I knew I wasn't crazy...Wrestler, The Rock, WAS at the 2000 GOP Convention

[Khephra]

Countering 'The Rock'



Conservative media analyst L. Brent Bozell III has a dream TV ad for the Democrats. Every time the Republicans harp on the violence in Hollywood and the Democratic Party's refusal to use its influence to clean up TV, show World Wrestling Federation superstar "The Rock" engaged in his violent style of wrestling. That would be the same wrestler who starred in last night's Republican National Convention performance here in Philly. "The Democrats and the press would have a field day," says Bozell. "When Republicans attack Democrats for being soft on Hollywood violence, the Democrats could say, 'Well, how do you explain The Rock?' "

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/election/gop/whispers.htm




(House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and World Wrestling Federation champion, The Rock, raise their hands at the podium at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Wednesday.
Associated Press Photo)

The Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA -- The Rock was raring to rev up the Republican National Convention, but some GOP conservatives didn't want his help.

The World Wrestling Federation champion was joining House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a former high school wrestling coach, in launching Wednesday night's convention session.

That didn't sit well with the Parents Television Council, which complained to GOP leaders that The Rock stars in "the most violent and vulgar program on prime time network television."

The Rock, who won't say which candidate he's supporting for president, answered his critics at a news conference promoting a voter registration drive the WWF is sponsoring with MTV's Choose or Lose, Youth Vote 2000 and Project Vote Smart.

http://quest.cjonline.com/stories/080300/gop_0803005226.shtml

To be fair, he appeared at both the Democratic and Republican conventions to promote the voter drive, and it's unknown as to which party he supports, but for the longest time I had thought I'd dreamed the whole thing up.

[Doc_Technical]

1. The Rock.

How about that, he has the same first name as the guitar player
for U2.

[belladonna]

2. I thought the guitar player in U2 was The Edge

But who knows, not a big fan of theirs :shrug:

[Bossy Monkey]

3. I think it might be one of those joke things

The Rock
The Edge
Same first name.
Get it?

[leftyandproud]

4. is wrestling really violent?

seems like one big soap opera with good choreography...no real violence

[EstimatedProphet]

5. In some respects, so is the RNC

It is one big soap opera with good choreography, although there is a lot of real violence, especially for the brown-people countries.
How fitting then that pro wrestlers would be the mascots for the RNC.

[Bossy Monkey]

6. You bet. (Warning: very graphic)

Those guys are insane. This is from a 2/10/02 NYT interview with Bob Mould, right after his foray into pro wrestling script-writing:

A lot of people consider pro wrestling the phoniest thing in the world, as far away as you can get from the sincere, heartfelt work you're known for. Was it difficult to switch gears?

Well, the closer you get to it, the less phony it is. Wrestling is the most dangerous thing I've ever been around in my life. Every night, invariably, somebody would get clobbered with a chair and it's like, get the Novocain, shoot him in the head, 25 stitches and he's good as new in the morning. There is real blood out there. The guys cut themselves. They take a piece of a straight razor and clip off a triangular corner and wrap it up in a piece of gauze, put it in the wristband. The moment they get ready to bleed, usually the bad guy's got the chair and the ref's struggling with him to get the chair out of his hands; the big guy takes the thing out of his wristband, the bad guy hits him, guy goes down, and as he's going down he takes a razor blade and drags it across his forehead.

Why don't they use blood pellets?

I don't know. Pride, maybe. It's weird. I've never seen anything like that in my life. Not in the music business. The music business is a bunch of wimps. And the drug and alcohol thing in wrestling -- I was not prepared for that. They're 300 pounds; they can absorb twice the drugs and alcohol that skinny rock guys can. It's frightening.