Wrestlers Who Can't Stand The Rock

"The Great One," "The People's Champ," "The Final Boss" — these are just some of the names Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson has earned during his wrestling career. Outside of the ring, though, he is widely regarded as one of the nicest people in showbusiness. Despite being one of the most famous individuals in the entire world, Johnson at one point had the reputation of someone who is easygoing, approachable, and down to earth, earning him many fans as a wrestler and actor.

The movie and wrestling industries are known to be shark tanks at the best of times, thanks to all of the politics and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Because of that, Johnson — a man who's portrayed a singing Disney character that some children dress up as for Halloween — isn't universally liked by his colleagues. Some people have been annoyed by his success, while others have taken issue with his part-time status in WWE. With that said, here are the wrestlers who, at one point in their lives, did not want to smell what the Rock was cooking.

Starting off with one of the more recent examples, Cody Rhodes finally finished his story at WrestleMania 40 by defeating Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Championship. It was a main event that WWE fans worldwide had willed into existence following the result of the prior year's main event and it was almost all taken away thanks to the Rock.

After winning the Royal Rumble for the second straight year, Rhodes was set to challenge Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 40, only for the Rock to insert himself request he hand his title match to him in order to determine the true "Head of the Table." This decision was as well received as someone farting in the middle of a funeral, and everyone was angry that Cody Rhodes, the Royal Rumble winner, simply gave up the thing he won in that match to the Rock, who wasn't even in the Rumble.

This all led to Rhodes and the Rock meeting in a tag team match that included Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins in the main event of the first night of WrestleMania 40, but by the time that match took place, Rhodes and the Rock weren't exactly on the same page. Rhodes straight-up told Ariel Helwani in an interview on the MMA Hour that he doesn't like the Rock, but respects what he has done for the business, as well as opening the doors to wrestlers who want to pursue acting later in their careers. 

The American Nightmare has continued to "poke the bear" regarding the Rock, stating that The Final Boss is obsessed with him and that if he ends up going into politics, Rhodes will follow just to p*ss him off, so it's safe to say this beef is far from over.

As previously mentioned, Seth Rollins was involved in the tag team match that headlined the first night of WrestleMania 40, and if you thought it was just Cody Rhodes that didn't like the Rock by the time the bell rang, you would be wrong.

Rollins was recovering from a knee injury by the time the Rock inserted himself into WWE's plans for WrestleMania, so when he was asked about what had been going on in his absence, Rollins explained that WWE just fine without The Final Boss, calling him "an afterthought," and that he was just going to say "the same crap he's been saying for the past 20 years." The insults didn't stop there, as the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion claimed that the Rock couldn't lace his boots at any point in his career, even if the Rock was at his physical peak.

The Rock had also become a member of the board of directors of WWE's parent company, TKO, when he made his return at the beginning of 2024, but seeing him throw his weight around (both in story and potentially behind the scenes) was something that Rollins called "gross," and even said that the Rock did the same thing to CM Punk a decade earlier. However, Rollins did have some nice things to say about the People's Champion once he knew that he would be working with him at WrestleMania 40, calling him an incredible physical specimen and saying that he is someone who should never be overlooked considering what he has done in his career. That point was proven when the Rock and Roman Reigns defeated Rollins and Cody Rhodes.

Rollins would end up opening night two of WrestleMania 40 where he lost the WWE World Heavyweight Championship to Drew McIntyre, all while CM Punk was at ringside. 

Speaking of CM Punk... 

While the 2024 version of CM Punk is still capable of busting people open the hard way with tool boxes and shoving beads in people's mouths, he seems to have mellowed out somewhat outside the ring. Whether or not all the drama he went through in his AEW run taught him that life is too short to be pissed off all the time remains to be seen, but the remarks CM Punk made when the Rock returned to wrestling in 2011 proved he was not a happy bunny.

WWE WrestleMania 27 is one of the most successful pay-per-views in history from a purely financial standpoint, and a lot of that was because the Rock was the guest host of the event. It didn't really matter that the event had one match that could be considered "good" in a lot of fans minds, the Rock being in WWE for the first time since 2004 was enough to bring in over one million buys on pay-per-view. That is something that didn't sit well with CM Punk.

