Ava Felt She Couldn’t Grow Any Further in WWE

As a potential fourth-generation superstar, Ava, a.k.a. Simone Johnson, was in a pretty good spot with WWE. Like so many others in the extended Anoa’i family, she could have eventually be a shoo-in to join the Bloodline. Yet she recently chose to leave the company, and speaking to Cody Rhodes on his podcast, she said it was about personal growth.

“It was something that I had been thinking about for, I think about a year prior, and I knew that my contract was up in February, and a couple things had been happening,” she said. “There’s a lot of different reasons why I chose to leave, and it was incredibly hard, but I felt like it was time. I really, really wanted to grow, and I didn’t feel like I was in a position at WWE to where I could grow.”

She clarified that “I’m incredibly grateful for my time there. I would not change it for the world, but I think I knew. I was like, Okay, I need to do something else. I need to learn and grow and see what’s on the other side.”

Rhodes responded with an anecdote he’s told before, about how Ava’s father The Rock once gave him the advice to say he wanted to grow, and he ruined a meeting by over-repeating it.

Check out the whole thing below: