The Rock: The 10 Defining Moments of The People’s Champion

5. Backlash 2000

This is a moment that in hindsight should have came a month earlier at WrestleMania 16. While the Rock had been champion before he had always been battling for the number 1 spot with Stone Cold. With Austin out, this was the Rock’s coronation as the top babyface in the company. No longer would he be second and truly 2000 was the Rock’s year.

At the start of the year Triple H was running rough shot over the company and it made sense to have the super popular Rock finally give him his concupiscent. WWE made a mistake by not having that at Mania so had to make up for it here

4. Going to Hollywood

As I said 2000 was the Rock’s year but come 2001 Rock had seemingly done everything he could do in WWE. So he decided to do something that many others had tried to do make it in Hollywood.

He would go between Hollywood and WWE for the next few years until leaving completely in 2004. Initially there was some scepticism within the company about how the Rock would fair. Funny how a few million dollars changes all that. While his first few movies weren’t the blockbusters his more recent ones are his journey to being the highest paid actor started here.

In recent years the only wrestlers to come close to him are John Cena and Batista.

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