Brock Lesnar, Dave Bautista, Bobby Lashley—there are plenty examples of professional wrestlers who’ve tested the MMA waters. Little did we know, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was almost one of them. In the wake of CM Punk’s UFC debut announcement, “The Rock” explained his reasoning on why he considered a career switch.

“I thought, man, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve in WWE, my movie career is floundering a little bit, what do I do?…I thought, oh well, maybe UFC,” Johnson told UFC Unfiltered. 

“In my head, I felt like it was at least a two-year process for me to even get in the [cage], let alone the UFC. I wasn’t quite too sure what to do or what kind of people to put around me at the time, so the idea kind of fizzled out and I continued to stay on the path of movie-making.”

As of late, Johnson’s cinematic attention appeared to be on filming Rampage and gearing up for Skyscraper, but he managed to squeeze in some time for The Rock X Siri commercial/film. 

Despite his massive success, he still thinks about the what his life could’ve been like if he had chosen to jump into the octagon. 

Clearly, the main thing which put the kibosh on his UFC career was the beating it would’ve put on his bod, “I really really really really never liked being punched in the face. As a matter of fact, I hate it.”

Topics: