Not many WWE stars ever get the chance to work closely with someone as huge as The Rock. For former WWE star Brian Myers, a phone call he thought would get him fired turned into one of the best experiences of his career.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Myers (who WWE fans know as Curt Hawkins) talked about getting an unexpected call from WWE executive John Laurinaitis before Survivor Series 2011. At the time, The Rock was getting ready for his WWE return match alongside John Cena against The Miz and R-Truth.
Brian Myers initially believed WWE was calling to fire him
At first, Myers thought the call meant bad news.
He said The Rock had already appeared at WrestleMania before returning for the tag match at Madison Square Garden. When Laurinaitis called him, Myers immediately thought he was about to lose his job.
“He hosted the Mania, and he was around. But then he was gonna do that tag in The Garden, and they said he wanted to train. Johnny Ace called me on a Wednesday, and I’m like, oh, I’m getting fired, this is it,” Myers said.
The timing made things even more awkward as he was on a train with the woman who later became his wife.
“Then they were like, ‘Please hold for Joe Hennig.’ I’m like WTF? It was the weirdest. I actually was on the train going with who would become my wife, like, one of our first dates. So I was all like, what is happening?” Myers added.
But instead of being fired, Laurinaitis explained that The Rock wanted to train for his return match. He claimed WWE had picked Myers and Joe Hennig to help him. The two became Rock’s personal training partners while he prepared for Survivor Series 2011. Myers described the experience as hectic but amazing.
“Then Johnny is like, ‘Yeah, Rock wants to train, and we picked you guys.’ It was an unbelievable experience, because like, obviously, Dwayne’s schedule is something else, and we were his personal little crash test dummies. You just never knew. A couple times I flew to Miami in the morning, train with him in Miami, and then flew out of Miami, like my commute was Miami and back in a day,” Myers said.
Myers also revealed that they used to set up a WWE ring wherever Dwayne Johnson was filming and train there, regardless of how demanding Johnson’s schedule was at the time.
Read more: The Rock Shares Behind-The-Scenes Look at His Raunchy Netflix Roast of Kevin Hart
