52 weeks of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson: week 26

Readers, we have reached a significant milestone. And we’ve reached it together. We’ve come a long long way together, through the hard times and the good, and we should be proud. Yes, that’s right, friends – we have reached the halfway point of ‘52 weeks of Dwayne The Rock Johnson’. Holy hell and holy shit I love that!

How the sweet ruddy HECK have 26 weeks rocketed past us like a speeding train, ladies and gents? Look how young we were, back in January. A demi-year ago we were different people, weren’t we. You hadn’t started wearing that bandana. I was considerably smaller. A lot’s changed.

And a lot’s changed in The Rock’s life, too. At the beginning of 2018 he was talking about working out in a gym; six months into 2018, he’s…oh, he’s talking about working out in a gym.

With those glorious 26 weeks fading out of our rear mirror behind us, let’s look at 26 things we’ve learned about the huge man himself. And let’s do it…via the medium of the alphabet.

A: Ageing. We have spent six months with The Rock and, much like the viewers that accompanied Truman every step of the way from birth, we have watched our subject evolve. This means we can’t help but notice him ageing. The Rock is 46 and grey is flecking his beard. The Rock is getting older and so, ladies and gentlemen, are we. Time’s winged chariot hurries near.

B: Big. We learned that The Rock is big. Before starting this column, it wasn’t clear whether or not The Rock was big. 26 weeks in, we know that he is big. This is information available to us. The Rock is big. That is on public record. If nothing else, we have learned that the size The Rock is big.

C: Comments. I’ve spent much of the last 26 weeks giggling at the contents of The Rock’s various comment sections. Every day provides fresh treasure. Under a recent post, for example, a guy called tuckermax27 has said, “Hey @therock I am getting married 7/13/2019. You are number one on my guest list. More details to come.” Brilliant. Imagine the wedding day – everyone waiting for The Rock to show up, realising as the light fades that it might never happen. Another one for you: samfisherfit says, “Love is flame hands Rocky boy.” Great. Brilliant.

D: Daddy. That’s right – The Rock became a dad for the third time in April. The photo of him holding his minutes-old baby Tiana is one of the most adorable tableaux of the year. Packed into his Bible-length Instagram caption was a commendable message to men about their role in the delivery room when their partner is giving birth. With these words, The Rock impressed me. He impressed me every day, sure, but here he proved that he has valuable things to say about a man’s responsibilities to his partner, however messy these may be. Men in the 21st century are fortunate to have him as a prominent role model. (This entry is called ‘Daddy’ because The Rock, naughty little scamp that he is, also understands that ‘daddy’ is a sexually loaded term and therefore uses it with reference to himself quite a lot.)

E: Ectoplasm. Actually, no, ignore that, that was something else.

F: Family. As we have all learned from the 32 Fast and Furious films, it’s all about family, man. We’ve learned a lot about The Rock’s pride at being a father but we’ve also seen him talk time and time again about his parents and the hardship they experienced. We have clicked ‘Like’; we have felt his pain; we have loved him all the more.

G: Geek. He might be rightly considered one of the coolest men on the planet – he’s successful, he’s hench, he’s sexy, he’s charismatic – but every now and again in 2018 we were treated to a glimpse of just how much of a huge geek The Rock is. He’s clearly in love with technology; he laughs at his own (often incredibly lame) jokes; he exhibits an unabashed passion for almost everything under the sun. He’s a geek and it’s time you got used to it.

H: Huge. We learned that, as well as being big, The Rock is huge.

I: Impersonators. In February, a mere five weeks into this experiment, I spoke to a man who pretends on Twitter to be The Rock himself. Wrestling fan MasterOnTheMic, a 17-year-old called Daniel Gilbert, likes to speak in The Rock’s voice online. Why? “I wish The Rock would return for another title run. So I chose to play the role of The Rock and created a story in which he has joined a company in order to do what he does best, secure gold and have fun in the ring.”

