Rok-C explains how The Rock and AJ Lee inspired her to become a professional wrestler.
Rok-C, the current Ring of Honor World Champion, is only 19 years old and the youngest person to win gold in that promotion. Having trained under Booker T, she has quickly broken through barriers to become one of the top names in women's wrestling outside of WWE and AEW.
Getting into the industry at such a young age, Rok-C had a clear love for the game very early on in her life. Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Rok-C explains how The Rock got her interested in professional wrestling. Born in 2001, Rok-C was not even 3 years old when The Rock had his final match at WrestleMania 20 in 2004. Therefore, her main exposure to him came from his acting.
That all changed when her dad was flipping through TV channels and she saw the rock inside of a wrestling ring during one of his returns to WWE. After that, she was hooked.
"One of my favorite wrestlers was The Rock," Rok-C began. "I was a fan of him since his movies and I didn’t know what professional wrestling was. Then I got into professional wrestling and I was like, ‘What?’"
She continued, "Yeah. I found out because of The Rock. My dad was flipping through the channels once and saw The Rock was doing a promo or something. I was like, ‘Wait, what? That’s The Rock. What is he doing?’ Then I just sat through the rest of the show and I was hooked."
Falling in love with the industry because of one of its undisputed greatest superstars is all well and good, but Rok-C did not truly see herself being capable of competing inside the ring until she came across AJ Lee, a Latinx, short, spunky competitor that provided a good representation of who Rok-C saw within herself in a larger-than-life presentation on the television screen.
"AJ Lee is the reason why I wanted to become a professional wrestler. The first diva that I saw was Kelly Kelly and I was like, ‘Oh, she’s amazing.’ But I couldn’t relate to her because I didn’t look like her. I think with AJ, she’s a tomboy and she’s super tiny and she’s Latina, and I think I related so much to that. I was just like, ‘Oh, I can definitely do this.'"
As AJ Lee has recently returned to the industry, she has begun showing love to those that she has inspired through the Years, including Rok-C, whom she shouted out on social media.
Recently, Rok-C has named AJ among her dream opponents. Learn more here.