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The Rock Comments On The Anniversary Of His WWE Debut

By Lyle Kilbane • Published 17th November 2022
The Rock Dwayne Johnson

The Rock has reflected on his incredible WWE career on the 26th anniversary of his debut match inside Madison Square Garden.

On the 17th of November 1996 at that year’s Survivor Series event in the world’s most famous arena, the wrestling business changed forever when a young Rocky Maivia made his WWE debut. Maivia was part of a traditional Survivor Series tag team match that saw him compete alongside the eclectic collection of Jake Roberts, The Stalker Barry Windham, and Marc Mero.

Maivia’s team picked up the victory over the team of Jerry Lawler, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Goldust, and Crush, with the blue chipper his team’s sole survivor.

Around one year after his debut, Maivia dropped his surname and became simply The Rock and at Survivor Series 1998 he reached the top of the WWE mountain when he became WWE Champion for the very first time.

Nine more world title reigns would come the way of The Rock before he began winding his full-time in-ring career down in 2002 as Hollywood came calling.

Taking to social media, the man now known better as Dwayne Johnson gave his thoughts on the start of his journey to superstardom both in and out of the ring 26 years ago while joking about his own fashion choices:

“Wow 26yrs ago What a fateful night in Madison Square Garden having my first ever wrestling match for @wwe. That big kid who was willing to be the hardest worker in the room would go on to only become famous for wearing a fanny pack. Seriously tho, what a grateful journey”