The “The age of attitude” It was perhaps the time most relevant in the history of wrestling professional in which WWE had Superstars of the stature of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock, Undertaker or humanityjust to name a few; and fans were lucky enough to be able to watch them compete on a weekly basis.
They all agreed on the time; it was As if Pele, Maradona, Messi and Cristiano had all played together in football. Those kinds of things are only appreciated over time, when you no longer have them and when you see the company's roster compared to that of other eras. There will be other times, perhaps better, only time will tell, but There will never be another “Attitude Era” with all that these two words imply inside, but also outside the ring.
It was a constant ego struggleThe hackneyed phrase “that's theatre” or “it's scripted” didn't apply here; no, the “Attitude Era” was precisely that, “attitude”; try to get over whoever it was at all costs, regardless of the physical tolland much less that of the rival. And within this ferocity Dwayne Johnson's figure grew professionally which from then on would be known as The Rock.
The Rock in its purest form
Trying to understand the idiosyncrasy of this era and this character; We are still missing pieces that give us a more general vision and less biased than it meant from within, although thanks to conferences like the one The Rock gave last weekWe can get a sense of how everything was managed. Looking through a small slot, we can learn the ins and outs of this sport of entertainment and How the expectation that The Rock raises today has been generatedto the point of having come to be considered by many, a feasible candidate for the White House.
Within the program The vault of PBD Podcast, The Rock was interviewed about the way he negotiated his contracts during that time with none other than Vince McMahona real financial shark at the top of his executive and managerial powers. It took a lot of courage to, at just over 20 years old, address Vince in the way that he did.
“When we started negotiating I asked him who was the highest paid at that moment and he said to me: 'Steve Austin'. I asked him how much he charged. and he said, 'One million.' I said, 'Well, I want double that, I want two million.' He asked me where I got that figure from and I told him that I believed in my projection and that if he charged one I saw myself charging two.“The Rock said, without further ado.
Dwyane continued: “He said, 'Okay, I understand your logic and this is what we're going to do. I will put you in contact with one of our finance executives and you're going to work with him for two months because I want you to understand how that side of the business works. 'from A to Z'. You can see the cost of personnel, hotels, fees for hiring in each state, what is distributed from the box office, what it costs to rent the stadiums… and When you have learned it, come and we will talk again.“.
“It didn't take me two months, but a couple of weeks. I spoke to him again, gave him a hug and thanked him. 'Now I understand everything,' I said. 'Thank you for giving me this opportunity, I want the same thing as Steve, a million.We had a great conversation and he said to me, 'How much do you think you're going to produce this year?' I said, 'I think my value will go up by 15% so if I ask you for 1 million, let's say 1.5 million. and he answered me: 'Very well, Now that you've understood it, now that you've learned all that, you're going to win 15 million dollars' The rest is history and, today, it sounds ridiculous.
