Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is one of the most widely recognised and prominent actors on the planet.
His stardom on the big screen came along after he shot to fame for his antics in the WWE, as one of the organisation’s most famous wrestling superstars.
However, the Rock very nearly opted for a different career path over ten years ago.
The American recently revealed that he came close to swapping the WWE for the UFC when answering questions from fans on Twitter. He also admitted that he had outlined Greg Jackson as his potential coach in such a career move but eventually steered clear of entering training for the Octagon because of the obvious health risks.
The wrestler-turned-actor tweeted that he opted to stay away from the UFC as he came to his senses, claiming he “smartened up” because he wanted to “keep his jaw intact”.
The rock vs John Cena by Simon from United Kingdom (CC BY 2.0)
This isn’t the first time that the Rock has mentioned a possible move to the UFC, having admitted in 2016 that he had previously had interest in fighting in the organisation. Appearing on UFC Unfiltered, Johnson admitted he had thoughts of taking that career path because he had achieved so much in the WWE and acting jobs were hard to come by.
“There was a time there where I thought, ‘Man, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve in WWE, my movie career is floundering a little bit, what do I do?’,” Johnson said.
The Rock did ultimately find his footing, though, in the world of Hollywood movies, but the UFC wouldn’t have been a bad choice for a man who clearly enjoys the spotlight. Indeed, such is the huge popularity of MMA worldwide that bitcoin-based betting on the sport has become available to punters. Sports from any country, including the UFC and even the WWE in the US or UK and Ireland, are now available to wager on using the cryptocurrency.
Last year, Johnson topped the Forbes’ list of highest-paid actors in the world, he is the lead in his own series Ballers and has plenty of projects on the horizon in 2018. But, if the WWE superstar had have ended up making the move to the UFC, the MMA organisation could have been a whole lot different.
If he turned to the roster a decade ago he would have unquestionably been the biggest star in the sport, and would likely have been that era’s very own Conor McGregor or Brock Lesnar. The latter WWE star is one wrestler who did don the MMA gloves and compete in the UFC, having been involved in a number of high-grossing fight cards in his career to date.
The Rock may have enjoyed some success on such a switch of careers, but as seen previously with CM Punk, there is always the chance of enduring a damaging defeat, too. The Hollywood star hasn’t done too badly without the UFC anyway, and he’ll likely look back on his decision to stay away from it as a wise one.
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