Former NRL star Daniel Vidot reveals how WWE superstar The Rock played huge part in his life

There was bullying, alcohol, depression, even homelessness. And then there is The Rock. Former NRL star turned WWE wrestler Daniel Vidot reveals the truth about his incredible life.

Australian WWE wrestler daniel Vidot and The Rock

Daniel Vidot could tell you he grew up wanting to be The Rock yet, most days, he would’ve settled for anyone but himself.

Which is why the kid continually sought concealment.

Or masks, as he calls them.

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Daniel Vidot is making quite a name for himself in the wrestling ring.

With the little half caste boy from Brisbane’s south, a fella silently trapped within his own private swirl of poverty, bullying, depression, homelessness, then worse, forever seeking new characters, new identities to hide his pain.

Initially, drama classes at Sunnybank High became a sanctuary.

Then after that, small theatre shows and musicals.

“Because when you become someone else,” Vidot says, “you get to rewrite everything.

“You become the storyteller.”

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Which is why as a child, he would also mimic The Rock.

That WWE megastar whose life Vidot coveted right down to its cocked eyebrow and Brahma Bull ink.

Over time, the kid even banked up questions for his idol.

An intensely private collection which, to the knowledge of absolutely no one, he then carried about in his head for 20 years.

Ready for that day, he says now, “I just knew we’d meet”.

But be The Rock?

The kid never dreamt that big.

Daniel Vidot - aka Xyon Quinn - has turned his life around.

No, despite owning the type of athleticism that should carry currency in any Australian schoolyard — and would eventually see Vidot play over 100 NRL matches — this son of a single Samoan mum continually found himself a target, an outcast, forever that squarest of pegs.

“I was a misfit,” Vidot says now, kicking back in the Orlando apartment which, home for the past three years, and shared with fiancee Danielle Glanville, also sits just minutes from his newest stage at the WWE Performance Centre.

“Without going too deep, there were problems I was facing.

“Things I went through heavily.

“And those problems were getting in the way of my life.”

In the way?

“My life was on the line,” he says simply. “And there were moments I nearly took that.”

At which point, Vidot pauses long enough to suggest he will go no further.

But his saviour?

“Acting,” he insists. “Acting was my escape.”

Which isn’t a knock on rugby league.

Nor the heavyweight clubs that most Australians now identify him with.

Daniel Vidot in action on NXT

“People would see me on TV but they didn’t know my story,” says the winger who played nine seasons with Canberra, Brisbane, St George Illawarra, Salford and Gold Coast.

“And you can’t blame anyone for that.

“But there were a lot of things I was trying to mask.”

Yet not anymore.

No, after seemingly peaking as that twentysomething hyped for Queensland Origin honours, Vidot is today exploding among the most exciting prospects in WWE.

Seemingly overnight, that old life of skirting NRL touchlines, and acting in high school musicals, now replaced by a famed US wrasslin’ institution which, for almost 70 years, has entertained millions around the world with its travelling roadshow all spandex, muscle and megastars.

Think Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, Undertaker, Steve Austin, John Cena, and of course, The Rock — aka, that greatest name in sports entertainment.

So what chance Vidot, too?

Currently, the 119kg Australian is on a run of nine straight wins in the NXT promotion.

The type of tear which, given its predetermined nature, confirms the 31-year-old Queenslander — or Xyon Quinn, as he is now billed — is making a real impression with not only billionaire owner Vince McMahon, or WWE scriptwriters, but everyone else with sway in how his world plays out.

As far as athletic fairytales go, Vidot’s rise is akin to Jarryd Hayne returning punts for the San Francisco 49ers.

Or Patty Mills’ earliest days with the Portland Trailblazers.

Hollywood star Dwayne Johnson has made a huge impression of Daniel Vidot.

Two stories with different outcomes, sure.

But this is also the beauty of where Vidot, or Xyon Quinn, sits now.

How big can he be?

Nobody knows.

Yet certainly there is no doubting this jacked grappler is on the same walk Dwayne Johnson took himself in 1996.

Specifically, bouncing into Madison Square Garden all blue tassels and blue chip background — as the son of Rocky Johnson and grandson of High Chief Peter Maivia — for a Survivor Series debut that ignited his rise to megastardom.

“Which was 25 years ago today,” Vidot reveals only minutes into an interview which, continually over an hour, returns to that Hollywood icon who, like him, was raised in struggle by a Samoan mum.

A University of Miami lineman who, just as Vidot never played Origin as predicted, also never reached his own NFL projections.

As a child, Johnson moved 13 times, with eviction among his strongest memories.

Vidot, meanwhile, lived with his own family at times in shelters.

Five kids, with mum Mabel.

All of which sees, together, two men of Samoan ancestry driven not only by memories of heartache, helplessness and rejection, but also those warrior bloodlines inked unmistakably onto bodies shaped like circus strongmen.

Daniel Vidot with partner Danielle

“And what he’s done for our people, our culture — amazing,” Vidot continues of Johnson.

“Personally, he’s such an inspiration. He’s really paved the way for me and my WWE journey.”

Went a long way to saving him, too.

But more on that shortly.

First, know that just as Johnson has amassed his $320 million empire on the drive that comes from his past, so Vidot is also fuelled by his own history.

