It’s often fun to compare the biggest stars in wrestling to the most remarkable athletes in professional sports; the top-level performers in both arenas become larger-than-lif characters in a variety of ways. Given WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett‘s illustrious career in the wrestling business, he’s distinctly qualified to make these connections.
Jarrett recently spoke with Bally Sports’ Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson and offered some compelling parallels between WWE’s most noteworthy names and, specifically, the NBA’s icons. When asked to name WWE’s equivalent to “the GOAT”, Michael Jordan, Jarrett named The Rock. In his explanation, rather than focusing on his talent in the ring, Jarrett focused on Dwayne Johnson’s success outside of the sport. Like Jordan has thrived with his sneaker brand and his overall business acumen, Johnson has become remarkably successful in Hollywood, and his Teremana Tequila company is also quite popular.
“How can you deny Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson?” said Jarrett. “The biggest box office attraction. So Michael Jordan makes more money today off his shoes than he did when he retired. So basketball is a huge platform and his legendary stories and everything that goes with it. But he transcended – Jordan transcended his game and The Rock certainly transcended; I mean, who knows? We could be talking about President Johnson one day as opposed to ‘The Rock.'”
When asked about another all-time great, LeBron James, Jarrett looked Brock Lesnar‘s way and compared their legendary backgrounds as amateur athletes and, of course, their later respective excellence.
“So that’s dominant and physical… Brock Lesnar,” said Jarrett. “It’s unbelievable what he did. He left our world and went to UFC and dominated and came back and so Brock – and you hear all the legendary stories about LeBron as a 12-year old and 14-year old and all this… when you look at Brock’s high school career and college career and then when you see him step into our world and I mean, he was a main-event in record time and stayed on top and went to the UFC and came back and was STILL on top! So I’m going to say Brock.”
If nothing else, Jarrett’s comments are certainly food for thought; in the same interview, he also compared two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry to WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart.
Thanks to Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson of Bally Sports for sharing the quotes in this article.
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