Nia Jax

Savelina Fanene (born May 29, 1984) is an Australian-born American professional wrestler. She is best known for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Nia Jax from 2014 to 2021 and became a one-time Raw Women's Champion and two-time Women's Tag Team Champion (both times with Shayna Baszler). Savelina Fanene was born in Sydney on May 29, 1984, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is of German and Samoan descent, and is a cousin of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as her father Joseph was a first cousin of Johnson's grandfather Peter Maivia. She later lived in San Diego, California, and attended Carlsbad High School. She attended Palomar College in San Marcos, California, where she played college basketball, and graduated from Cal State San Marcos with a marketing degree in 2005. Prior to professional wrestling, she worked as a plus-size model. Fanene was signed by WWE in early 2014 and was assigned to their developmental territory NXT, based at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. She made her in-ring debut on May 7, 2015, at an NXT house show under the ring name Zada, teaming with Devin Taylor in a defeat to Bayley and Carmella in a tag team match. In August, her ring name was changed to Nia Jax.