''Wrestling/{{Wrestlemania}} XIII'' rolled around (with a match with [[Wrestling/Rikishi The Sultan that didn't exactly blow the roof off), it was obvious fans were just not into the guy at all, no matter how hard they were pushing his happy-go-lucky persona. Of course, as we all know now, [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap things got better]].

* CreatorsPet: Johnson started out as this. [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap Things got better]].

* Thatonequestion: Just what is The Rock cooking? Is it steak?

* VillainDecay: During his "Corporate Champion" run, The Rock was probably at his most vicious, as he had brutal brawls with Mankind (the 1999 ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' match with the repeated chair shots to the head being one of them); at one point, he threw Austin off a bridge. During his "Hollywood" heel run in 2003, however, he was a far more comedic, cowardly villain and was the [[LargeHam hammiest]] he had ever been in his career, which led to him turning face again after a couple of months. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as The Rock had been the company's biggest face for years at that point, and the FaceHeelTurn was only in response to fans turning on him for constantly leaving to film movies (despite the internet claiming it was because fans were tired of him ''being'' a face. This was clearly not the case as he only got booed on two or three occasions prior to the turn: once against Wrestling/HulkHogan at ''[=WrestleMania=] 18'' and another against Wrestling/BrockLesnar at ''Wrestling/{{SummerSlam}} 2002'', where the dreaded "ROCKY SUCKS!" chant of years past returned. The crowds went back to cheering for The Rock after the matches were over). The Rock still managed to get victories over Hogan and Austin during his Hollywood heel run, though.

* ItGetsBetter: He's always been regarded as a "pretty good" at worst when it came to wrestling but his "Flex Kavana" which he admitted to thinking sounded cool when he first came up with it, wasn't one of his best ideas, which he also admitted.

* HarsherInHindsight: At the 2015 Royal Rumble, The Rock came out to congratulate Royal Rumble winner [[spoiler:Roman Reigns]], who many say is an inexperienced performer with lots of potential, but was pushed to the main event way before he was ready. They were both booed with a passion (although a large part of it came not actually from what the crowd think [[spoiler:of Reigns]] but what they think of the fact [[spoiler:that ''Daniel Bryan didn't win'']]). You can tell by the look on The Rock's face that he was having some bad flashbacks.

* AscendedMeme - When The Rock returned to the WWE, he called Wrestling/JohnCena a "big fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles". Not long after, Post made a marketing deal with Cena for...you guessed it, Fruity Pebbles.
* AwesomeEgo - As The Rock: it's what got him XPacHeat in his first {{heel}} run, until it got him over, and has been one of his defining character traits ever since. Even when Johnson is designated as a heel, the fans love it and cheer him for it, and he's one of (if not the) best examples in all wrestling.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment[=/=]WhatHappenedToTheMouse - On the night The Rock was revealed as the host of [[Wrestling/{{Wrestlemania}} Wrestlemania 27]], the last thing we saw before commercial break preceding The Rock's appearance was a limo pulling up outside of the arena. The limo door opens and the camera panning low so that all we could see coming out is what appears to be the feet of a woman wearing high heels, assumed by the commentators to be the host. Of course, it wasn't the host, and she was never seen again. Err, OK...

* BrokenBase - Fans were divided during The Rock's 2013 reign as WWE Champion. Those in favour tended to point out that The Rock as champion meant great exposure for WWE and increased pay-per-view buy rates, as well as drawing interest from fans who previously watched WWE in the Wrestling/AttitudeEra. Detractors, however, were quick to point out The Rock's obvious ring rust (becoming exhausted 5 minutes into each of his three 25+ minute matches), his failure to actively promote the company while being a champion (in the 2 months he was carrying the belt, he attended a number of movie premieres, talk shows and award presentations, only bringing the championship to one and failed to mention the WWE at any of them) and that he did not wrestle at all on any episode of ''Raw''.

* CreatorsPet - Johnson started out as this. [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap Things got better]].
* DoingItForTheArt - Johnson doesn't need the money to [[CatchPhrase come BACK to WWE]]]. His ''[=WrestleMania=] 28'' feud with Cena came at a time with no movie to promote (''Journey 2'' was released prior to ''Elimination Chamber 2012'', too late to generate any real box office bump; ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'' was still months away from release). He showed his goosebumps to the camera while in the middle of the ring during a RAW episode. If you were someone who thought The Rock wanted nothing to do with wrestling ever again (a popular sentiment on the IWC once "The Rock" was dropped from his name for a few years), The Rock promptly laid the smackdown on your candy-ass notion.

* FandomRivalry, FoeYay - With Cena's fans at present. WWE's trying to play this up for all it's worth.

* FanNickname - "The Dwayne", following Johnson's moving away from his wrestling past (including the move to stop having "The Rock" included in his movie credits).

* FountainOfMemes - He lampshades this during ''Raw Gets Rocked'' episode
-->"When The Rock talks on twitter things trend worldwide.''
* HarsherInHindsight: At the 2015 Royal Rumble, The Rock came out to congratulate Royal Rumble winner [[spoiler: Roman Reigns]], who many say is an inexperienced performer with lots of potential, but was pushed to the main event way before he was ready. They were both booed with a passion (although a large part of it came not actually from what the crowd think [[spoiler:of Reigns]] but what they think of the fact [[spoiler: that ''Daniel Bryan didn't win'']]). You can tell by the look on The Rock's face that he was having some bad flashbacks.

* HilariousInHindsight - On January 28, 2013, the night after ending CM Punk's 434-day reign as WWE Champion, The Rock called CM Punk a "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60xtTJun-Zc punk ass bitch]]". While it seemed like a great monniker to use in a promo against Punk, Website/{{YouTube}}rs might get an extra kick out of it if they remember a short video spliced together from May 1, 2009 with a clip of then-long-haired Money in the Bank holder CM Punk saying his name, only to be interrupted by a clip of The Rock saying…well…"[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zTLYOBAIHI punk ass bitch]]".
* {{Irony}} - His most recent look (BaldOfAwesome with a [[BadassBeard Badass Goatee]]) actually favors Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin somewhat.
* MemeticMutation - Any and all of his {{Catch Phrase}}s. This has reached a point where he can create memes by edict: whatever he says will be a meme will wind up as a meme. Look no further than the word "cookiepuss" in his appearance during the January 7, 2013 RAW episode.

* PopularityPower-- So much so that there's been an EpilepticTree saying it turned the People's Elbow into The Rock's CombinedEnergyAttack.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap-- He went from a generic babyface who got booed by the crowd for being so bland to "The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment".
* ShockingSwerve-- The 1998 ''Wrestling/SurvivorSeries''. Weeks before the event, The Rock was gaining {{face}} momentum with the crowd, as [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon Vince [=McMahon=]]] began antagonizing him (as a result of Austin begin hired back by his son [[Wrestling/ShaneMcMahon Shane [=McMahon=]]] weeks earlier), stating since he had a "problem with the people, [[he]] has a problem with the People's Champion". Vince would do all he can to stop The Great One from reaching the top and nabbing the WWE Championship at Survivor Series. However, at the finals of the "Deadly Game" tournament at Survivor Series for the belt, once The Rock locked [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] in the Sharpshooter, [=McMahon=] forced the bell to ring, calling for a submission win to The Rock, despite Mankind not tapping out. Turns out ''everything'' was planned from the start, with Vince proclaiming he and Shane were always in support of The Rock, molding him into the "Corporate Champion" and crown jewel of Wrestling/TheCorporation. To really cap the swerve, Vince would utter the following:

* TearJerker-- His reaction to Wrestling/OwenHart's accident, namely trying to hijack an ambulance that was at the arena for a later match and drive Owen to the hospital himself. Little bits of moments of awesome and heartwarming in there, due to The Rock's sheer determination to save him.
* VillainDecay - During his "Corporate Champion" run, The Rock was probably at his most vicious, as he had brutal brawls with Mankind (the 1999 ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble'' match with the repeated chair shots to the head being one of them); at one point, he threw Austin off a bridge. During his "Hollywood" heel run in 2003, however, he was a far more comedic, cowardly villain and was the [[LargeHam hammiest]] he had ever been in his career, which led to him turning face again after a couple of months. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as The Rock had been the company's biggest face for years at that point, and the FaceHeelTurn was only in response to fans turning on him for constantly leaving to film movies (despite the internet claiming it was because fans were tired of him ''being'' a face. This was clearly not the case as he only got booed on two or three occasions prior to the turn: once against Wrestling/HulkHogan at ''[=WrestleMania=] 18'' and another against Wrestling/BrockLesnar at ''Wrestling/{{SummerSlam}} 2002'', where the dreaded "ROCKY SUCKS!" chant of years past returned. The crowds went back to cheering for The Rock after the matches were over). The Rock still managed to get victories over Hogan and Austin during his Hollywood heel run, though.

** an attempt to invoke this recently backfired... [[InternetBackdraft very]] [[TheScrappy badly]] as an attempt to put over RomanReigns at the 2015 Royal Rumble. To say this didn't work is quite the understatement.

** WWE tried to invoke this in-storyline with John Cena pointing out. the cliff-notes for a promo that he wrote on his wrist were caught on camera. Unfortunately for Cena (and almost everyone else on the roster), they recite promos nearly word for word from scripts.

* HarsherInHindsight: At the 2015 Royal Rumble, The Rock came out to congratulate Royal Rumble winner [[spoiler: Roman Reigns]], who many say is an inexperienced performer with lots of potential, but was pushed to the main event way before he was ready. They were both booed with a passion (although a large part of it came not actually from what the crowd think [[of spoiler: Reigns]] but what they think of the fact [[spoiler: that ''Daniel Bryan didn't win'']]). You can tell by the look on The Rock's face that he was having some bad flashbacks.

* HarsherInHindsight: At the 2015 Royal Rumble, The Rock came out to congratulate Royal Rumble winner [[spoiler: Roman Reigns]], who many say is an inexperienced performer with lots of potential, but was pushed to the main event way before he was ready. They were both booed with a passion. You can tell by the look on The Rock's face that he was having some bad flashbacks.