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Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor, businessman, and professional wrestler. As a wrestler, he is signed to WWE, where he performs on a part-time basis and is a member of The Bloodline. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he was integral to the development and success of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) during the Attitude Era, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Johnson wrestled for the WWF full-time for eight years before pursuing an acting career. His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and over $10.5 billion worldwide, making him one of the world's highest-grossing and highest-paid actors. He is a co-owner of the United Football League (UFL), a professional American football league. He is also a member of the board of directors of TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of UFC and WWE. In 2012, he co-founded the entertainment production company Seven Bucks Productions. He is the founder of Teremana Tequila, which is approximately valued at $3.5 billion. After accepting an athletic scholarship to play football at the University of Miami, he was a member of the 1991 national championship team but was largely a backup player. Despite aspirations to professional football, he went undrafted in the 1995 NFL draft, and briefly signed with the Calgary Stampeders before being cut in his first season. In 1996, Johnson's father Rocky assisted in helping him secure a contract with the WWF. Johnson quickly rose to global prominence, aided by a gimmick he employed as a charismatic trash talker. Johnson left the WWE in 2004 and returned in 2011 as a part-time performer until 2013, making sporadic appearances from thereon until 2019 where he quietly retired until 2023, where he returned once again on a part-time basis. A 10-time world champion, including the promotion's first of African-American descent, he is also a two-time Intercontinental Champion, a five-time Tag Team Champion, the 2000 Royal Rumble winner, and WWE's sixth Triple Crown champion. Johnson headlined multiple pay-per-view events, including WWE's flagship event WrestleMania six times (15, 16, 17, 28, 29 and 40) which includes the most-bought professional wrestling pay-per-view (WrestleMania 28) and main evented the most watched episodes of WWE's flagship television series (Raw and SmackDown). Johnson's first film role was in The Mummy Returns (2001). The next year, he played his first leading role in the action fantasy film The Scorpion King. He has since starred in family films The Game Plan (2007), Race to Witch Mountain (2009), Tooth Fairy (2010), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), and Jungle Cruise (2021), and the action films Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), Hercules (2014), Skyscraper (2018), San Andreas (2015) and Rampage (2018). He also starred in the action comedy films Get Smart (2008), Central Intelligence (2016), Baywatch (2017), and Red Notice (2021). His role as Luke Hobbs in the Fast & Furious films, beginning with Fast Five (2011), helped the franchise become one of the highest-grossing in film. He joined the DC Extended Universe playing the title role in Black Adam (2022). He is also known for voicing Maui in the Disney animated film Moana (2016) and is set to reprise the role in the upcoming live action remake. Johnson produced and starred in the HBO comedy-drama series Ballers (2015–2019) and the autobiographical sitcom Young Rock (2021). His autobiography, The Rock Says, was released in 2000 and was a New York Times bestseller. In 2016 and 2019, Time named Johnson as one of the world's most influential people. Early life Johnson was born in Hayward, California, on May 2, 1972, the son of Mataniufeagaimaleata "Ata" Fitisemanu (née Maivia) and former professional wrestler Rocky Johnson (born Wayde Douglas Bowles). Growing up, he briefly lived in Grey Lynn in Auckland, New Zealand, with his mother's family, where he played rugby and attended Richmond Road Primary School before returning to the U.S. Johnson's father was a Black Nova Scotian with a small amount of Irish ancestry. His mother is Samoan. His father and Tony Atlas were the first black tag team champions in WWE history, in 1983. His mother is the adopted daughter of Peter Maivia, who was also a professional wrestler. Johnson's maternal grandmother Lia was one of the first female pro wrestling promoters, taking over Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling after her husband's death in 1982 and managing it until 1988. Through his maternal grandfather Maivia, Johnson is a non-blood relative of the Anoaʻi wrestling family. In 2008, he inducted his father and grandfather into the WWE Hall of Fame. Johnson attended Montclaire Elementary School in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then moved to Hamden, Connecticut, where he attended Shepherd Glen Elementary School and then Hamden Middle School. He attended President William McKinley High School in Honolulu and then Glencliff High School and McGavock High School, both in Nashville, Tennessee, and then Freedom High School in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state, where he graduated in 1990. At Freedom High School, Johnson initially struggled and was drawn into a culture of conflict and petty crime. By age 17, he had been arrested several times for fighting, theft, and check fraud, and was suspended two weeks for fighting. An article in the local newspaper labeled him "a troubled teenager with a history of run-ins with police." But Freedom High School football coach Jody Cwik saw athletic potential in Johnson, and recruited him to join the school's football team, where he played defensive tackle, an experience that proved to be a significant personal transformation for Johnson. "My thought process started to change. That's when I started thinking about goals and what I wanted to accomplish", he has since said about his high school football experience. In addition to playing football, Johnson also was a member of Freedom High School's track and field and wrestling teams. By his senior year at Freedom High School, Johnson had played only two years of football, but was offered a full athletic scholarship offer from the University of Miami, whose football program was beginning to emerge as one of the nation's top-level NCAA Division 1 teams. Football career College career As he did in high school, Johnson continued to play defensive tackle at the University of Miami, where he was a member of the Miami Hurricanes 1991 team, which won that year's national championship. Despite playing four years there, however, Johnson found himself behind elite players on the depth chart, including future NFL star and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Warren Sapp, and appeared mostly in backup roles. In his time at Miami, Johnson played in 39 game.... Discover the Maya Banks Lauren Dane popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Maya Banks Lauren Dane books.