-Oh, man, my favorite, your favorite.
Thanks so much for being with us.
-Thank you. -I appreciate it.
I want to say congrats to your daughter, Simone, by the way,
who is now going to be in the WWE.
-She signed her contract with the WWE, and, you know,
it's just -- it blows my mind.
First of all, I mean, what an honor that my daughter
wants to follow in my footsteps, but more importantly --
"follow in my footsteps" sounds cliche,
but she actually wants to create and blaze her own path,
which is just so important.
And she wound up being the youngest signee
in the history of the company.
By the way, so she's 18 now.
At 16, she was working her ass off quietly under the radar
in the ring getting thrown around
and, you know, all the bumps and bruises
that go with pro wrestling.
And she hung in there, and I'm very, very proud of her.
-You raised her very well, my friend.
Being at NBC, I got to say we are so excited
because we heard buzz early on.
They're like, "Dude, wait till you see
this season of 'Titan Games.'
It's nuts. We took it to the next level."
And man, oh, man, you pushed it up.
Thank you for pushing it up.
'Cause this wasn't supposed to come out
for another almost year.
-And this was supposed to come out in January 2021.
-Yeah. -And so there's
a lot of buzz behind it right now.
A lot of people are excited.
There's been no sports on television.
We are going to be in -- and right now
we are slated to be the only competitive sports programming
on network television the entire summer.
So everybody is fired up.
-That -- -NBC crew, like champs.
And so that's that part.
That's the production and the execution part.
But then for the fans at home,
we went out and we got, you know,
as front line workers are being celebrated,
as well they should now, and we were able to
shoot this and get this in the can in January,
having no idea that this pandemic was coming.
And it's just kind of kismet in how, you know,
the universe worked that way where so many of the ones
who we chose after our "Titan Games" combine --
we have a physical and psychological combine
that they go through like the NFL.
And once we chose them, they wound up being
nurses and teachers and veterans and doctors and lawyers.
I mean, these just -- these front line workers,
and they are the best athletes on the planet.
We have UFC champions, Olympic gold medalists,
Super Bowl All-Pro, Super Bowl champions.
-Up with these other, like, kind of normal Americans?
-These everyday people, yes.
And when you take that human being
against this professional athlete human being --
-They both -- -They both do this,
and they do that, and it's just crazy.
I can't wait for you to see it and for everybody to see it.
-That's May 25th.
It's 8pm on NBC. It's a two-hour premiere.
Dwayne, before you leave, every guest that comes on our show,
we ask if there is a charity or something they'd like
to spotlight or highlight.
For you it was a little difficult for us
because you've done so much charitable work
that we were like, which one do you want to do?
And we started talking about Make-A-Wish.
And you've been working with Make-A-Wish for a long time.
-I have. I've had the honor of working with Make-A-Wish.
Make-A-Wish is a charity and a foundation
and a community of human beings
that I hold dear to my heart,
like deep in my soul and my bones.
And Make-A-Wish, this is their 40th year anniversary
of granting wishes.
I've had the -- and I did the math this morning.
And I'm horrible at math, so I'm glad I got this right.
I've been granting wishes, I first started granting wishes
in 1997 as a rookie in the WWE.
So for 23 years I've been granting wishes, and, brother,
it is -- what Make-A-Wish does
for these children and these kids
is it provides them with the thing that they need,
and they need hope.
And also it sounds a little cliche when you say,
you know, "now more than ever," but it's true.
Now more than ever.
And what they are doing, Make-A-Wish is continuing
to grant wishes virtually.
And I'll tell you something really cool,
and I always love sharing this because my dad passed away
in January, this past January, on January 15th.
And by the way, you sent me the most beautiful note,
handwritten note. -Yeah.
-Because you've been there and I thank you.
I don't want to get emotional right now, but I --
-I got you. I got you. Thank you, brother.
-Thank you so much for that, Jimmy.
I love you for that note you gave me.
And so my dad, in 1983,
granted one of the first Make-A-Wishes ever
in the state of New Jersey, and he was a wrestler.
At that time, wrestling -- he was a popular wrestler
at that time in the WWE.
But you also had Andre the Giant,
Hulk Hogan and all these guys.
And this -- we met this little boy.
His name was Bobby. He had no use of his arms and legs,
he was in a wheelchair, we had to pick him up.
And here my dad is, holding this little boy.
And that was my first experience and exposure to Make-A-Wish.
What Make-A-Wish did in that moment for me
as an 11-year-old,
I will never, ever forget it, which then inspired me
to work as closely as I do with Make-A-Wish.
And last thing I want to tell you,
Make-A-Wish and providing wishes for children,
that is the best part of fame.
♪♪
We have the Make-A-Wish kids here.
It's a very exciting day.
Well, hey!
I want you guys to have the best time.
We're so happy that you guys are here.
I got some surprises for you guys.
So I know you guys don't have an Xbox,
but you do now.
This thing, it's like, I don't know, free games for a year.
-Thank you so much.
-The kids say that I inspire them, which is awesome.
But the irony about it is they have no idea,
no clue how much they inspire me.
This kind of stuff is easily the best part of my fame.
I'm lucky.
-That's the best part of fame. -Best part of fame.
-Yeah. -For sure.
Make-A-Wish. Yes.
-'Cause you always said, and I've known you
for a couple years now.
Gosh, we've known each other a while.
But you said it's nice to be important,
someone told you, but it's important to be nice.
-More important to be nice, that's right.
-I love that, dude. -Right?
'Cause you feel the same way. You're the same way.
It's like being nice is the easiest part of our job.
It's the easiest thing. -Yeah, we're lucky, man.
Well, I'm so lucky to have you here.
Congrats on everything.
And on top of that, by the way,
the tequila is awesome.
We'll talk about it -- -Thank you, man.
-Some other time.
-I'm sending you more tequila, Teremana, to your house.
It's coming. Thank you for having me on your show.
-Bye, buddy. I love you. I hope to see you in person.
Best to the fam. -Same here.
Love you, brother. See you. -Bye, pal.