One of the most famous sections of Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show has to be his lip sync battles. We’ve seen Emma Stone rock
the rap to ‘Hook’ by Blues Traveller
, Paul Rudd doing
‘You better be good to me’ by Tina Turner
and even Joseph Gordon-Levitt syncing to ‘
Tiny Dancer’ by Elton John
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Screen grab from the video of Rock lip syncing to Stayin’ Alive[/caption] The Lip Synce Battle sketch, hosted by rapper LL cool J, has now turned into a full blown show at Spike TV, and its premiere featured a lip battle with Dwayne Johnson, or as he’s popularly known, The Rock. Starting with a lip sync of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, The Rock put on his sassy shoes, and nearly got every word right. While announcing his song choice, Rock called Swift “tay tay” endearingly, to which Fallon made fun of his abbreviation, saying, “Nobody’s ever heard of tay-tay. How are you going to win with a song that nobody has heard of?” Rock’s response to Fallon perhaps best channels his trash-talking abilities from his wrestling days. “Your ass is going to be ready for tay-tay,” he said. “We’ve been hearing him (Fallon) all week, about how he’s going to beat me, but like tay tay would do, we should just “shake it off”” he said. And that’s when he starting to sing. His shiny head and smooth moves could easily pass off as a shower routine, giving us indications that he may have done this many times in his own privacy.
This is Rock’s first round, following which Fallon and him have a second battle, in which Fallon lip syncs to Madonna’s Like a Prayer and Rock, suited in white, syncs to the Bee Gees retro favourite Stayin’ Alive.