You Need to Hear the True Story Behind Dwayne Johnson's New WWE Movie
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The upcoming wrestling/family drama Fighting With My Family is inspired by a family who stays together . . . by wrestling together. Although the whole family takes turns in the ring, it's the young daughter who catches the eye of talent scouts and just might have the chance to make it big — complicating her relationship with her brother, whose odds aren't looking nearly as good.
Fans of WWE wrestling are used to crazy storylines and larger than life characters; who knew that the real-life story behind one of the franchise's stars was stranger than fiction, too? Produced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (who plays himself in the film), Fighting With My Family follows the movie-ready story of how the girl was plucked from obscurity and turned into the wrestling star "Paige," though not without some serious bumps along the way. Before you see the movie when it comes out on Feb. 14, read on for some of the real facts behind the wrestling family.
Meet the Family
Fighting With My Family is, quite literally, about a fighting family: the Bevis family, an English family with a history in the wrestling community. Patrick Bevis (known professionally as "Ricky Knight") and Julia Hamer-Bevis (aka Sweet Saraya, aka Saraya Knight) both were professional wrestlers, who had two kids: a daughter, Saraya-Jade (aka Paige), and a son, Zak (aka Zak Zodiac). For clarity's sake, we're going to refer to them by their current stage names for the remainder of this article.
In an interview with WWE as an adult, Paige joked about being "born into" the wrestling business: "I was born into the business, literally. My mum was seven months pregnant with me before she realized it so she kept wrestling like normal up to that point. I guess it's safe to say I was wrestling as a fetus! I was always scared of wrestling before I started because I watched my family do it and saw the price they had to pay with injuries and all, but following in their footsteps always intrigued me."
Ricky, a former gangster who had served prison time, introduced his kids to wrestling at a young age: both Zak and Paige joined the family business as tweens — with mixed results.
Zak Zodiac and Paige
Both Zak and Paige wrestled in smaller venues for a time with some success. Paige originally took on the stage name Britani Knight (a spinoff of her father's stage name), while Zak tried out the alliterative moniker Zak Zodiac. From 2006 to 2011, the teenage Paige wrestled around Europe.
Fighting With My Family focuses on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that came their way: the chance to audition for the WWE. According to The Telegraph UK, both Zak and Saraya tried out, but only one made it. Zak recounted to The Telegraph how he wasn't quite what they were looking for.
"I don't have abs and my shoulders aren't touching my ears," he explained, only half joking.
Paige, on the other hand, was signed, making her official debut as "Paige" in early 2012.
The Family Now
According to Deadline, the film shows Paige learning to navigate this new world alone. Real-life pro-wrestler-turned-movie-star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been a driving force behind the movie after a 2012 TV documentary in the UK first brought the story of the Bevis family to his attention.
Paige herself is already a fan of the new movie, tweeting out the poster with a caption calling it "so bad ass." She retired from the ring in early 2018 but was immediately named the new general manager of the WWE SmackDown Live brand. Her brother Zak, meanwhile, did not end up in the WWE but wrestled for years in the World Association of Wrestling.