The Rock Talks About Meeting His Hero

The Rock was interviewed by Numbers Never Lie on ESPN earlier this week, which you can watch above. During the interview, The Rock talked about meeting his idol Muhammad Ali.

“When I was a rookie in the WWE, 1996, we were at a big function, and no one knew who I was,” Rock said (props to USA Today for the transcription). “One of those things where I had my own nametag, ‘Hello, I am Rocky Maivia.’ Ali was sitting down, and I said ‘I’d love to go over and say hello to him,’ so I went over to him and introduced myself. As I was pulling away he kinda pulled me back in and he whispered ‘can you rumble?’ I said ‘yeah, I think I can…’

“Cut to 1998, I started calling myself The People’s Champion in honor of him. When I was wrestling in Louisville, Kentucky, his family came to watch me wrestle, and I talked to his wife and said ‘please tell Muhammad it’s only out of respect that I call myself that. And I’ll stop it right now if he doesn’t like it.’ She said ‘oh no, he loves it. He wants you to call yourself that.'”