Dwayne Johnson and Issa Rae developing backyard wrestling series for HBO

By Sam Barsanti | April 21, 2020 | 1:30am

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Dwayne Johnson and Issa Rae developing backyard wrestling series for HBO

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According to Variety, Dwayne Johnson is teaming up with Issa Rae and Dany Garcia to develop a show about the formation of a backyard wrestling group for HBO. The project is coming from writer Mohamad El Masri (Here And Now, October Faction), and it’s about an aspiring pro-wrestler who uses an inheritance to launch a “hip-hop centric backyard wrestling empire in Houston’s Third Ward” along with his friends and working-class family. (Houston’s Third Ward is called “The Tre,” by the way, which will come up when we get to this show’s questionable name.) Issa Rae, of course, is the star and co-creator of Insecure, while Johnson and Garcia were both executive producers on Johnson’s Ballers, so this is like a very small Avengers of people who have made successful HBO shows.

As for the name, Variety says its current working title is TRE CNT, for “Tre Count,” which is a play on “three count,” which is a thing from wrestling. TRE CNT does not stand for any other things that your mind may have jumped to, so if your mind jumped to those things it’s because of you and not because of the perfectly innocent TV show name TRE CNT. Frankly, we have no idea what other word someone might think of when they see “CNT,” but we just want to make sure that everyone knows it does not stand for that word, whatever it may be. (If we had to put money on it, we’d say that the name will be changed if this goes to series.)