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The best success stories spring from humble beginnings, and so it is for Rocky Johnson.

Forced to hit the road at a tender age with his clothes in a cardboard suitcase and just two dollars in his pocket after using a coal shovel to go upside the head of a guy who deserved it, Johnson left behind his hometown of Amherst and his real name of Wayde Bowles.

Several chapters of the story later, Johnson is a champion wrestler, half of the first black tag team to win the WWF belt, and the father of Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.

But it wasn’t all charter flights, WWE Hall of Fame inductions and hanging out with Jackie Gleason. Along the way, Johnson suffered the bumps and bruises of 7,000 matches, episodes of racial prejudice and two divorces.

Rocky Johnson with his WWE Hall of Fame ring. - Contributed

His life story, Soulman, was published this month.

“I thought it was time to write a book, maybe later make a movie, but I wanted to leave something here,” Johnson said from his home in Florida, where he lives with his third wife.

His ring name came from combining those of his two boyhood boxing idols, Rocky Marciano and Jack Johnson, and when he came to the phone he had been watching a tape of an old boxing match. His original plan was to be a boxer, in fact he was a sparring partner for George Foreman as Foreman prepared to fight Joe Frazier.

His boxing skills gave him a unique wrestling skill set.

“My style was totally different than anyone’s, I don’t know, everyone’s always told me that. I did the shuffle (I learned that from Muhammad Ali), I did the boxing, the dropkicks,” he said.

“But my style was completely different from my boy’s. I thought his style was great, it was different. When you can stand in the middle of the ring and say to 20,000 people: ‘Can you smell….?’ And they the finish it for you: ’What the Rock is cooking!’ – he had a great style, he was different.”

Old-time fans will get a kick out of the pictures of vintage ads and posters in Soulman, which help illustrate how far professional wrestling has come since Johnson’s career began in the early '60s.

He was in the opening match on a card at Amherst Stadium that headlined the Beast and the Stomper.

“We used to pack that stadium,” said Johnson, who only wrestled in Nova Scotia a few times, all at the start of his career.

Later, when he took on Ric Flair for the World Heavyweight Championship at South Salem High School in Oregon, fans had to go to a local jewelry store for tickets.

“When you look at these wrestlers today, and they’re making four or five million dollars a year, and all the glamour and glory, they don’t realize what we went through. The best thing that ever happened was when they brought it out as wrestling entertainment,” said Johnson.

Dwayne Johnson before a growth spurt made him The Rock, with his parents, Rocky and Ata. - Contributed

“In my wrestling days, there wasn’t as much showmanship and glamour. We weren’t sports entertainment, we were trunks and boots and went out and wrestled. I’m not knocking it, don’t get me wrong, because it’s drawing billions of dollars every year. We stayed away from the public, never wanted the public to know that it’s predetermined. But that was the best thing they could do, let the people know. It’s entertainment, like any other sport, they want to be entertained.”

Wrestling showmanship may not have been as over the top as it can be now, but it’s always been important to have a schtick, a character. And Johnson said one of the best was a man he got to watch at the very start of his career, in Nova Scotia.

“The Beast, with his persona,” he remembered. “The Beast played the role to the hilt, he was the wildman, a wolfman, half wolf.”

Johnson, now 75, still has friends and relatives in his hometown but he hasn’t been in Amherst in five years, and that visit didn’t go so smoothly because, he says, of jealousy of his son’s success.

Rocky Johnson's book, Soulman

“If they’re not successful, a lot of them down there don’t like to see you successful,” he said. “If I had gone back home as just Wayde Douglas Bowles, I’d have probably been welcomed with open arms.”

And he wanted to set the record straight about the rumours that surface occasionally that have The Rock in Amherst to visit family.

Johnson said his son has never been seen in Amherst.

“When he first started wrestling, they wrestled in Moncton and they had to get a plane out of Halifax … so he drove right through my home town,” Johnson said. “I said ‘Why didn’t you stop?’ and he said ‘Dad, it was three in the morning, I didn’t know who was there or who I’m supposed to see.’ That’s the only time he’s ever been to Amherst … but he will be there in the future.”



Rocky Johnson’s career highlights

Best fans: “The best fans were in Arabia, where I had to get lowered down in the middle of a field by helicopter, there was 108,000 people.”

Wrestlers he admired most: “Sweet Daddy Siki, Bobo Brazil, I admired Harley Race, Ric Flair, who’s one of my good friends.”

Favourite match: “The best moment in my wrestling career was when I had father-and-son match, which was my last match, in the Bahamas, with Dwayne Johnson, my son. That’s something that so many wrestlers cannot say, that they had a match with their son. I did.”