Simone Johnson is clapping back against the haters—so WWE fans beware.
Simone Johnson, daughter of famous WWE star and actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, has been following in her family's athletic footsteps. Her mother is entrepreneur and professional bodybuilder Dany Garcia.
Simone Johnson, 20, has begun pro-wrestling and was signed to WWE in 2020.
While Johnson has had to postpone her wrestling debut due to a knee injury, she hasn't changed her plans to wrestle and has recently announced her wrestling persona—an alter-ego many pro-wrestlers establish to promote their career.
Johnson thus took to Twitter and posted a tweet from her account with the name "Ava Raine" along with a gif of Fairuza Balk's iconic character portrayal of Nancy Downs from the 1996 witchy cult film The Craft.
Fans, however, responded to Johnson's wrestling name announcement with stark criticism, leading Johnson to quickly clap back at the haters in defense of herself.
Many fans were let down by Johnson's choice of wrestling name because they felt her chosen name should pay homage to her father's title of "The Rock."
After a barrage of call-outs on Twitter, Johnson responded to the controversy by making it clear to her fans she was tired of hearing the jokes about rock-related wrestling names.
She retweeted a post that made the stale joke she should have called herself "The Pebble" and responded:
"I beg of you guys to find a new joke. Anything."
She then followed that up with a post sharing a photo of a Google image search of rocks and captioned the photo:
"Nothing in this category please xx.”
Even with Johnson asking wrestling fans to stop with the jokes, however, fans continued to push the subject, prompting Johnson to, yet again, slam fans back in response.
She tweeted:
“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.”
She then followed up her tweet with:
"I could build my entire career around my father & people would still bash me anyway.”
In truth, Johnson actually comes from a long line of wrestlers, not just her ten-time WWE world champion father.
Johnson's lineage also includes her grandfather, Rocky Johnson, and through her paternal grandmother her great-grandfather, Peter “High Chief” Maivia—part of the Samoan wrestling Anoa'i family dynasty. Both men are WWE Hall of Famers.
Twitter users are showing support for Johnson, aka "Ava Raine," during the criticism.
Best of luck with your wrestling career Ava Raine.
