Dwayne Johnson Shares Emotional Tribute to His Late Father
Dwayne Johnson has broken his silence following the passing of his father, Rocky Johnson, on January 15.
Dwayne shared a video of his father wrestling in the then WWF that featured a shot of himself watching on from the crowd. The video was captioned with the following:
“I love you.
You broke color barriers, became a ring legend and trail blazed your way thru this world.
I was the boy sitting in the seats, watching and adoring you, my hero from afar.
The boy you raised to always be proud of our cultures and proud of who and what I am.
The boy you raised with the toughest of love.
The intense work.
The hard hand.
The adoring boy who wanted to know only your best qualities.
Who then grew to become a man realizing you had other deep complex sides that needed to be held and understood.
Son to father.
Man to man.
That’s when my adoration turned to respect.
And my empathy turned to gratitude.
Grateful that you gave me life.
Grateful you gave me life’s invaluable lessons.
Dad, I wish I had one more shot to tell you, I love you, before you crossed over to the other side.
But you were ripped away from me so fast without warning.
Gone in an instant and no coming back.
I’m in pain.
But we both know it’s just pain and it’ll pass.
Now I’ll carry your mana and work ethic with me, as it’s time to move on because I have my family to feed and work to accomplish.
Finally, I want you to rest your trailblazing soul, Soulman.
Pain-free, regret-free, satisfied and at ease.
You lived a very full, very hard, barrier-breaking life and left it all in the ring.
I love you dad and I’ll always be your proud and grateful son.
Go rest high.”
Rocky Johnson’s career spanned four decades, with the majority of his career spent in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA.) Johnson would wrestle in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1983 until his retirement from the ring in 1991. Johnson would notably team up with Tony Atlas as the tag team The Soul Patrol and become the first African-American World Tag Team Champions in WWE history in 1983.
Johnson was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2008 by his son.
