The story behind Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's father, Canadian wrestler Rocky 'Soulman' Johnson

Last Updated Thursday, January 16, 2020 7:44PM ESTHALIFAX -- Growing up in northern Nova Scotia in the 1950s, Wayde Bowles once spent 25 cents to watch wrestlers like "The Beast" compete at the Bailey Arena in Amherst.

"Rocky Johnson is responsible for everything I've done in wrestling, the movies, TV shows and overall business opportunities .... In my eyes Dad was one of the greatest wrestlers to ever set foot into the squared circle." "My dad was a big man -- six-foot-seven and 300 pounds -- and very strong," Johnson says in the book. "In Amherst, the best job you could get was in the coal mine, and that's what killed him."When he was 14, his mother started a relationship with a man who would drink heavily and beat her and Johnson's brother Mervyn. During one particularly nasty confrontation, Johnson recalled how the man charged at the two boys, but Johnson spotted a coal shovel just in time.

The book chronicles Johnson's hardscrabble life in the big city before exploring his transformation from fish-truck driver to professional wrestler, a career that would take him across southern Ontario and eventually to the U.S.-based National Wrestling Alliance in the mid-1960s and World Wrestling Federation in the 1980s.

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

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