Following up on the earlier report on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s backstage attitude at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, not everyone is saying he was “aloof” to his former colleagues…
In his latest blog entry, Jim Ross writes, “The Rock arrived in Orlando late Friday night after working during the day in LA and then came to the Amway Arena late Saturday afternoon after preparing to do two speeches at the HOF Ceremony. I spoke to Rock at length back stage, as did my wife, and he was his usual happy, friendly self and thanked us for all the J.R.’s products he has received and he said he loves our sauces and thanks that our peanuts are a great idea, which was nice to hear. He also is the owner of an ‘I’ve Got Big Nuts’ T-shirt from our place. The Rock may have gone long on his speech to many, as he had lots of ground to cover and our fans can be the judge of that when they watch the unedited DVD. I enjoyed our visit and his presentation. I can also see sitting in the audience for several hours without a break, being a challenge,nature does call occasionally . The Rock stayed as long as he could after his presentation and then had to fly back to work where he was back on the set Sunday. Word going around the Internet is that Rock was aloof to many, is hard for me to buy into. I did not personally see that.†Ross also addresses the Robbie McAllister situation (he and TNA were both wrong); Ric Flair’s number of title wins (at least 19); Test, Kevin Nash and more.
Wade Keller at the Torch suggests that peoples’ negative attitude towards Rock’s behavior and the length and content (more stand-up routine than induction speech) of his speeches might have been due to people being over-tired on the bus ride back to the hotel after what was a very long day, and also not realizing Rock’s hectic schedule.
According to the Torch, Rock flew out of Orlando – after spending an additional hour backstage after he was done inducting his grandfather and father – in order to get back to work on his latest film. Rock arrived early enough to rehearse but did not practice his lines out loud ahead of time, and not every target of his jokes were informed beforehand. While he had heat with some, others defended him saying he caught up with the old friends he could, but had limited time. Regardless, Vince McMahon is considering changing the Hall of Fame format for next year despite the great job the editing crew did getting everything ready for the telecast (which started while Flair’s speech continued!).
In an interesting side-notes, Jason Powell at Prowrestling.net says that the “roast-like†part of Rock’s speech were written by Raw head writer Brian Gewirtz, who has virtually been Rock’s personal WWE writer for years. Rock arrived on Friday night, worked on the material (mostly bullet points and one-liners) that night and Saturday, and “there were no confirmed reports of him blowing off any ‘wrap it up’ signs†like those given to Flair at the end of his speech.
