Like Brock Lesnar, The Rock Once Considered a UFC Career

Many professional wrestlers are mixed martial arts fans. A smaller subset of those wrestlers have also considered making the jump to the cage. An even more exclusive group, which includes Brock Lesnar, have made the move and competed in MMA.

What if Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, one of the biggest stars in WWE history, had made the move?

He didn’t follow through, but believe it or not, as he found himself at a career crossroads, it’s something that Johnson once considered.

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“There was a time there where I thought, man, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve in WWE, my movie career is floundering a little bit, what do I do?” Johnson said during a recent episode of the UFC Unfiltered podcast. “I was relatively still young, I think I was 34. I thought, maybe UFC. Maybe I should do something like that.”

Making the move sounds well and good. Johnson would have been an immediate player in the MMA world, if only for his magnetic personality and the tremendous stardom he had already attained from his time in the WWE and Hollywood. But truly making the transition isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Consider fellow WWE superstar CM Punk, who has a background in martial arts, and his struggles to make it to the Octagon, even though he signed with the promotion more than a year and a half ago.

Johnson realized that he would need time to be prepared to step into the cage, and that’s part of what eventually led him to deciding against a career in a sport that he loves.

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

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