Marty Garner Recalls Working As The Rock’s PA, Getting a Gig On The Rundown

Marty Garner spent some time in and out of the ring with WWE, and he recently recalled how he ended up working as a production assistant for The Rock. Garner spoke with Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert & Joel Pearl on In The Weeds and talked about working with The Great One; you can see highlights below:

On working as The Rock’s production assistant: “I was doing some stunts on a video game for Epic Games. This guy tells a guy in California, ‘I want to bring him out here and do some stunts on my game.’ I go out there and the guy I was working for at the video game studio, he goes, ‘Do you know The Rock?’ ‘Of course, I used to do some jobs at WWE, I was an enhancement guy.’ ‘I’m gonna call him and tell him you’re with me. I just got his number.’ He called Dwayne and leaves him a message, ‘Marty Garner is with me.’ We’re waiting to call back and he never calls back. The next day, he says, ‘Let’s go to where they’re shooting the movie [The Rundown].’ ‘That’s probably not a good idea.’ ‘What’s it going to hurt?’ We go out there, they were wrapping up and Rock was gone. We found his stunt double and asked him where Rock was. ‘He’s gone, you guys come with me.’ We went to this bar with Tanoai Reed [Rock’s stunt double and cousin] and he called Rock up, ‘Do you know Marty Garner? Cham Pain?’ I hear Rock on the other end popping, ‘Put him on the phone. What are you doing here? I’ll tell you what, come to the set tomorrow night.’ We come out there, it’s 12:30, one o’clock at night, and they’re wrapping up a scene. As soon as they said ‘cut,’ Rock saw me and he goes, ‘First name Cham, last name Pain, former male exotic dancer from Las Vegas, Nevada who traded his g-string for the wrestling ring, and pound for pound the baddest man who ever stepped foot in the squared circle.’ Everyone started clapping. ‘That ain’t me. That’s him. That’s Cham Pain.’ I stayed there that weekend. We had a blast. Got to meet Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake one night at the club. Everybody was there.”

On meeting up with Rock again at WrestleMania 19: “That was January 2003. March 2003, WrestleMania in Washington, I didn’t tell Rock I was coming out there. I showed up because Matt and Jeff were on the show, Shannon Moore, Shane Helms were there. I only had $100 in my pocket when I left the house. I’m short on cash and trying to wing it. I get in the lobby of the hotel and somebody called Rock and told him I was there. He calls my phone, ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I’m just hanging out with the boys.’ ‘Come out with us tonight to dinner.’ I go out with him and the boys. The bill was like $1600 for eight or nine of us. I throw my 20-minute phone card on the table like a credit card, ‘Take care of it with that. While you’re at it, buy yourself something pretty too.’ Rock thought that was the funniest thing he had ever seen. ‘Boy, you better put that 20 minutes back in your pocket.’ After that, it was a month or so later, Rock called me up, ‘Look, you’ve always been my friend and always been cool with me. Now, I’m going to ask you for something. I’m doing a movie in Vancouver [The Rundown] coming up in a month. Would you like to work on that movie? It’s ten weeks, we’ll pay you $2500 a week and put you up in a five diamond hotel. Just come out and have some fun. I think Vince McMahon has done you dirty over the years in not hiring you. This is not a full-time gig, but I want you to have som phone for a while.’ That was some of the coolest time of my life.

“The first night I was there, I’m in the club and looking at the dance floor and all the people looking at us, I’m in the VIP section and I’m talking to people. I’m thinking, ‘I’m in another country, working for Dwayne Johnson, making $2500 a week, all expenses paid. This can’t be happening.’ Rock comes up to me, puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘Welcome to the family.’ I almost cried. I had to turn and walk away for a minute. I came back, ‘I appreciate it, brother.’ I’m trying to keep my composure because you don’t want to look like a punk after Rock gives you a job. It was a heck of a ride. We had a lot of fun.”