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By Root 1677 0

and I were quite similar in personality and had become good friends. At that late stage in his WWE career, Rock could pick and choose the shows he wanted to wrestle on. When he found out that the WWE had an upcoming show in Hawaii, he jumped at the opportunity. He spent a lot of his childhood in Hawaii, and his grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, was a legend there as a promoter and wrestler. This would be Rocky’s first time wrestling on the islands, and it was a big homecoming as he still had a large contingent of family there.

I knew how much it meant to him and was honored and touched when he called me and said, “I handpicked you to be my opponent in Hawaii.” Jessica came with me and we were excited because it was our first time in Hawaii. When we came off the plane, we were met by a huge welcoming committee made up of Rock’s friends and family, each one of them placing leis around our necks. It was a classy move on Rock’s part—he went to the trouble of finding out what flight we were on and arranged everything to make us feel welcome in what he considered to be his homeland. His hospitality continued when we checked into our hotel room and found presents strewn across the bed—a pair of beautiful handmade Hawaiian silk shirts for me and a gorgeous flowing island dress for my wife. Later that night, Rocky took us to a luau complete with fire dancers and I even donned a grass skirt and matching crown and shook my shit to the delight of the crowd. It was a great night and I could see in Rock’s eyes how proud he was to be showing off his heritage.

Rocky’s cousins adorned us with flowers pre-match in Hawaiian tradition. A few moments later I tore my flowers up and the poor little girls started to cry. Straight up heelin’ yo.

The Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu was a jam-packed sellout of 9,000 people waiting to see one man and one man only. There was a huge chorus of boos as I came to the ring, and a small army of Rock’s cousins in traditional island garb again placed leis around my neck and gave me flowers. I feigned happiness for a few moments before throwing the flowers to the ground, tearing the leis off my neck, and ripping them into a thousand pieces. I stomped up and down on the torn petals and screamed, “I don’t want these! I’m not Hawaiian and I don’t want to be! I’m from the mainland and that means I’m better than you!” The WWE hadn’t been to Hawaii in years and the crowd ate up my taunts like a pupu platter.

After my antagonizing antics, the lights went dark and the fans went ballistic.

“If you smelllll what The Rock is cooking,” boomed the sound system, and it was a rage of mayhem. The cheers were louder than Japan (or anywhere for that matter) as the islanders went bonkers for their hero. It was one of the most magical moments of my career. The Rock entered the ring and bathed in the cheers of his fans and I could see he was ready to deliver. So was I.

We had perfect chemistry at this point; everything we did elicited a tremendous response from the capacity crowd, including Bruce Willis, who was sitting in the first row. Bruce was in Honolulu filming Hart’s War and came to support Rocky. Halfway through the match, Rock threw me out to the floor and we fought our way over to where Bruce was sitting. He was thin, unshaven, and in the stained wife-beater he was wearing looked more like a concentration camp victim than an A-list movie star. But the crowd buzzed when they were made aware of his presence. I knocked Rocky to the ground and started yelling in Willis’s scruffy face.

“ Hudson Hawk was the shits and you were terrible in Blind Date

!” Bruce stared at me bemusedly as Rocky recovered from my crushing blow and pinned my arms behind my back. He told Bruce to hit me while the fans cheered in anticipation. I started apologizing for my harsh critiques and stammered how great I thought he was in The Bonfire of the Vanities. He slowly rose up from his seat and turned his head to the crowd for approval. I tensed up my jaw, figuring that he would smack me in the face or at the very least take a Hollywood swing