There’s been a major development in the world of insults, specifically wrestling-themed ones, with Dwayne Johnson taking over the rights to a bunch of his old WWE nicknames and catchphrases—including “candy ass” and “jabroni.” And while this is tied to wrestling (we’ll get to that in a minute), general pop culture fans will be more familiar with the term “candy ass” from the time Johnson used it to describe one of his Fast 8 co-stars way back in 2016. It turned out to be Vin Diesel, teeing up one of the great feuds of modern Hollywood, with Johnson skipping out on F9 entirely and then returning for a cameo in Fast X that seemed entirely motivated by some then-recent box office troubles that had plagued The Rock.
And now Dwayne Johnson is officially the only person who can call someone a “candy ass,” or at least the only person who can put it on a t-shirt, which is bad news for Vin Diesel and any other co-stars Johnson may have in the future. If he stands to make money from it, he’s more likely to call someone a “candy ass” again (whoever yelled at Rebecca Ferguson will probably be on the receiving end of a candy-assing if they’re ever identified).
This is all apparently part of Johnson’s new spot on the board of directors for WWE parent company TKO Group Holdings, with The Hollywood Reporter saying that the company officially granted him control of the rights to everything he said, did, and wore in his time with the WWE. That means, in addition to “jabroni” and “candy ass,” he now owns the name The Rock, as well as a long list of similar things: Rocky Maivia, Team Corporate, Rock Nation, The Nation, Roody Poo, If You Smell What The Rock Is Cooking, The Samoan Sensation, The People’s Elbow, Rock Botton, Rockpocalypse, The People’s Champion, and The Most Electrifying Man In Sports And Entertainment.
For a guy who has always been obsessed with branding and “Dwayne Johnson” as a brand (beyond even “The Rock” as a brand), this should be like super-Christmas. Finally, he gets to decide who uses his name and image, and he has chosen… the WWE. The THR story says that he has granted the company a 10-year license to use “the Rock IP,” meaning it can still sell Rock shirts or whatever for at least the next decade. So everything’s going to be pretty much the same, but Dwayne Johnson is going to be making even more money off himself and he can call everyone a “candy ass” if he feels like it.