What’s the story?
Former WWE official Bruce Pritchard spoke about popular Attitude Era stable Nation of Domination and how the iconic ‘The Rock’ character came about on a recent episode of his podcast, Something to Wrestle With Bruce Pritchard.
In case you didn’t know…
Nation of Domination was a ‘heel’ faction formed by former WWE superstar Ron Simmons, also known as Farooq, in the year 1996. The most prominent members of the group, other than Simmons, during its 2-year run in the WWE were The Rock, Owen Hart, The Godfather, D’Lo Brown and Mark Henry.
The group name was shortened to The Nation later on and ‘The Great One’ took over from Farooq as its leader in 1998. However, with The Rock’s popularity as a singles wrestler reaching unprecedented heights, the faction ended up being disbanded.
The heart of the matter
Pritchard revealed that the Nation of Domination was formed on WWE Hall of Famer Ernie Ladd’s suggestion. He said, “Originally, I believe [The Nation Of Domination] was Ernie Ladd's idea. Yeah, Ernie consulted with us. Ernie, from time to time, would come up with some good ideas, good perspective.”
The former WWE producer spoke about how Rocky Maivia, a name given by Jim Cornette, went on to become The Rock after joining the faction. He claimed that Jim Ross is the one who should be credited for the now iconic mannerisms displayed by the character.
This is what Bruce Pritchard had to say:
“Well, everybody had high hopes for him in the early days by taking his dad's name and his grandfather's name, Rocky Johnson and Peter Maivia, making him Rocky Maivia, and I'll never forget [Jim] Cornette, 'give him a goddamn f--king name! Rocky Maivia!'
And it was when he came back from injury and went into the Nation of Domination and that's where he emerged as a heel. And it started with The Rock stuff, which, by the way, the whole Rock speak, 'The Rock says', talking about himself in third person, that was something that Jim Ross came up with.”
Sportskeeda’s Take
Across the history of the WWE, a number of big names in the business have emerged out of popular factions. Perhaps the greatest example of this in recent years is The Shield, which produced three of the top draws for the WWE at present – Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. We can certainly expect this trend to continue in the future as well.
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