Remembering that time The Rock punched his stuntman in the face, and gave him a Rolex to remember it by…

Zach Blass

Sometimes in the background while I am writing, or when I am taking a quick break, I will have The Graham Norton Show clips playing in the background. Today while I was buried in my laptop, typing away, I heard The Rock during a clip say the word Rolex, and like a dog hearing the word ‘park’ or ‘snack’ I immediately looked up. After rewinding a tad for context, I listened to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, WWE and Hollywood icon, tell a story from early in his film career that got the watch enthusiast and collector in me wondering…

The story goes that The Rock likes to do his own stunts whenever possible. In his first film, The Scorpion King, during an extensive action sequence he was tasked with “punching” another character. As a WWE superstar The Rock has had ample experience feigning punches to make them look real, so to sell a punch is nothing new to him and on paper would be a straightforward and easy task.

But accidents happen, and as The Rock explains it, during the filming of the punch he ended up accidentally connecting with the stuntman’s face for real – the stuntman talking a full on strike from the very big and strong wrestler. Of course Johnson felt horrible, but the gentle giant that he is took his apology to the next level by actually going out and buying the gentlemen he hit a Rolex watch as a gesture. Supposedly the stuntman was on the older side, and so for the man to take a true punch from Johnson instead of a Hollywood punch definitely stung – as it would for any person really.

It is unclear what Rolex he purchased for the stuntman, but after The Rock finished his story, host Graham Norton asked him if stuntmen in the industry got any ideas from the incident – throwing themselves into the line of fire of his fist in the hopes of a free Rolex from The Rock. The Rock joked the story did get picked up by the press, and after the news broke he noticed stuntmen leaning in closer. But The Rock would then ask Graham if it would be worth getting into a fight with him at the prospect of a watch, to which Graham would reply “No, no, I can tell the time right now”.

With Rolex so unobtanium today I pose the question to you: would you take a punch from The Rock for a free Rolex? I would really love a Pepsi GMT Master II on a Jubilee, but I would also have to be alive to wear it. As The Rock jokes in a perfect #dadjoke finale, you could either die from the contact of the punch, and if he happened to miss you would possibly die from the gale of wind created by his fist soaring by – catching pneumonia in the process. Boom boom.