The Rock nearly joined the UFC after leaving WWE

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one of the most recognizable faces in both Hollywood and professional wrestling today. However, after he left WWE for the first time back in 2004, his movie career wasn’t as hot as he would have hoped, so he nearly turned to another combat sports promotion.

Johnson spoke about him nearly joining UFC when he went on the UFC Unfiltered podcast Thursday. He said that his movie career was going south quickly and he thought about what he would do if it didn’t get better.

“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. “I was relatively still young, I think I was 34. I thought, oh well maybe UFC. Maybe I should do something like that.”

Of course, he could have gone back to WWE on a full-time basis. He has made appearances with WWE over the last 12 years, even winning the WWE Championship in 2013.

However, he said that he wanted to try something different, but things never came together for him with the UFC. He did, however, say that he tips his hat off to the athletes in mixed martial arts.

“Anybody, by the way, who is successful in one area and then commits to MMA, I just feel like it’s the toughest [expletive] sport in the world,” Johnson said. “I always take my hat off to those guys.”

Luckily for The Rock, his career in Hollywood did turn around after the success of his 2004 film “Walking Tall” and 2006 flick “Gridiron Gang.”

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