Dwayne Johnson had surgery to re-attach his ruptured Achilles tendon on 6/23. In hindsight, he thinks he had been running his body down as he was doing six hours of ballet practice daily with the Boston Ballet plus doing football practice leading up to the movie The Game Plan, being shot. In the movie, Johnson’s character plays a Super Bowl-bound quarterback so he had to practice heavily at football to be believable in that role, plus the script has him doing a four-act professional ballet recital. In the script, his seven-year-old daughter in the movie is into ballet and he does it with her to show he’s committed to her.

As things stand, he will be rehabbing all summer long, and then in September, will go on tour to promote The Gridiron Gang. Dr. John Uribe, the former Florida Marlins and Miami Dolphins team physician, who handled the surgery, told him he’ll be off crutches by the end of July. Uribe, the long-time team doctor for the Miami Hurricanes football team has handled all of Johnson surgeries. Johnson was back training his upper body the day after the surgery. He is approaching rehab, telling the rehab people to treat him as if he was both an NFL quarterback and a top dancer getting ready to perform. He’s targeting late September or early October for being back to shoot all the acting scenes in the movie. The actual football and ballet scenes, where he’d have to be close to 100% fitness to be believable for the roles, he’s targeting for December or January, which will be quicker than most athletes, or even pro wrestlers in a more controlled athletic environment, have been able to get back on the field after that kind of surgery. He just moved into a new South Florida home and moved in this week and has assembled a team of a physical therapist, a chef, and a trainer to get him back in shape.

credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter/KD_MAD