The Rock’s Daughter Slams Haters Who Don’t Like Her Professional Wrestling Name

Elyse Wanshel
Updated ·2 min read
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Simone Johnson is a chip off the old block — to a certain extent.

The daughter of  the wrestling legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — who signed a deal with WWE in 2020, but has had her debut delayed due to a knee injury — announced Sunday that she would be known in the ring as Ava Raine when she changed her name on Twitter.

Yet, when she announced her new WWE alter ego, wrestling fans on Twitter were disappointed that the daughter of “The Rock” wasn’t going by “The Pebble.”

And just like a true professional wrestler, Simone Johnson, quickly fought back by retweeting someone making the pretty obvious joke. 

Simone Johnson then doubled down on how tired the joke was by posting a Google search of different types of rocks. She captioned the image with “nothing in this category please xx.”

But, when Twitter users kept on pushing back, Simone Johnson climbed up on the ropes and body-slammed the criticism.

“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,” she tweeted. “A name doesn’t discredit any prior accomplishments from any family.”

In a follow-up tweet, she added that she “could build my entire career around my father & people would still bash me anyway.”

The 20-year-old is a fourth-generation wrestler. Her father was a 10-time WWE world champion before turning his focus to acting. Her grandfather Rocky Johnson and great-grandfather Peter “High Chief” Maivia are WWE Hall of Famers.

Simone Johnson attends the 75th Annual Golden Globe Nominations Announcement in 2017 as Miss Golden Globes. (Photo: Michael Tran via Getty Images)
Simone Johnson attends the 75th Annual Golden Globe Nominations Announcement in 2017 as Miss Golden Globes. (Photo: Michael Tran via Getty Images)

Simone Johnson attends the 75th Annual Golden Globe Nominations Announcement in 2017 as Miss Golden Globes. (Photo: Michael Tran via Getty Images)

Considering this — and that Simone Johnson decided to debut the name Ava Raine with a GIF of Fairuza Balk’s Nancy Downs from 1996’s “The Craft,” and used a photo of Nancy for the banner on her account — we’d advise haters to back off as quickly as possible. 

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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