"The Rock Says..." tells the story of the life of the most electrifying man in sports entertainment today from his birth to his position he is in today as, well the most electrifying man in sports entertainment today. The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, and a professional writer Joe Layden wrote the book and well it’s not bad.I found the half of the book interesting and insightful as it outlines young Dwayne’s childhood in a wrestling family. He talks fondly of memories of his grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia and of his father Rocky Johnson, who was once George Foreman's sparring partner and a former World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental champ. He also talks openly about the stress of the wrestling road lifestyle puts on his marriage and talks about he Dads biggest victory over a drink problem.
Johnson also talks a great deal about football how he struggled against injury in his quest to play it at the highest level and tells of how, after finishing college, his dream was to play in the NFL a dream which didn’t come true because nobody picked him up. Even from reading this chapter you get to sense that Johnson strives to be the best at everything he ever does and wrestling is no exception and you get an insight into his very fiery temper.
Johnson them moves away from talking about football and discusses his decision to follow his father into the world of professional wrestling, the training involved in getting there and his early days of Flex Kavana before finally joining the WWF. It is from here where the sense of an autobiography begins to fade away from the book and the Rock steps into character as the most electrifying man in sports entertainment today.
This is where I lost interest in the book because it swiftly moved away from a person telling a story to basically the Rock trash talking at you. The Rock starts to rant in Rock speak about some of his matches and it is horrible to read, fair enough listening about ‘Monkey crap’ in a one minute ring promo is manageable but reading chapter after chapter of it in a book just isn’t.
Rock fans will adore this book and I totally recommend it especially for the second half or so because it is a Rock rant. For non-Rock fans I still think it may be worth taking a look at if only for the first half, maybe pick up the paperback edition.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Review written by Niall 'Neo' Walsh
