NBC Cancels “Young Rock” After Three Seasons

It has been announced that the television show following The Rock’s life, “Young Rock,” has been canceled.

“Young Rock” is a television show that premiered in February 2021 that told the story of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s life from his childhood leading into his career as a pro wrestler. The third season ended in February 2023. There were 13 episodes in the third season.

On Friday, NBC announced that they have decided to cancel “Young Rock” instead of producing a fourth season of the show.

The TV show “Young Rock” was co-created by Nahnatchka Khan and Jeff Chiang, who executive produced alongside Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Dany Garcia, Jennifer Carreras, Hiram Garcia and Brian Gewirtz. Universal Television was the studio in association with Seven Bucks Productions and Fierce Baby Productions.

If the name Nahnatchka Khan looks familiar it’s because she is the sister of WWE’s CEO Nick Khan. The Rock has known Nahnatchka and Nick since childhood.

Ratings for the show went down significantly from season one to season three as outlined by Deadline.

Season 3 saw quite a dip in linear ratings compared to the previous season, managing about 1.4M viewers and a 0.25 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to live + same-day Nielsen data. Compare that to Season 2, which drew an average of 2.23M viewers and a 0.39 rating. Season 1 was by far the most-watched, averaging more than 3M viewers per episode and an impressive 0.62 demo rating.

There was a unique setup for “Young Rock” because it covered three different times of The Rock’s life while present-day version of The Rock would tell the stories about his life.

They showed what it was like for The Rock as an only child that was growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s with a father named Rocky Johnson, who was a successful pro wrestler. The Rock’s grandmother was a wrestling promoter and his grandfather “High Chief” Peter Maivia was also a wrestler.

The teenage version of The Rock discovered life throughout the series while trying to figure out the right way of living while his dad was getting older as a pro wrestler and not having as much success as in his prime. There were tough times for The Rock with his parents doing the best they could to raise him. They had a guy named Downtown Bruno on the show who WWE fans know as Harvey Wippleman. He became a mentor for The Rock at a young age.

The oldest version of “Young Rock” covered The Rock’s life in adulthood from when he played college football at the University of Miami as well as the start of his pro wrestling career. They covered when he was booed as a rookie, which led to his inclusion into the Nation of Domination group and Rock’s breakout as a singles star.

Throughout the “Young Rock” series there were portrayals of major names in pro wrestling with actors playing the likes of Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and The Iron Sheik among others. They also had wrestlers from The Rock’s era of wrestling with the likes of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Triple H, The Undertaker and “Mankind” Mick Foley on the show as well.

In total, there were 37 episodes of “Young Rock” when NBC decided to not renew it for a fourth season.