The Rock In The Running For Oscars Nomination

The Rock portrays an MMA star in his latest Hollywood outing and it seems that role could put him in contention for the biggest award of his career.

Back in December 2023, it was announced that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was set to star in The Smashing Machine, based on the 2002 documentary of the same name.

The movie will chronicle MMA legend Mark Kerr’s turbulent year 2000 as substance abuse threatened to derail not only his career but his life. The WWE megastar will start alongside Emily Blunt, heavyweight boxing star Oleksandr Usyk, Lyndsey Gavin, former UFC fighter Ryan Bader, and MMA legend Bas Rutten.

The Rock In The Running For An Oscar

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that those in the know believe The Smashing Machine could earn The Rock his first-ever Oscar nomination:

The interesting thing is I saw an article, one of the leading experts on the Oscars, who polls voters and all that predicted that Smashing Machine will get three Oscar nominations. That Dwayne will get a nomination for best actor, that it will get a nomination for best picture, and Emily Blunt, who plays Mark Kerr’s girlfriend, will get a nomination for best supporting actress.

The Oscar people are really high on this movie. There’s been a lot of talk of Dwayne getting his first nomination, there’s books that take odds on it and they’re putting odds on it but right now the people who polled the voters are listing Dwayne as a favourite to get a nomination. They’re not favourite to get any of the awards for those categories but just to get a nomination would be a giant step.

While this is good news for his movie career, The Rock has left several WWE stars confused with his recent conduct following the backlash to WrestleMania and his non-appearance on the show.

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