Even donald trump was broke in the nineties. Don't mean he wasn't connected. The rock dad may have been an asshole, but he was close to his samoan side. His maternal grandfather was a wrestler, his cousins yokazuna, and rikishi were also wwf superstars. The rock had all the inn's with the wwf.
direct from wiki
Along with his father and grandfather, several members of Johnson's family are current and former professional wrestlers, including his uncles, the Wild Samoans (Afa and Sika Anoa'i) and cousins, such as Manu, Yokozuna, Rikishi, Rosey, and Umaga.[19] When he declared his intention to join the family business, his father resisted, but agreed to train his son himself, warning him that he would not go easy on him.[18] With help from veteran wrestler Pat Patterson, Johnson had several tryout matches with the WWF in 1996; he defeated The Brooklyn Brawler at a house show under his real name, Dwayne Johnson,[24] and lost the others to Chris Candido and Owen Hart.[19] Impressed by his talent and charisma, Johnson was signed to a contract after wrestling at Jerry Lawler's United States Wrestling Association, where he wrestled under the ring name "Flex Kavana".[5] While there, he won the USWA World Tag Team Championship twice with Bart Sawyer in the summer of 1996.