J: Jokes. The two words that spring most immediately to mind when you think about The Rock are ‘big’ and ‘nice’. We learned in the first half of 2018, however, that he is under-appreciated as a comedic force. It is deceptively difficult to be that busy, that managed and that ambitious while still coming across as someone with an impeccable sense of humour. That he appeared in this sketch is, to this day, a fact that joyfully beggars belief.

K: Kool. We learned that The Rock is kool.

L: Large. We learned that, as well as being big and as well as being huge and as well as being kool, The Rock is large.

M: Money. We learned that The Rock charges money for film companies to make use of his social media accounts. I had mixed feelings on the matter – what fans like about the man is his authenticity and here they were learning that this authenticity might in fact be an illusion – but decided that it was all right provided no one was paying him to tweet about me.

N: Naughty. He’s naughty, The Rock Dwayne Johnson! He is naughty! Here’s an example of The Rock Dwayne Johnson being naughty. He’s really naughty!

O: Oral sex.The Rock does it. The Rock goes down. Course he does.

P: Pugs. I’m afraid that we learned – only a matter of weeks ago, so it’s still horribly fresh in the mind – that The Rock finds it funny when pugs eat butterflies alive. That’s right – he witnesses the death of an innocent butterfly and his first reaction is to laugh. This discovery is universally acknowledged as a low point in the history of The Rock Report. It was the day we learned that The Rock might in fact be problematic. It was a dark day, make no mistake.

Q: Questions. We’ve learned a lot, sure, but we still have questions about The Rock’s life. Some of these are: how many hours sleep does he get? How much does he pay the person who prepares his hundreds of daily meals? Would he count the two of us as ‘close friends’ or would he say that we were ‘best friends’?

R: Rampage. This film about an enormous gorilla, an enormous flying wolf and an enormous crocodile granted me the opportunity to meet the enormous Dwayne Rock Mr Johnson. Our first physical encounter was a historic occasion. He was overjoyed to shake my hand and I was on the verge of taking him aside and telling him to calm down. The next day I met him again and he recognised me instantly. He’s keen, that’s for sure.

S: Stupid films. Whether it’s Jumanji, Rampage, or Skyscraper – all films that The Rock has been posting regularly about in 2018 – Dwayne Mr Johnson The Rock seems addicted to making really stupid films. Stupid films have their place but we hope he might gravitate towards some more intelligent projects in the coming years. He seems like a bright guy.

T: Tweets. We learned that yes, The Rock does write all of his own tweets. I had the gall to question the authenticity of the man’s social media posts (because I realised I would be depressed to find out it wasn’t actually him who praised The Rock Report). Then, a mere five minutes after I pressed ‘Tweet’, I received a cyber-spanking from the man himself. They are his thumbs and they are his thoughts, he told me.

U: Ugly. It is impossible for The Rock to look ugly. This is something we have learned.

V: Vin Diesel. The only person in the world that The Rock does not get on with is Vin Diesel. And, in April, we found out a little more about why that might be. Shots were fired. The Rock explicitly said he wished Vin Diesel ill. It was great.

W: White House. Will we ever watch the inauguration of President Dwayne Johnson? Though The Rock has hinted that, if it happened, it wouldn’t be until at least 2024, he has done very little to dispel the rampant rumours of a presidential bid. As I’ve mentioned before, he talks unnervingly like Donald Trump and has floated the possibility that he might have a ‘fanny pack administration’. So yes. Yes, it could well happen.

X: Xylophone. No point pretending that we’ve learned anything about xylophones.

Y: Yes. Yes, I met The Rock. Twice in one day. Yes. Yes!

Z: Zoooooooom, let’s get out of here! We’re done, let’s go!

Please, raise your glasses. Here’s to the next 26 weeks of relentless Rock content.

Stay hungry, stay humble.

Peruse The Rock Report archive right here

(Image: Getty)