The Rock Opens Up About What ‘Saved’ His Relationship With His Daughter

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

‘The Rock’ Dwayne Johnson has opened up about his relationship with his daughter Simone Johnson, who currently performs as Ava in WWE NXT.

During an interview on The Pivot Podcast, Rock spoke about how wrestling full-time, then acting full-time, meant he and Simone had a relationship where he was “always gone”, but now that she’s a wrestler too, they’ve managed to become closer and bond over that.

He said:

“I have the privilege and honor of watching my daughter Simone (Johnson) and I had her when I was young in my 20s and you know, as dudes, we’re still trying to find ourselves in our 20s, in our 30s.

“If we’re lucky, we reach our fourth level and we find ourselves a little bit (he laughed). We get a little bit more wiser.

“So when I had Simone, I was flying by the seat of my pants. I was wrestling full-time, I started transitioning into movies full-time. I had so much s**t going on so I like to say me and Simone grew up together.

“So we had a relationship where I was always gone but we tried to keep it together.

“Now, years later, as she becomes a pro wrestler, it’s actually brought us closer together. So in a way, it’s helped save that relationship too, so, in many ways, pro wrestling has been my family’s savior.”

Simone performs under the name Ava, formerly Ava Raine, in NXT, as a member of the Schism faction with Joe Gacy, Rip Fowler and Jagger Reid.

Despite debuting on TV in October 2022, Ava has only had one match on broadcast to date, which was an eight-person tag match at NXT Stand & Deliver just over a month ago.

Here’s a rundown of what happened on the May 9 episode of NXT:

Tiffany Stratton def. Gigi Dolin in the NXT Women’s Championship tournament

Mark Coffey & Wolfgang def. The Dyad to retain the NXT Tag Team Championship after distractions on the outside including a brawl between Ava and Ivy Nile

Duke Hudson def. Javier Bernal

Eddy Thorpe def. Damon Kemp

Ilja Dragunov def. Dijak via DQ when Dijak attacked Dragunov with a steel chair and continued the attack post-match

Charlie Dempsey w/Drew Gulak def. Tyler Bate w/Wes Lee after Joe Gacy came out and punched Bate

Josh Briggs & Brooks Jensen def. Hank Walker & Tank Ledger

Lyra Valkyria def. Kiana James in the NXT Women’s Championship tournament

Bron Breakker def. Trick Williams, then continued to attack Williams post-match before Carmelo Hayes tried to make the save, but Breakker laid him out as well

Quote via PWTorch

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• ava
• simone johnson
• The Rock
• nxt
• wwe

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