10 Ridiculous Early Ring Names For Famous Wrestlers

6. The Rock Was Flex Kavana

Even though The Rock has been going by his birth name Dwayne Johnson in his movie career for years, he will always be The Rock to us. It's hard to imagine him as anything else besides that. But like many of the all-time greats, he had to workshop a few different names before he found the right one.

Rock’s father is WWE Hall-of-Famer Rocky Johnson, but he wanted to carve his own path and was resistant to use the name his dad made famous. When he first started in Jerry Lawler’s USWA promotion he went by the oddball “Flex Kavana.”

One must wonder what Rock was thinking with that one. “Flex” likely came from flexing muscles one would assume, but Kavana? That’s a bit more difficult to figure out. Flex didn’t last long, as he turned into Rocky Maivia, which was a mix of his father and Grandfather’s name (High Chief Maivia).

So despite wanting to get away from his father’s lineage, he’s firmly been stuck with it for 20 years, and we can’t imagine it any other way.