Former WWE Star Was Originally Supposed To be called The Rock first?

Early in 1997, Ken Shamrock joined WWE and refereed the WrestleMania 13 Submission Match between Bret Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin as a special guest referee. By the end of the year, Shamrock had developed into a wrestler in his own right and had matches with stars like The Rock, The Undertaker, Owen Hart, and others.

In a recent interview with Wrestling Shoot Interviews, Shamrock revealed that he was originally known as ‘The Rock’ as a nickname before Dwayne Johnson went by The Rock name. 

“When he started using ‘The Rock’ I said ‘bro, you know I was The Rock first, right? He looked at me very confused and then I had a contract where I had all that carved out. So, I said, ‘bro, no seriously, I got it in my contract…UFC and WWF, in both of those I had in the contract World’s Most Dangerous Man, Ken ‘The Rock’ Shamrock, Lions Den, all those things…I own those, those are mine, those are my trademarks.”