Dwayne Johnson

The Rock says...'Know your damn role-and shut your mouth!' But that simple catchphrase, embraced by the millions-and the millions-of The Rock's fans, can't begin to capture the spirit and larger-than-life personality of the most electrifying man in sports-entertainment.

In this action-packed, reveaing, and outrageously funny memoir, World Wrestling Federation Superstar The Rock recounts his life in and out of the ring with unapologetic honesty and inimitable style. From his boyhood days traveling around the world with his father (professional wrestler Rocky Johnson) to his years as a football player at the University of Miami to his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Federation, The Rock Says...chronicles in vivid detail the life story of one of sports-entertainment's most innovative and best-loved personalities.

The Rock recalls his injury-plagued career at Miami and a subsequent foray to the Great White North, where he discovered that in Canada being a professional football player is not exactly a glamorous life. After a few months of sleeping on putrid, stained mattresses that he dug out of the garbage and subsisting on nothing but plain spaghetti, he ditched his cleats forever and set his sights on the path of his father and grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia. He became the world's first third-generation professional wrestler.

Performing first as plain old Dwayne Johnson, then as Flex Kavana and later as Rocky Maivia, he quickly became on of the World Wrestlng Federation's hopefuls. But no matter how he tried to get over with the fans, the stadiums greeted him with chants of 'Rocky sucks! Rocky sucks!' He then adopted the brash persona of The Rock-a snorting, spitting, snotting, swearing son-of-a-bitch with the soul of a smart-ass comic and the body of an Adonis-and he found his true caling as The People's Champion.

The Rock takes fans on a guided tour of big-time professional wrestling, a highly competitive bushess in which a handful of gifted and lucky performers dominate, and all others dream of a moment in the spotlight. He provdes a breathtaking, minute-by-minute account of WrestleMania, the Super Bowl of pro wrestling, including an intimate back-stage look at rehearsals with his opponent, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Ahd he discusses in heartfelt detail the loss of his friend and coworker, Owen Hart.

Filled with genuinely touching stories of love and strife, hilarious anecdotes, inside accounts of an industry whose machinations have long been shrouded in secrecy, and dozens of previously unpublished photography from The Rock's personal collection, The Rock Says...is-as The Rock himself might put it-'the coolest thing since the other side of the pillow...if you smell what The Rock is cookin'!'

In addition to his home in Miami, where he lives with his wife, Dany, The Rock has a permanent suite at Smack Down Hotel, on the corner of Know Your Role Boulevard and Jabroni Drive. He is the youngest champion in World Wrestling Federation history.

Joe Layden is a freelance magazine writer and the author of several books, including All the Rage with Charles Haley. He lives in upstate New York.

Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1 Royal rumbler
Chapter 2 The people's puberty
Chapter 3 O little town of Bethlehem
Chapter 4 Like a hurricane
Chapter 5 Cupid, draw back your bow
Chapter 6 Family matters
Chapter 7 Rock bottom
Chapter 8 The making of a professional wrestler
Chapter 9 Flex Kavana
Chapter 10 Rocky Maivia
Chapter 11 The people's champion
Chapter 12 The good, the bad...the ugly
Chapter 13 Know our role!
Chapter 14 The rock says...
Chapter 15 Wrestlemania!
Chapter 16 Owen
Chapter 17 Gotta wear shades
Acknowledgments
Photo credits… (more)

I'm not a wrestling fan, but a former roommate was ... and he loved the Rock. I can't really blame him; the Rock has charisma to burn. The episode of SNL hosted by him was one of the funnier shows I've seen them put out, and his movies, for the most part, have been pretty entertaining. It's a shame, however, that so little of that charisma seems to have translated to the page.

This biography is little more than a collection of anecdotes accompanied by a description of the various plotlines in which the Rock was involved as a WWF wrestler. The entire book leaves one with the impression of a carefully-crafted narrative, scrubbed clean of anything potentially detrimental to the Rock as a commercial property. Sure he makes mistakes and doesn't always behave as he should, but those moments are framed in such a way as to have the context of being life-lessons. No dirty little secrets get exposed and it would be easy to walk away from this with the assumption that the Rock is as family-friendly as you can get.

Maybe he is, but this isn't a biography; it's a commercial.… (more)