Punk has gone on the record to say that his comments in 2011 were blown way out of proportion, but he was very adamant at the fact that there was more than one reason why WrestleMania 27 was so successful. CM Punk gave voice to his frustrations about the Rock and the fact that virtually all of the praise was being given to someone who, not only didn't wrestle on the show, but in Punk's eyes, wasn't all that entertaining either. The Rock was later referenced in Punk's infamous "pipebomb" promo later that year, and in a move that people are still confused about to this day, it was the Rock who ended Punk's then record-setting reign of 434 days as WWE Champion in 2013.

To get John Cena and CM Punk on the same page in the early 2010s was something many thought was impossible, but while Punk's comments about the Rock being praised despite being a part-timer were blown out of proportion, Cena took things one step further.

Back in 2008, Cena had an interview with The Sun where he lit a fuse to a bomb that wouldn't blow up until many years later. Cena was frustrated at the fact that the Rock had claimed that he loves wrestling, and will always love wrestling, but never showed up for a sporadic appearance after he properly left the company in 2004. This was amplified by the fact that a man like Cena, who is known for being calm and professional in media appearances, told the Rock "don't f**k me around and tell me that you love this when you are just doing this to do something else." 

Three years later, they would begin their feud that would ultimately lead to their WrestleMania 28 and 29 main events, but the bad blood continued to fester on-screen. Cena famously called out the Rock for writing parts of his promo on his wrist, something that visibly angered the Rock when the two exchanged words in one of the more intense promo battles WWE fans had seen in a long time. Many years later, Cena admitted regretting causing so much friction between himself and the Rock as he believed that it created this distance in trust between them, something that is not good in wrestling as trust is one of most important parts in making a match go smoothly. Ironically, for all the comments he made about choosing movies over wrestling, Cena's own move to Hollywood changed his point of view about the Rock being unable to appear in wrestling all those years ago.

When the Rock left WWE in 2004, his final match with the company was a handicap match at WrestleMania 20. The Great One rolled back the years with Mick Foley to reform the Rock N' Sock Connection, but they were no match for the Evolution contingent of Ric Flair, Batista, and 23-year old Randy Orton.

In the seven years between that match and the Rock's return in 2011, Orton grew up fast and eventually became one of WWE's biggest stars and reigned as either the World Heavyweight or WWE Champion seven times, eclipsing the Rock's personal record of five WWE Championships. Naturally, when the Rock did come back in 2011, Orton wasn't too thrilled about potentially having to share TV time with a part-timer (does that sound familiar?), and in a radio interview shortly after the Rock's return, Orton buried the People's Champion as deep as he could.

Orton claimed that the Rock used both writers and teleprompters in the arena to put together and perform his promos, he believed that John Cena outclasses him on every level (especially promos because he does his own material), and thought he turned his back on the wrestling business in favor of Hollywood, lying to the fans in the process after saying he would never leave again. 

This not only angered the Rock, but it also angered Vince McMahon. Orton explained later that year that John Laurinaitis pulled him to one side backstage at a WWE event to let him know that McMahon was upset at him burying the Rock, with the Rock himself calling McMahon personally after hearing the comments to tell him what Orton was doing. The two men would squash their beef by the end of the year, but have never crossed paths in the ring since.

Shifting away from the times where the Rock was accused of being a Hollywood part-timer and a man with too much power to throw around because he doesn't know what to do with it, Ahmed Johnson tried to legitimately fight The Great One in 1997.

Before he became the Final Boss everyone knows today, the Rock was known as Rocky Maivia, and like many young wrestlers in the business, he started to get a little bit cocky backstage when things started to go his way. Johnson explained in a shoot interview that he overheard the Rock running his mouth about something that Johnson believed he shouldn't have been, and considering he was about to have a match with young Rocky, he wanted to make sure he wasn't getting too big for his boots.

According to Johnson, the Rock wanted to get all of his high spots in to their match, but wasn't willing to take any of Johnson's. This led the former WWE Intercontinental Champion to suggest sorting their differences out in the ring, while the Rock reportedly wanted to settle it there and then, leading to a brief altercation where a few blows were thrown by each man. However, Bruce Prichard recalled the brawl starting a different way and that it was Johnson who was running his mouth instead of the Rock, but whichever way the story is told, the fight between the two men definitely happened.

Johnson said he believed that the Rock never liked him as he was using his actual last name, while the Rock had to use the name Maivia after his grandfather, "High Chief" Peter Maivia; to this day, neither Johnson or the Rock has ever clarified where the real root of their issues with each other lie.

If there is one thing that the Rock is known for when it comes to his WWE career, it's his microphone skills. Often regarded as the greatest trash talker in the history of WWE, the Rock's promos during the Attitude Era were so impactful that they killed Billy Gunn's push in 1999, Al Snow's push around the same time, and The Big Show's very legitimate argument that he should have won the 2000 Royal Rumble. However, not everyone was going to sit there and take it when it came to the Rock's promo.

In 2002, the NWO came to WWE, injecting it with a lethal dose of poison. Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash all returned to the company after the demise of WCW a year earlier, and given that they were the biggest attraction in WCW, it was only right that they started feuding with the Rock as soon as they got there. The NWO reunion was quickly scrapped after WrestleMania 18 when Hogan turned babyface after his match with the Rock, but it was the night after WrestleMania when the Rock's issues with Nash started.

The Rock reportedly went off-script and called Nash "Big Daddy B*tch," a comment Nash was not happy about as he felt like it hurt his character, and when they eventually met in the ring later that night, Nash was little more stiff with the Rock than usual. The two men would cross paths multiple times before the end of March 2002, with Nash once again taking liberties with the People's Champion that caused the two men to hate each other for many years. Fortunately, the two men have buried the hatchet, with Nash even apologizing to the Rock on social media, for, in his own words, "being such a d*ck to him."

When Stone Cold Steve Austin broke his neck at the 1997 SummerSlam event, Vince McMahon knew that his biggest star was working on borrowed time and that he needed to create new stars to fill the very large hole in WWE's main event scene that would be left by The Texas Rattlesnake. The two men who ended up being pushed into that position were the Nation of Domination's Rocky Maivia, and D-Generation X's Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and from there, the real-life rivalry between the Rock and Triple H was born.

The competitive nature of professional wrestling meant that both men wanted to be the top guy, but that there was only one spot available, resulting in attempts of sabotage, backstabbing, and trash talking that many people still recall to this day: Bret "The Hitman" Hart remembers Triple H trying to sabotage the Rock's initial push in 1997; Bruce Prichard believed the jealousy between the two festered into their promos together that ultimately led to both men chewing each other out by going off-script; Ric Flair still believes that there is bad blood between the two men to this day.

Both men addressed their rivalry in a special episode of "WWE Rivals" in February 2024, in which they both admitted to having a real-life hatred for one another due to competitiveness and jealousy. Triple H has mentioned many times that he didn't get along with the Rock from the moment a young Maivia pinned a young Helmsley in Maivia's WWE pay-per-view debut in 1996, but has noted that the two are now friends, with the current WWE CCO admitting that he would have loved to have main evented WrestleMania with the Rock when they had the chance in 2000.

Completing the hat-trick of "Kliq" members who hated the Rock at one point or another is arguably the most famous case of someone not seeing eye-to-eye with The People's Champion. There are multiple reasons why Michaels and the Rock never really got along, and it all stems from a rumored incident that occurred when the Rock was a teenager. Michaels had reportedly been disrespectful to the Rock's grandmother while working a show in Hawaii, leading to a young Dwayne Johnson to become furious and try and confront Michaels but nothing came of it. Many years later when the Rock debuted in WWE, Michaels was one of the company's top stars and did everything he could to rattle the young star since he had so much power, power that he used to try and get his friend Triple H in a better position, and we all know how that ended up.

In 1999, the Rock confronted Michaels about kicking him too hard in the face that led to Michaels telling the Rock that if he couldn't handle it, he shouldn't be in the business. This led to a reported incident between the two that had to be broken up. Both men ended up being cordial with each other, but the Rock repeatedly expressed his lack of desire to talk about the Heartbreak Kid, stating that Michaels never attempted to help him when he joined WWE, and even stating in a 2005 interview with WWE.com that he had no interest in ever getting in the ring with Michaels, despite the fact that Michaels had turned his personal life around by that point. A match between the two was pitched for WrestleMania 22 in 2006, but according to Michaels, the Rock simply wasn't interested, and HBK fought Vince McMahon in a No Holds Barred match instead.