Hiram Garcia and Brian Gewirtz talk Young Rock, Dwayne Johnson’s journey, Black Adam, more

Young Rock‘s wildly-entertaining first two seasons on NBC had been building to this past week’s episode “Corpus Christi,” where titular character Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson receives a life-altering tryout with World Wrestling Entertainment in 1996.

The episode sees the future Black Adam brush shoulders backstage with wrestling icons such as The Undertaker, Triple H and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, all of whom Rock would go on to have unforgettable matches and moments with in the years that followed.

It concludes with Dwayne being told by WWE head honcho Vince McMahon that he has a lot of potential inside the squared circle but that he was being sent down to the company’s developmental league in Memphis for further training. Of course, his career only ascended astronomically from there.

Hiram Garcia, who serves as the President of Production at Seven Bucks Productions, and Brian Gewirtz, former head writer for WWE during the famed “Attitude Era” and now SVP of Development at Seven Bucks Productions, have both played pivotal roles in Rock’s life and had a hand in writing this episode.

"“This was a huge moment in DJ’s career and I think the fun of Young Rock has been reliving so many monumental moments,” Garcia said. “For us, this was always an episode we were very excited about because it’s something DJ always talks about. It captures the way DJ has always approached life and for us, it gave us an opportunity to write an episode that was so pivotal in his life coming up and introduce so many iconic characters that was in essence an origin story as far as their relationship with DJ.”"

Garcia noted that there were always things from that story that resonated with Rock, specifically how it defined his will when approaching the business of wrestling. He proved he was determined no matter what and that’s an attitude he’s applied to everything he’s experienced since then.

Young Rock: The wrestlers are fans of the series themselves

It helped that the real-life wrestlers who portray these colorful characters on the latest episode are fans themselves, according to Gewirtz. Colt Cabana plays Steve Lombardi a.k.a. The Brooklyn Brawler while Luke Hawx plays Steve Austin, though it was no easy feat for Hawx to portray The Texas Rattlesnake from that specific stage of his then-burgeoning career.

"“It’s a really, really special challenge because he’s playing Steve Austin but he’s playing, for the most part… he’s not the Steve Austin everyone knows,” Gewirtz said. “He’s Steve Austin during his Ringmaster era, which is the first incarnation of Steve in WWF back in 1996. It’s not a very recognizable character. It’s a challenge as an actor for Luke especially to capture the essence of Steve Austin but to play this guy that’s not over with the fans, doesn’t have the confidence of Vince McMahon and thought he’d be fired any day.”"

Wrestling fans who tune into Young Rock have seen several other familiar faces throughout the last two seasons of the show, including a young Roman Reigns on a recent installment. The idea of a Rock vs. Reigns match in a battle of the Samoan cousins was teased with a wink and a nod to the viewer.

Gewirtz acknowledged the buzz the Easter egg got online and clarified it was done without any knowledge of what WWE has planned for next year’s WrestleMania event involving those two.

"“Certainly not promising anything because we have no idea what the future holds,” he said, “but Dwayne Johnson and Roman Reigns were to wrestle, a match that big could only happen at WrestleMania, so why not put it on the show circa 1995 or whatever it is and have people’s minds racing?”"

While watching the “Corpus Christi” episode

, it becomes clear that this was something the showrunners had been building to for a while and were saving for later in the season. Rock’s journey seems to have played out perfectly on the show dating back to the very first episode, but Garcia confirmed that they wanted everything to unfold organically without planning too much too far in advance.

"“We’d love to say we have everything mapped out perfectly as we planned, but the truth is, it’s a mixture of both,” Garcia said. “Our show creators, Nahnatchka Khan and Jeff Chiang, are brilliant at this and they’ve done such a great job of working with us and DJ to capture all those great stories and create a map and a template of what we’d like to do.“You want to have hopes and expectations for the way things are going to go and the way audiences are going to receive them, but it’s always a bit of planning and listening to the audience and seeing what they’re really responding to,” he continued. “I can say this story point was always a special story point for us.”"

Young Rock has other pivotal moments in Rock’s life it has yet to get to

Many other pivotal moments remain in Rock’s life that the show has yet to get to. This specific story came at just the perfect time, and it’s especially impressive that they were able to cram so much into a 30-minute window.

Going forward, Garcia and Gewirtz are keeping busy along with Rock on a variety of exciting projects, including a book from Gewirtz and D.C.-centric movies this summer from Seven Bucks Productions.

“Some of my favorite episodes are the ones coming up, the culmination of all these different eras in Hawaii including the Backyard Brawl-B-Q,” said Gewirtz. “It’s really cool to see these things and then execute them and see them come to life.”

"“This year is a big year in the D.C. Universe where we worked hard to come and play in the D.C. Universe,” Garcia added. “On July 29th, we release D.C.’s League of Super Pets where DJ plays Superman’s dog Krypto and then later in the year, Black Adam comes and changes the total hierarchy of power in the D.C. Universe. Just some stuff for people to keep an eye out for. At the end of the day, we’re going to keep wanting to tell these stories that hopefully the fans love because we sure love telling them.”"

New episodes of Young Rock air Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.