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Rocco Rock

American professional wrestler (1953–2002)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ605569
Source-derived summary

Theodore James Petty (September 1, 1953 – September 21, 2002) was an American professional wrestler, better known by the ring name "Flyboy" Rocco Rock. Rock is best known for his appearances in Eastern Championship Wrestling / Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) alongside Johnny Grunge as the Public Enemy during the 1990s. He was a four-time ECW World Tag Team Champion, a one-time WCW World Tag Team Champion, and a one-time NWA World Tag Team Champion.

Early life

Petty was born on September 1, 1953. Raised in Middlesex, New Jersey, he attended Middlesex High School, where he competed in baseball, football and wrestling. He graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in nutrition. while attending Rutgers, he took part in collegiate wrestling. He went on to have a brief boxing career.

Professional wrestling career

Early career (1978–1993)

Following his boxing career, Petty trained as a professional wrestler under Afa Anoa'i. He debuted in 1978, working on the independent circuit in the northeastern United States as the masked "Cheetah Kid".

Editorial summary

“Rocco Rock” enters the record as american professional wrestler (1953–2002). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rocco, Rock and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1953, 2002, 1978, 1993—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1953-09-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Rocco, Rock and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Rocco Rock” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rocco, Rock and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q605569. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 2002, 1978 and 1993.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Rocco Rock”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Rocco Rock primary sources, Rocco Rock archive and Rocco research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rocco Rock”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Rocco Rock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.