Childhood & Early Life
Nia Jax was born on 29 May 1984, in Sydney, Australia, to Renate and Joseph Fanene. She is of mixed ethnicity, Samoan and German. She spent her formative years in Honolulu, Hawaii, and later moved to San Diego in California. She attended the Palomar College in San Marcos.
In college, Jax tried her hands at karate, kickboxing, judo and basketball. She earned a scholarship to University of Central Florida because of basketball. She also took some modeling and bodybuilding assignments early in her life.
Jax is a cousin of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the American actor and professional wrestler. They both are descendants of the Anoa’i family, from which many WWE wrestlers have emerged. She decided to pursue wrestling after watching Jonson perform at WrestleMania XXVII.
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Career
Nia Jax started her career as a professional wrestler when she was signed to WWE in 2014. She was first assigned in WWE’s developmental territory, NXT. She debuted on 7 May 2015 under the ring name, Zada, which means prosperous.
In her introduction to the storyline, she teamed up with Devin Taylor and went on to fight Bayley and Carmella in a tag team competition. She decided to change her ring name to Nia Jax in August 2015.
Her singles debut match took place in September 2015, in which she fought against Evie; the subsequent match was aired in October, and Jax won this match. She continued her winning streak by defeating Carmella and established herself as a villainess.
Jax embarked on a partnership with Eva Marie and they called themselves ‘The Power Alliance’. They started their match against Bayley to contest for the NXT Women’s Championship. However, the storyline included a month of inactivity for Jax. She came back to the ring and won against Liv Morgan in January 2016.
Jax went on to win a triple threat match against Alexa Bliss and Carmella to find herself as the main contender for Asuka’s NXT Women’s Championship in May 2016. She won her title in the ‘NXT TakeOver: The End’ game on June 8, 2016.
She was unsuccessful in retaining her title as she was defeated by Bayley in the episode aired on July 20, 2016. It was her last match under NXT.
She made her main roster debut for WWE in July 2016. In that match, she defeated Britt Baker and began another winning streak by defeating other opponents in the subsequent episodes.
A backstage encounter with Alicia Fox resulted in a match between the two on September 12, 2016. However, the match was declared a ‘no contest’ as Jax speared her opponent through the ringside barricade. Later, on September 25, 2016, she defeated Fox at the Clash of Champions pre-show.
Nia Jax defeated Bayley in a singles match on October 21, 2016, after being declared a member of the Raw Women's team at the Survivor Series pay-per-view event. However, in November, she was defeated by Becky Lynch.
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In December 2016, Jax went on to defeat Sasha Banks. Sasha avenged the defeat on March 5, 2017 at Fastlane and emerged victorious.
Jax made her WrestleMania debut on April 2, 2017 and competed at WrestleMania 33 in a four-way elimination match against Banks, Bayley, and Charlotte. They were competing for the Raw Women's Championship, which was eventually won by Bayley.
Jax competed for the Raw Women’s Championship on June 26, 2017 defeating Bayley, Mickie James, Dana Brooke and Emma. However, her winning streak was eventually halted by Banks.
At the ‘No Mercy’ pay-per-view event on September 24, 2017, Jax participated in a five-way match for the Raw Women’s Championship. Bliss won the title. Later in the Survivor series, Jax participated in the elimination tag-team match, representing Team Raw. They fought against Team Smackdown and won.
A new storyline emerged on December 4, 2017. Jax was shown to be in a relationship with the Cruiserweight Champion, Enzo Amore, but it was soon dropped when Amore was released from WWE.
Nia Jax took part in her first ever Royal Rumble match in January 2018 in which she defeated Kelly Kelly, Ruby Riott, and Naomi before getting eliminated herself.
Jax began a feud with Asuka who was hitherto undefeated. She went on to fight Asuka at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view event but failed. She was again defeated by Asuka on Raw in February.
She shared an amicable relationship with Alexa Bliss who became her enemy when Bliss insulted Jax’s body and mocked her personality in the storyline on March 12. It led to a title match between the two.
The title match between Bliss and Jax was held at WrestleMania 34. In what would be her first title, Jax went on to emerge victorious over the defending champion and clinched her first title win. It was the beginning of her reign as the WWE Raw Women’s Champion.
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In the April 23 episode of Raw, she again emerged victorious when she was called to defend her title in a rematch against Bliss at Backlash. It has been announced that she would take on Rowdy Ronda Rousey next for the Raw Women's Championship at WWE's ‘Money in the Bank’ pay-per-view event.
Apart from WWE wrestling, Jax has appeared in two videos games as playable characters. She made her debut as a DLC character in WWE 2K17 and later appeared in WWE 2K18.
