In honor of the 900th episode of WWE Smackdown tonight, The Rock posted the following on Instagram:
“The Rock’ also holds the record for going WAY OVER his allotted time given for his matches than any performer in Smackdown history,” he wrote. “For ex: if I was given 20min total match time, I would notoriously hit the 35min mark causing a ripple effect in the 2 hour TV show. Reason this would always happen is, every night I would wrestle and be concerned with one thing: listening to the people. And every night, I learned to let THEM dictate how long my matches were.
After the match I would walk back thru the curtain and Vince would be pissed. He’d say ‘God dammit Rock! Great match but you went over time’. I’d immediately say ‘I’m sorry Vince and I understand, but.. I was listening to the people and you just can’t rush greatness’. He would look at me with that iconic ‘Vince glare’ and not say a word for 4-5 very long seconds… then break out in a big smile and say ‘that’s right. You can’t rush greatness’. Then we’d hug and I’d get his $5,000 suit all f*cked up with sweat. Those were good times.”