The Rock is forever grateful to former WWE Superstar who "saved his as*"; according to wrestling veteran (Exclusive)

Former WWE manager Dutch Mantell spoke about how The Rock developed his friendship with Harvey Whippleman (aka Downtown Bruno) in Memphis, TN.

In the mid-90s, The Brahma Bull wrestled as Flex Kavana in the USWA. During that time, he met Bruno, and they became great friends. Bruno even offered him a place to stay when Rocky didn't have much to go about. This incident was also captured beautifully in the NBC sitcom "Young Rock."

This week on the Smack Talk podcast, Mantell detailed how Whippleman offered Rocky a place to crash during his time in Memphis. The wrestling veteran revealed that The Rock was broke then and made very little money wrestling shows for Jerry Lawler.

He recalled that The Rock was always grateful to Harvey for offering him a place to stay.

"You know who he did meet there though? Harvey Whippleman... Nobody made him money in Memphis; he was just trying to learn the business. And what happened, he was just so broke at one time that he was talking to 'Downtown Bruno' who turned into Harvey Whippleman. He was talking to him one day and he didn't have a place to stay. And Harvey, little Bruno said, 'Hey man, you can come stay with me.' He went over there, and he said he saved his as*. He said, 'He didn't have to offer his place for me to stay. That's the only way I stayed there.' Did you hear about this?" [From 8:50 onwards]

The People's Champ was in a jovial mood this week as he entertained the fans in Memphis with another Rock Concert. However, the 51-year-old star ended his promo on a somber note, clarifying that he would thrash Cody Rhodes with his belt and then hand over the bloody belt to his mom.

It will be interesting to see if The American Nightmare has a response for The Rock next week on RAW.

---

If you use the quotes from this article, please embed the YouTube video and credit Sportskeeda.