JUNIOR Vaivai has revealed how his own Rock helped turn his life and rugby career around – the man known to millions as The Rock.
The Hull KR ace is a cousin of Dwayne Johnson, who is now a huge Hollywood star after becoming the man billed during his WWE career as ‘the most electrifying man in sports entertainment’.
And if it was not for him, it is a fair bet he would not be anywhere near a professional rugby league team.
Vaivai suffered three serious knee injuries when he was younger and felt like throwing the towel in – but a heart-to-heart with his famous relative put him on the road to Rovers.
Now he is an American international because of his American Samoan roots and is rapidly becoming a star in Super League.
“In 2015, we had a family reunion and I spent time with him at his mum’s house,” Vaivai recalled.
“We sat down and I basically said I wanted to hang up my boots. He just told me, ‘Continue playing, but not because you have to – do it because you want to.’
“‘If you still have the desire, you need to keep chasing it, no matter what the odds are.’
“I decided then to go back and start again. I went back to playing in parks and here I am today.
“I hadn’t played professionally for about six years. I went back to my roots and found my passion for the game again. Now I’m really enjoying it.
“That passion went because of injuries. I tore my ACL in 2012 and 2013 and it went downhill from there. So I went back to where I started and played park rugby for Wests Illawarra – there were no stands or anything.”
Vaivai, 28, admits that were it not for that chat with Johnson, he would probably be working on the Wake Up Call program he created that he says encourages people that ‘there’s more to life than what they see in the mirror. You don’t have to be an Instagram supermodel to get somewhere in life.’
But after getting a call from KR boss Tim Sheens on Christmas Eve, he is now in Hull and telling Johnson about his progress while seeing how his star keeps on rising.
However, to him, he is not ‘The Rock’ or ‘Dwayne Johnson, international film star’ – he is just Dwayne.
Vaivai added: “We email as he’s so busy. When he’s not shooting and I’m in America, we catch up though.
“But it’s just family time, it’s not talking about work or anything like that.
“We try and keep it at home, we just enjoy each other’s company but I don’t go around everywhere saying, ‘He’s my cousin.’
“To me, he’s Dwayne, not Dwayne the megastar. I’m not on billboards but I’m happy with that.
“He deserves it as he’s worked hard to get where he is. You only get out what you put in. I remember when he was an American Footballer and he suffered injuries and there was a time where he wasn’t picked by coaches.
“His dad was wrestling at the time, so he went for that and it’s gone from there.”
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