Viral Footage Shows The Rock, Age 11, Watching His Dad in the Ring

Archival footage of a very young Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has surfaced and is currently doing the rounds on Twitter. A short clip shows Johnson, aged 11 and sporting an impressive afro, in the audience watching his father, wrestling champion Rocky Johnson, in the ring.

The video was reportedly shot at one of Rocky's WWF matches in 1984, placing it in a similar timeframe to the sitcom Young Rock, which is based on Johnson's early life: on that show, actor Adrian Groulx portrays Johnson at the age of 10, and Rocky is played by Joseph Lee Anderson.

Rocky was a trailblazer in the then-WWF: a year before this video was taken, he and his tag team partner Tony Atlas became the first Black men to ever win a WWF championship. In the eulogy that he delivered at his father's memorial service, Johnson made note of the impact that he had on wrestling, not just as an athlete, but as a Black man forging out his own place in the sport: "When he broke into the business in the mid ’60s and throughout the late ’60s and into the ’70s in the United States, where racial tension and divide was very strong... At that time, he changed the audience's behavior and actually had them cheer for this Black man."

Johnson and his father are both part of a much larger wrestling dynasty: his grandfather High Chief Peter Mavia was a WWE Hall of Famer who also happened to be good pals with French wrestling legend Andre the Giant. Then of course there's Johnson's cousin Roman Reigns, the sometimes controversial "Tribal Chief" who has been a WWE mainstay for several years.

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