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.”
H/t to Sportskeeda