The Rock’s influence helped inspire UFC contract winner Torrez Finney with post-fight persona

New UFC middleweight Torrez Finney is a big fan of The Rock.

Finney earned a contract after becoming the first fighter to earn three wins on Dana White’s Contender Series, picking up a first-round TKO of Abdellah Er-Ramy at DWCS Season 8, Week 8. Throughout his MMA career, the 25-year-old would sign off his post-fight interviews by paying homage to The Rock’s famous WWE tagline, “If you smell what The Rock is cooking,” by changing it too, “If you can smell what Torrez is cooking.”

Growing up playing pro wrestler on the back yard trampoline, it was meant to be.

“Well, I’m a big professional wrestling fan,” Finney told MMA Fighting. “I’m big into WWE, obviously, even AEW. I’ve watched those things. Now I don’t watch them as religiously as I used to growing up. But growing up, man, with all my cousins, we used to get on the trampoline. If anybody knows anything about [that], the trampoline is the WWE ring for a lot of kids. And when they tell you not to do those things at home, we surely did not listen.

“So we did all of that stuff at home and we’re there on the trampoline jumping up and down. We do all WWE moves, and I think that’s a part of, a little bit, what helps me be able to speak in that promo type way. We used to do that. We used to have our toy mic and we’re like, ‘Man, I’m coming on your birthday, and I’m coming to take that belt — when I have that belt with me and all my cousins and we were playing like that.”

Finney was a baby when The Rock, real name Dwayne Johnson, was making his initial run in the sports entertainment juggernaut. But with multiple returns to WWE, Finney got to experience the confidence and star-power Johnson would exude on the microphone.

So when it came to fighting for his first MMA amateur title, Finney knew exactly what to do once he got the opportunity.

“I’m a big fan of The Rock now, my favorite wrestler is The Undertaker,” Finney said. “I’m a big Undertaker fan, but I love The Rock. I love his promo cutting and I would just sit there and watch that and I used to do some of that type of stuff in high school. ... But when I was getting into fighting, I said, ‘Man, I need to think of something [to say],’ and it was my second amateur fight. I won the title and one of my friends was like, what you gonna say after the fight? And I said, ‘I got something. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to do this.’

“[After] my second amateur fight, I said, ‘I’ve been wanting to do this my entire life,’ and I go ‘If you can smell,’ and I said, ‘what the champ is cooking,’ because I was a champion at that time.”

Since then, “The Punisher” has gone on to win all 10 of his pro bouts, including his first two outings on Contender Series. After finishing Yuri Panerov in October 2023, Dana White elected not to award Finney a contract, asking him to get more experience first. Finney returned in August to win a decision against Cam Rowston, where White ripped Finney saying that he would get “absolutely decimated” in the UFC.

Finney has always remained true to himself. As the wins kept piling him, so was the excitement for his post-fight interviews. When he makes his eventual octagon debut, Finney may have the chance to say his signature after the biggest moment of his professional life.

“I just kept it rolling because kids and people was like, ‘Man, I’ve been looking forward to that,’” Finney explained. ”They look forward to that, ‘If you can smell.’ I even have fans, they look forward to that, ‘If you can smell what Torrez is cooking.’

“So it’s really cool man. And yeah, it’s funny like how the stuff you would do as a kid is now being gravitated and translated to what you do as an adult now.”