WWE made some news when they hired legendary The Rock’s daughter under contract back in 2020. Dwayne Johnson’s child from his first marriage goes by the real name of Simone Johnson but that obviously won’t be her character when she eventually makes her way to the squared circle. She has been training at the WWE Performance Center to get ready for her impending debut.
Before moving to the NXT brand, The Rock’s daughter has received a new WWE in-ring name and she will now be known as Ava Raine. The name change was reflected on her Twitter account.
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She also tweeted out a statement about this name change and how it is associated with her family legacy,
“I probably sound like a broken record & hopefully, this is the last I’ll mention this but I don’t understand why people being portrayed as separate individuals from their family name is such a heated topic. A name doesn’t discredit any prior accomplishments from any family. Could build my entire career around my father & people would still bash me anyway.”
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i could build my entire career around my father & people would still bash me anyway ??♀️ https://t.co/LjkQdoOpws
— A V A (@AvaRaineWWE) May 29, 2022
The Rock’s daughter dealt with injuries after joining WWE
This was probably a step by The Rock’s daughter to defend the name change as people gave mixed reactions to the new name revealed by her. Whatever she is now being called, the hope is that WWE would utilize her in a proper way so that she could live up to the names of her father and her cousins.
After signing with the WWE in 2020, it was supposed that Simone would make her debut in due course and even The Rock was so much excited about her wrestling career. However, the decision of following in her father’s footsteps was hindered by a couple of injuries.
Swerve City podcast spoke to Simone Johnson at that time where The Rock’s daughter revealed that she blew out her knee prior to joining WWE. She originally planned of joining the New York University, but then she re-aggravated the injury while training on NXT.
Going by her name change, it seems that the 20-year-old superstar is finally healthy and she’s ready to make her in-ring return now. There’s no update on when she will debut in NXT and how she will fare, as fans will have to wait to see it happen.
