Prior to Sunday’s NCAA Tournament game between No. 10 seed Miami (Florida) and No. 2 Auburn from the Midwest Regional in Greenville, South Carolina, CBS Sports had some fun with each school’s most famous alumni.
How would Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Charles Barkley match up? CBS presented the Tournament Central studio crew and TV viewers with a tale of the tape.
With measurements for each combatant making this appear an even contest, Barkley boasted of how well he matched up against Johnson.
“I tried to tell you guys, I’m the Rock’s stunt double in the movies,” Barkley said. “We got bodies just alike.”
If that was true and Barkley performed as a stunt double for Johnson, there would be some corporate synergy in the two working together on a project. According to IMDB, Johnson’s next live-action theatrical film is scheduled to be Black Adam, based on the DC Comics superhero. DC Comics and Warner Brothers, the studio producing the movie, are both WarnerMedia (soon to be Warner Bros. Discovery) properties, as is Turner Sports, Barkley’s TV employer.
Unfortunately for Barkley, Auburn was decisively defeated by Miami, 79-61, advancing to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 and a match-up versus Iowa State. He will not be going shirtless to celebrate his alma mater’s victory.
Sir Charles might take some consolation in a 2013 photo taken with Johnson (and Inside the NBA colleague Shaquille O’Neal) in which the Hall of Famer appears to tower over the global movie star. That photo was taken following a bench press competition promoting Johnson’s film Pain & Gain in which Barkley defeated O’Neal.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
