Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson shares smiling photo with every XFL helmet after buying the league
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s move to purchase the XFL is now official.
Well, it at least finally feels official.
Johnson shared a photo to Instagram on Tuesday after helmets from each of the league’s eight teams arrived to his office.
“I’m humbled and grateful at how full circle life can sometimes be,” Johnson wrote. “My dreams of playing in the NFL never came true, but now years later — I have the honor of buying an entire pro football league so the dreams of other players can come true.”
Johnson, his ex-wife Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital purchased the bankrupt football league last month for $15 million. Former WWE mogul Vince McMahon rebooted the league in 2018 and kicked back off in February with eight teams. It had to shut down after just five weeks, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The XFL filed for bankruptcy a month later.
“My trailblazing partner Danny Garcia (first woman ever to own an entire US sports league) and [RedBird Capital owner] Gerry Cardinale are passionate football owners who are committed to the grind to deliver awesome football for the fans — and always take care of our hardworking, talented players,” Johnson wrote.
The Rock’s framed $7
Johnson also addressed the other thing that stood out in the Instagram photo on Tuesday.
Framed behind Johnson, who was holding two of the eight helmets and smiling, was a framed $7 — an unusual sight for the former WWE and movie star who has earned more than $87.5 million in his career, according to Forbes.com.
Those three bills, he explained, date back to 1995 when he was trying to make it in the CFL with the Calgary Stampeders — an endeavor that lasted just two months.
Dwayne Johnson was on Stamps practice roster in 1995. He later gained fame as a wrestler and actor @TheRock #TBT pic.twitter.com/v704KgwrLq
— Calgary Stampeders (@calstampeders) September 25, 2014
“I keep a framed $7 BUCKS (the amount of money I had when I was cut from the Canadian Football League in 1995) on the top shelf here as my daily reminder to stay hungry, humble and always be the hardest worker in the room,” he wrote.
‘Jabroni’ officially added to the dictionary
Tuesday wasn’t just a big day for Johnson’s new business venture.
It also marked a monumental change to the English language — and Dictionary.com is giving Johnson credit where credit is due.
Dictionary.com, as part of its biggest update ever, officially added “jabroni” to its dictionary — the phrase that Johnson helped make famous during his wrestling days.
Yes, we put jabroni in the dictionary. We assume @TheRock could smell us cooking up this update the whole time. https://t.co/kNdHhsLYrn
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) September 1, 2020
“A wrestler whose purpose is to lose matches against headlining wrestlers in order to build up the status and fame of the headliners,” one of the two definitions for the word read.
The word isn’t actually something Johnson made up. That honor goes to The Iron Sheik.
JABRONI DICTIONARY SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR THE WORD I MAKE I BREAK YOUR NECK YOU DONT SHOW WHOSE THE LEGEND https://t.co/DsBWE779Yd
— The Iron Sheik (@the_ironsheik) September 1, 2020
“The Iron Sheik was famous for saying the word constantly backstage,” Johnson told Esquire in 2015. “‘Jabroni, jabroni, jabroni.’ Around 1998, I thought, ‘Why can't I say it on TV?’
“So I started saying it publicly, but the Iron Sheik was known for it.”
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