Rock, paper tigers, stitches

Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? It’s a big, steaming dish of humble pie and Vin Diesel is about to get served.

That’s what you get for turning up later than Paul Walker to shoot your scenes. Diesel and Dwayne Johnson apparently had a star trailer pow-wow to iron out their differences, but neither man seemed prepared to budge. In any case, Diesel high-tailed it out of there as soon as shooting wrapped, much to the chagrin of the film crew who were probably hoping that someone would put the brakes on his diva tendancies. Someone, like The Rock.

Let’s face it: if this Fast And Furious feud ever got physical, your money would have to be on The Rock. Yes, Vin Diesel has big muscles and a manly (read: pornstar) sounding name, but he would more than likely find The Rock an immovable object. Johnson’s detractors will insist that the only fighting he has ever done was, as in his movies, staged, and it’s true that the WWE’s fake wrestling extravaganza can hardly be considered a true measure of a man’s fighting mettle. But then again, you have to know how to wrestle to even be considered for the WWE. And Johnson played pro American football, a sport so routinely violent that in the film Concussion (based on a true story), one coach demanded that a player choke his opponent “until shit runs down his leg”.

And then, there’s the Johnson fighting pedigree. His uncle, who went by the stage name Tonga Fifta, was a pro wrestler who made little impact inside the squared circle. Outside of the ring, however, the man whose stare could probably blister fresh paint on a wall is a fighting legend. Fifta is said to have single-handedly battled half-a-dozen cops simultaneously, snapping their handcuffs like twigs, and inhaling their pepper-spray lest it interfere with the ass-whooping he next saw fit to impart. One former WWF star claimed he saw Fifta rip out a man’s lower teeth during a brawl. Other WWF luminaries can attest to the Pacific Island powerhouse being used as an incentive to get other wrestlers to play ball with the organisation.

That’s bad news for Vin and his stated plan to reveal all about the much-publicised beef. Maybe he is that desperate to hook up with Walker again. It’s also bad news for Tyrese Gibson, whose slick talking, lilly-livered reaction to this squabble proves that he wasn’t acting after all in perhaps his best film, Baby Boy.

In it, Gibson plays a spoilt brat who leeches off his mother and his long-suffering baby mama (both fine women who deserved so much better). And then Ving Rhames shows up. The roughneck Rhames. The kind of guy who will put you in a choke hold after banging your mom loudly in the next room. Who will cook post-coital breakfast in the buff and not give a damn who sees. How you like that bacon and ass? And it freaks Tyrese out. It doesn’t stop his jibbering, but he stays shook like a bobble-head on a dashboard on a dirt road.

Tyrese is no fighter: he’s a lover. And he’s about to be on the receiving end if he keeps saying things like: “Does any of us know why bro decided to jump out there with his post? No...... Would one assume that IF he's going to jump out there and generalize and say 'Male Co-Stars' he would be more clear and call out names???” He posted this pearler alongside a video of The Rock (I’m gonna keep calling him this so these guys get the message) serenading 8-year-old Shyla Gibson, his daughter.

Isn’t that a bit like using your child as a human shield? Tyrese!! You don’t want none of this son! You know what rhymes with Tyrese? Decease.