By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

In a new sit-down interview conducted Friday, recent WWE champion "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson said he is content if his final wrestling match was at WrestleMania on April 7.

"I grew up in wrestling, as you know, so for me that was a dream scenario going into the biggest WrestleMania of all-time and going in as WWE champion. And then losing the belt to John Cena, there was the passing of the torch, so to speak, and doing the right thing for business," Johnson told CBS Cleveland reporter Chris Van Vliet in an interview promoting "Fast & Furious 6."

"It was a dream scenario and if in-fact that was my last match, I'm happy with it because I wound up with three hernia tears and I also tore my abductor tendon as well as my rectus tendon clean off my pelvis. So to be able to finish the match and not let anyone know, walk out on my phone, and going out on my shield. I loved it."

Speaking of "shield," Johnson endorsed his cousin, Roman Reigns, and the entire Shield act as future stars in WWE. Johnson also endorsed Fandango.

"I think Reigns looks great and is very talented in the ring. The Shield, all three of those guys, are doing a great job," Johnson said. "I'll say this and he knows this - Fandango is one of my favorites. What makes him such an interesting character - and wrestling fans understand this - to play a character like that, you've got to embrace it. That's not an easy character to embrace, which tells me that he's got a lot going on in terms of his depth and how far he can go."

Not all was positive during Johnson's most-recent run from the Royal Rumble to WrestleMania. Johnson acknowledged locker-room critics, calling them "miserable," and compared his critics to "humble and hungry" younger stars.

"The four-month run I had in WWE was really eye-opening," Johnson said. "I was able to see a lot of young talent who are very hungry and very humble. And, what's interesting is there were some talent there who - just the nature of the business - have become very sour grapes and (laughs) miserable. But, the younger guys were very excited. And there was that hunger there that reminded me of myself 10-15 years ago when I first started."

Also in the interview, Rock talks about his favorite career promos, discusses his various movie careers, and offers his secret to success on how to breathe life into franchise movies, prompting a brief discussion of "The Franchise" Shane Douglas's wrestling career.



[ VIDEO: Rock's sit down interview with Chris Van Vliet is HERE - http://youtu.be/SNzlo5AHTvE ]

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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