Long before CM Punk ever considered a career in mixed martial arts (MMA), and a full two years prior to Brock Lesnar making his combat sports debut at K1 HERO's, longtime World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) superstar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson had his eye on Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Which, as he described to Matt Serra and Jim Norton on UFC Unfiltered, is "the toughest fucking sport in the world."
MMA Fighting transcribes:
"There was a time there where I thought, man, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve in WWE, my movie career is floundering a little bit, what do I do? I was relatively still young, I think I was 34. I thought, oh well maybe UFC. Maybe I should do something like that. In my head, I felt like it was at least a two-year process for me to even get in the [cage], let alone the UFC. I wasn't quite too sure what to do or what kind of people to put around me at the time, so the idea kind of fizzled out and I continued to stay on the path of movie making.
Anybody, by the way, who is successful in one area and then commits to MMA, I just feel like it's the toughest fucking sport in the world. I always take my hat off to those guys. Still a big fan and love the sport. But at one time, I did consider it."
Judging by this pic, he surely would have been a (super?) heavyweight.
Johnson has been a longtime fan of UFC and can usually be spotted cageside at some of the top pay-per-view (PPV) events, rooting on everyone from Lyoto Machida to Jon Jones and of course, WWE superfan (and former women's champ) Ronda Rousey.
Anyone care to predict how "The Rock" might have fared as an MMA fighter?
