The Rock was excited about the potential matchups he could have when WWE purchased WCW in 2001. While he would have fun matches with names like Booker T, Goldberg, and the New World Order (Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash), not everyone that The Rock had hoped to face ever got the privilege of going one-on-one with "The Great One."
When The Rock returned to WWE in the summer of 2001, the "InVasion" angle was well underway. At that point, however, it was clear that wrestling fans would not immediately see the dream matches they had been clamoring for when fantasy booking WWE vs. WCW in their heads. Even The Rock, who would headline the 2001 WWE SummerSlam event by capturing the WCW World Championship from Booker T, had a different vision in his mind of what the dream matches would look like.
The Rock discussed his immediate thoughts of potential dream matches following the 2001 buyout during the final episode of the VICE docuseries, "Who Killed WCW?" Rock said that he very quickly began to scribble down names of WCW wrestlers he felt he could create compelling stories with inside the squared circle and eventually presented these names to Vince McMahon. Yes, Goldberg and the nWo were on the list, but so were Sting and Randy Savage, two WWE Hall of Famers that The Rock would sadly never wrestle.
"I remember sitting down in my hotel room and writing down all the wrestlers who I had hoped to wrestle," said Dwayne Johnson, who also served as a producer of the VICE series. "Goldberg, Sting, [Randy] Savage, everybody in the nWo. I remember writing everybody down and going to Vince and saying, 'Hey, this might be a good idea. What about this guy and this guy, and this guy and this guy, let's bring them in.'"
The Rock had to wait until 2002 to face the members of the New World Order, including a classic match against Hollywood Hogan at WWE WrestleMania. The Rock would face Bill Goldberg at the 2003 WWE Backlash event in the final singles match of his initial WWE run and the last singles match he would have for nine years until he fought John Cena at WWE WrestleMania 28.
Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp recently interviewed Evan Husney, one of the producers of the docuseries. Fans can check out that full interview embedded in the video above.
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