When news broke that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s daughter was going to be making her NXT debut under the Ava Raine moniker, linking up with Joe Gacy, Rip Fowler, and Jagger Reid as part of Schism, it made more than a few fans turn their heads.

Sure, it made sense to put Raine in a faction of some sort, as her father did get a major bump to his career by joining The Nation of Domination alongside Faarooq and D'Lo Brown, but going all-in on a spooky, dare-I-say knockoff Wyatt Family faction was not the way most fans expected young Raine's career to go, as being the fourth in a faction of spooky loners was a bit too reminiscent of a pre-Brodie Lee Dark Order for some fans' preferences.

Well, as it turns out, the idea for Raine to join up with Gacy was actually her idea, as she's been trying to do something with the three-time CZW World Heavyweight Champion for some time, as he noted on the latest edition of Out of Character with Ryan Sattin.

“Funny story about Ava Raine. Before I even debuted on TV, me and her got together and came up kind of with this idea of like a cult type group. Originally, it was me, her, and this other guy. We were basically pitching for us to be, the original idea was almost like a House of 1000 Corpses type family group with like a culty edge, but then things didn't I guess, work out exactly, and then 2.0 started, so I think that maybe changed some of the ideas. When 2.0 happened, I feel like some of that idea maybe kind of went out the window because it was like an overhaul repackaging of the brand itself,” Joe Gacy said via Comicbook.com.

“So she kind of like, I guess the idea of her and me joining together was kind of put on the back burner. Then, when it was just me, Rip, and Jagger, she actually came up to me at the PC one day and said, ‘So, did you hear what's going to happen?' And I said, ‘No.' She was like, ‘So I'm gonna join you guys,' and I said, ‘That's awesome' because originally it was going to be me and her trying to do something anyway. So I'm glad it finally panned out on TV.”

Would it make more sense for Ava to wrestle as Simone Johnson, the Pebble, or even just Ava Raine, but without all of the spookiness? In the eyes of many, if not most professional wrestling fans, the answer is probably yes, but considering just how green the fourth-generation pro remains both in the ring and on the mic, it's probably better to keep her interactions as part of a faction instead of throwing her out solo as a loud-talking, jabroni shaming “People's Champion.”

Joe Gacy comments on his comparisons to Bray Wyatt.

Speaking of Joe Gacy's comparison to Bray Wyatt, the leader of Schism discussed that too on Out of Character, noting that, while he gets it, he believes the two performers are very different.

“I think a lot of the WWE fans, they only know what they see on TV. So when they see something, to try to understand it, they have to link it to something they already know. When I debuted, I had long hair, I had a beard, I have tattoos, and I was a slightly darker character, and let's be honest, I'm heavyset. So they just, ‘Oh, this is like Bray Wyatt. This guy's like Bray Wyatt.' Then I debut a new character, which is, you know, pretty much currently what I'm doing and then there's like a darkness to the character so automatically everyone just associates it with ‘Oh, he's a dark character. He has a beard, he's heavyset, and he has tattoos. He's just like Bray Wyatt.' My opinion, me and Bray Wyatt are very, very different. I don't think we're similar,” Joe Gacy said.

“Like, maybe the fact that we're two gimmicks that are darker, I think that's kind of where I see it. I mean, I understand years ago, Bray did a cult leader type thing. I guess you could say maybe, that aspect of Bray is similar with what I'm doing, but I believe what I'm doing now is very different than what Bray has done.”

Did Gacy sort of do it to himself with the Schism-Wyatt Family comparison? Yes, he probably did, but when you really look into how the two factions operate, they really do have their own schtick, even if Wyatt probably did it better based on what they've committed to the WWE Universe thus far. All things considered, it's interesting to see what Gacy has planned moving forward, as Schism presumably hasn't reached its final form just yet.