Dwayne Johnson is The Rock.
And now, he owns the name.
As noted, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was appointed to the TKO Board of Directors on Tuesday morning in a deal that included him obtaining full ownership of “The Rock” name.
In a new CNBC featured article covering WWE’s new deal with Netflix and The Rock joining the TKO Board of Directors, Johnson spoke about the significance of finally obtaining the legal ownership of the name.
“There is a business side of that, as we know,” he said. “There is the economics side of that, but it goes much deeper than that. This idea, the name of The Rock, for me, I owe that name everything. Without that name, there would be no wrestling career, no Hollywood career. Also, that name was a derivative of my dad, Rocky Johnson, who was the first black tag team champion in WWE, trail blazer, paved the way, man of color, for a kid like me to be embraced in a bigger way when I came along. This is one of the reasons why this deal is so unprecedented, the one I was able to do and cut with Ari here.”
He continued, “Again, I want to acknowledge Ari and give him his flowers. At the end of the day, he had a million reasons to say no, but he found a reason to say yes. The reason why is he understood, as he told me face-to-face, this is your name and it comes from your family. That’s important to me. Family is very important to us and the name The Rock, this is why it became invaluable. The street valuation of the name The Rock, it has some heft behind it. More importantly than that, it’s something I’ve earned, built, and I owe so much to that wild lunatic called The Rock, that by the way, the greatest benefit of now completely owning the name The Rock, no gimmicks, no BS, across the board, full ownership, is the name The Rock, years ago, really allowed me to be me. That’s very special.”
Check out the complete interview at CNBC.com.
