Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is very happy for his daughter, Simone who is under contract with WWE. Johnson was on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week and talked about the 18-year-old’s career path into professional wrestling. Johnson, who is retired from WWE, is in disbelief about the progress she made in the last couple of years.
“You know, it blows my mind,” Johnson said, as reported by CNN. “First of all, what an honor that my daughter wants to follow in my footsteps but more importantly — follow in my footsteps sounds cliche — but she actually wants to create and blaze her own path, which is just so important.” Simone signed her contract with WWE back in February — according to Johnson, she’s the youngest person ever to sign with the company — but she has been training since the age of 16. Johnson said that he’s “very proud of her” for her working hard despite the challenges she has faced.
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Simone comes from a huge wrestling family. Along with “The Rock,” Simone’s grandfather is the late Rocky Johnson and her great-grandfather is “High Chief” Peter Maivia; both are WWE Hall of Famers. Simone is also related to fellow WWE stars Nia Jax, The Usos and former WWE Champion Roman Reigns. “It means the world to me,” she said in a statement back in February. “To know that my family has such a personal connection to wrestling is really special to me and I feel grateful to have the opportunity, not only to wrestle but to carry on that legacy.”
The question now is when she will make her WWE debut? It might be a while considering she just signed with the company. Simone is training at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, and will continue to do so until she develops a character for TV. From there, Simone will likely be seen on NXT if everything goes well and then make her way to either Raw or SmackDown in the next few years.
Simone is not trying to be like her father, but she probably wouldn’t mind having the same type of success he did while in WWE. Johnson is looked at as one of the most influential stars in WWE history. He’s a 10-time world champion and he’s was a big part in WWE taking down WCW in the Monday Night War in the late 1990s.
