Ava (Simone Johnson), the former General Manager of NXT and daughter of WWE legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, recently appeared on the podcast “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” hosted by Cody Rhodes.
During the episode, she discussed several topics, including receiving a backstage warning about the possibility of a negative fan reaction to her promo at NXT Vengeance Day.
Ava said, “Dad came back; he shook your hand; he took your spot. That was Friday. That Sunday was an NXT pay-per-view, Vengeance Day. It was the first time there was WWE programming since that Friday. I will never forget this. I was sitting in makeup. I finished my makeup, and our head writer, Johnny Russo, came up to me and was like, ‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ ‘Sure!’ I don’t think I had filmed the promo that I was doing that day. We were about to film it. He was like, ‘Just so you know, when we play your promo, please don’t be surprised if they boo you.’ ‘Okay, I understand that!’”
On how the negative fan reaction changed her outlook toward fans and pro wrestling in general:
“That did happen. All of the hate online happened. That day, it changed the way I looked at fans overall and changed the way that I looked at the wrestling business. For a while, I thought about it in a very negative way. It was quite negative at the time. In a way, I’m incredibly grateful that it happened because it kind of made me double down and made me more confident in what I was doing and why I was doing it. All these external factors are happening, and everyone can have an opinion because of who I am or what my dad has done. It made me a little selfish in my journey and what I was doing, but it was necessary. That Vengeance Day pay-per-view changed so much about how I thought about wrestling, my journey and my place.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
