The Rock still lays the smackdown
Can you smell it?
The Rock hasn't wrestled since known around 2004. But when he makes guess appearances in the WWE the fans still go wild. Why has The Rock not wrestled? He is making a boatload of money making movies. Let's back track to when he was wrestling, when he started wrestling as The Rock and not Rocky Miavia (crowd still chanted "Rocky") in 1998. People didn't know he was only half Samoan and not full because he look nearly 90%-100%, is half black too. His father Rocky Johnson, an ex-wrestler, is black with neutral facial features and not very dark (medium), which can explain why The Rock looks more Polynesian. What made The Rock a future hall of famer and so unique is for the fact he was the man, literally, when it came to mic skills. His wrestling was good, his 1st gimmick was a high flyer then his final gimmick, The Rock, was more of a power and technical base. He wasn't the best wrestler just on ring performance nor would it make him a top star. One unique thing when he wrestled is he didn't punch instead he threw smacks similar to Razor Ramon, it gave a different and cool vibe to the ring style. Why was he the best on the mic? He had the ability to capture the attention of the audience. Whether being funny or being interesting or even mixing it with both. The money maker to his mic skills was his many catch phrases. Which the fans loved to say with him on the mic and say them elsewhere themselves. One catch phrase opened up 2 new ventures, that was the word "smack-down." One was then a new WWE wrestling show on a basic TV network and the second was admitted into English as a new word into the lexicon. That's how popular his words were, plus it sold millions of shirts and items with his many catch phrases. He was like a hypnotist with words, even simple wrestling moves like an elbow or a singular raised eyebrow had people hooked. That's why fans still remember who his is even while he is gone.
The first time he left the WWE, excluding the first time he got injured as Rocky Miavia, was when he was cast into his first movie role in "The Mummy Returns" as a secondary character. Before he did comedy for other TV shows but he never left wrestling. Afterwards he kept getting offered roles and bigger money. About 2002 to 2004 he was off and on wrestling, the last of his many championship titles was in 2002. After 2004 he was just doing movies and no wrestling, of course he has made other ventures outside Hollywood. But two things are the same, he still works out and is still built as he was wrestling as he is now. So his fitness has not changed. Maybe he'll give it one more go. Second is he still is very entertaining and funny. He basically never lost a step. He is the main draw to many of these films and the crowd comes to see him, even with bad movies. Although he has beaten Stone Cold once and lost more matches to him, The Rock does beat him nearly every time at movie ratings and earnings including Rocky's poorly made films. So many film makers in Hollywood wants to "Smell what The Rock is cookin' ", and have The Rock on their team. The Rock never lost his magic touch and is good for business.
