The Rock ended his full-time stint with WWE in 2004 to pursue a career in Hollywood and did not have an in-ring match for another seven years.
Dwayne Johnson continues to appear on and off WWE TV sporadically in the current day, but his initial return in 2011 felt special.
Brian Myers (better known as Curt Hawkins) has now opened up on how he found out he was training The Rock for his return to the squared circle 15 years ago.
Curt Hawkins thought he was getting fired before being told to train The Rock
At the time, The Rock’s previous in-ring appearance was at WWE WrestleMania 20 in 2004, where he teamed with Mick Foley against Evolution.
His initial comeback began with The People’s Champion and John Cena tagging against Awesome Truth (R-Truth and The Miz) at Survivor Series 2011, before the pair then faced off in the main event of WrestleMania 28.
Now, speaking to Chris Van Vliet this week, Hawkins has shared how he was handpicked by Triple H and Johnny Ace to, along with Curtis Axel, train The Rock.
But while he described it as an ‘unbelievable experience’, Hawkins revealed that he initially thought that the phone call from Johnny Ace meant he was getting fired.
“I think Hunter [Triple H] and Johnny handpicked me and Joe Hennig [Curtis Axel] for that.”
Chris clarified: “So this is before Rock came back for Rock Cena one WrestleMania 28?”
Hawkins continued: “Right, he hosted the Mania and he was like around but then you knew he was going to do that tag in the garden [with Cena] and they said he wanted to train.
“Johnny Ace called me on like a Wednesday and I’m like ‘oh getting fired,’ I was like ‘this is it,’ and they were like please hold for Joe Hennig and I’m like, it was the weirdest.
“I was actually on the train going into, which would become my wife, like one of our first dates, so I was like ‘what is happening’, and then Johnny’s like ‘yeah The Rock wants to train and we picked you guys’. And it was an unbelievable experience.”
What does Curt Hawkins do now?
While Hawkins was not fired in 2011, he was eventually released by WWE in 2014.
He re-signed in 2016 before being let go for a second time in April 2020.
Hawkins has continued to wrestle outside of WWE and currently spends much of his time with TNA.
The former WWE star is currently part of a tag team known as ‘The System’ alongside Bear Bronson, with the duo most recently defending their World Tag Team titles against KC Navarro and Nic Nemeth.
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