The Rock narrowly avoided locking up with a bear as part of a promotional show for the WWF orchestrated by Vince McMahon.

In October 2000, the WWF joined the New York Stock Exchange and a year later, the Chairman pitched for the Brahma Bull to face a bear on Wall Street to garner interest.

On his ‘Something to Wrestle With’ podcast, Bruce Prichard explained what happened:

“Vince came into my office on a Thursday, and I believe it was going to be a Tuesday or a Wednesday that we were going to be on the New York Stock Exchange, to ring the bell on the Stock Exchange, and Vince wanted to put a ring in the middle of Wall Street. Shut Wall Street down and put a ring there and have matches at noon. Huge spectacle, we’re gonna go live on WWF.com, so it’s like, okay, cool. I thought he was just kind of telling me this. So I knew that ‘Okay we need to put on a show, we need to come up with something.

“But what he was telling me was ‘Hey, I want to do this, get it done.’ As he trails off he goes ‘and I want a bear…! I want The Rock to wrestle a bear.’ The Brahma Bull versus the bear. The honest to God living wrestling bear which used to be an attraction back in the day.

“The bear, thank God, was reconsidered on several fronts,” Prichard recalled. “Because, first of all, you had the animal rights activists that would not look kindly on a wrestling bear. Even though the human rights activists that probably should have been alarmed. Because trust me… the bear always goes over. So anyway, as we’re getting closer to this, the idea becomes ‘well, do you really want a bear hanging around on the New York Exchange the day your stock goes public?’ Well, ‘the bear was out today on the New York Stock Exchange.’”

The Rock, Steve Austin, Triple H, Kurt Angle and Mick Foley were among the Superstars who joined the McMahon family and senior WWE officials for the NYSE bell ringing ceremony in October 2000.