The Rock Says Stone Cold Steve Austin Told Vince McMahon He Wanted To Main Event WrestleMania With The Rock In January Of 1999

The Rock reflects on his rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

One of the most iconic rivalries in all of professional wrestling is Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock’s during the Attitude Era, featuring in multiple pay-per-view main events, including multiple matches at WrestleMania. Now, The Rock has explained how it all began thanks to Austin’s request.

While speaking to Sports Illustrated alongside Mark Kerr and reflecting on their greatest moments, The Rock discussed his rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

“Speaking of good guys, this guy helped me so much, Mark. He was on top of the world. He saw just a little bit of potential in me, but also smart enough to know, he’s like, man, we got some chemistry, man. Me and you. And I was not in a position to say, hey, let’s me and you work together. Let’s go headline WrestleMania. He had to say it. And he went on, he went to Vince McMahon in 1999, in January of 99, I think. He said, ‘I wanna main event WrestleMania with The Rock.’ The rest is history. We went on and I went on to have just the greatest rivalry with him.”

The Rock would then discuss their final match together at WrestleMania XIX.

“That, what you just saw, that picture, that was his very last wrestling match. I had the honor of wrestling him his final match. As you leave the business, it’s the right thing to do and the respectable thing to do is to lose as you leave and put this guy over. Let this guy who’s going to go on. Let him win, and he didn’t have to because he was the biggest star in wrestling. But he did, he put me over. And as I was pinning him, I rock bottomed him three fucking times, by the way. You know, he, like Kurt Angle, he had a broken neck. He was wrestling with a broken neck. After the one, two, three, I leaned down in his ear, I said, I love you, man. He was like, I love you too. We had that moment.”

Elsewhere in another recent interview, The Rock commented on how scared he was to take on the role of Kerr in ‘The Smashing Machine’. You can read more about that here.

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