“And I don’t want to get too deep into what happened,” he says. “But I didn’t have the best upbringing.

“It had nothing to do with family — I want to make that clear.

“My family, my parents, they’re the greatest and have never done anything wrong.

“But I had battles … and some people handle things better than others.”

Initially, Vidot tried to “handle things” by disappearing into high school drama classes. Then later, acting courses and that other great mask of choice.

“Drinking became a heavy part of my life,” he admits.

“From a young age, it was something I used to mask all the problems I had.

“And people who know me when I used to drink, I wasn’t a good dude.”

Vidot played 10 Tests for Samoa.

Which is why of all the characters Vidot has played over his life — which in the WWE alone includes The Untamed, Samoan Ghost and now Xyon Quinn — nothing beats his stint as Number Seven.

A role which arrived in 2015, and at the urging of New Zealand Test great Nigel Vagana.

On the eve of a Sydney international between Samoa and Tonga, which Vidot was playing and Vagana, advising, the latter explained how days earlier, curious WWE types had reached out asking if rugby league might have another Pacific Islander to follow on from — yep, you guessed it — The Rock, who by now had become a global icon.

So with the backing of absolutely nobody but Vagana, Vidot headed Stateside for trials.

An unlikely push which, over three days at the Performance Centre, saw him mixing with 50 buffed athletes from all over the globe.

Asked about his recollections, Vidot says: “Initially, each of us was given an armband with a number.

“I was seven.

“Then to start, somebody at the front of the line would do (a move) and, one after another, we‘d all copy.

“Then you went through fitness tests, cut promos and talked with a microphone.”

But the real play?

That arrived when WWE head coach Matt Bloom asked Vidot if he knew the Samoan haka, or Siva Tau.

To which the wrestling wannabe replied he not only knew it, but had led the war cry prior to a Test match.

“So that was my moment,” Vidot recounts now of his screaming, thrusting display for a crowd boasting WWE Hall of Famers Shawn Michaels and Triple H.

Daniel Vidot became a bit of a rugby league journeyman.

“That was when they accepted me.

“Out of the 50, I was the only one signed.”

Still, inking your name to a WWE contract is one thing; actually making it onto Smackdown, Raw or eventually — gasp – WrestleMania is something else entirely.

Which is why this yarn doesn’t belong to Xyon Quinn, or Samoan Ghost.

This is about Vidot.

Number Seven.

That bullied schoolboy who, after completing his NRL commitments in late 2017, has since spent three years lifting, learning, growing, battling homesickness, then injury, taking on meditation, quitting grog and continually sweating through the grind that is morphing your body into something lifted from a comic book.

Privately, Vidot also promised himself to hang in long enough to meet Johnson, and ask those questions carried since a boy.

“And being a big believer in the law of attraction,” he says, “I was always prepared.”

Or so he thought.

“Yeah, Rock shocked me,” Vidot laughs when asked about their eventual meeting.

“He just came into the Performance Centre randomly one day.

“I’m rolling around (in the ring) and, as I look to my left – he’s standing there.

Vidot made his NRL debut in 2009.

“I stopped, in shock.

“It’s funny, too, because they then stopped the class so he could come up to the ring and speak with us. So Rock’s talking, talking, talking and then — randomly – we catch each other’s eye.

“He looks at me, looks away, then looks back again.

“Says: ‘You, Samoan?’

“I said I was.

“He said, ‘yeah, you got that crazy Samoan look’.”

Which was, as Vidot recounts now, like playing support to Johnson in one of his Hollywood flicks.

Better, the pair eventually broke away to speak one-on-one in a conversation that, given it took two decades to shape, the former leaguie now wants to keep between them.

“But what I can tell you is that I asked some big questions of him,” Vidot says. “And he gave me the answers I needed.”

Which goes a long way to explaining why Vidot is here.

Not only in the WWE, or on that tear of nine straight, but also his strongest ever physically, and mentally, while also meditating, sober two years and boasting a close friendship with Johnson’s eldest daughter Simone, who he likens to “my sister”.

“And they have such a wonderful family,” Vidot says of the Johnsons. “Simone and I are close, I’ve met her grandmother …”

Daniel Vidot chats with the The Rock

You’ve even met Momma Rock, too?

“WrestleMania in New York,” he grins.

“Simone wanted to introduce me to her nanna and we had a really nice conversation.

“It’s actually crazy how much she reminds me of my own mum. Wonderful ladies.

“She was also telling me things (about her son) and I was thinking ‘man, that’s what I used to do’.”

Which is proof, again, that this is a story about Daniel Vidot.

Number Seven.

That little half caste kid from Brisbane’s south who, inside the WWE Performance Centre, and behind his most popular mask ever, has finally learned to be himself.

“And there was a time I never believed I would get here,” he concedes.

“Never believed I could stop drinking. Never believed I could be this person I am now.

“But it’s crazy how this place has changed me.

“Fixed me.

“Made me grow.

“I’ve not only become a better wrestler inside the ring, but I’ve become a much better person outside of it.”

Vidot said drinking from a young age was a way to mask his problems.

Which is why Vidot now wants to let the audience in on his past.

“Because I want to give hope to that kid who is the weird one like me,” he says.

“The odd one, the misfit.

“I want them to know that everything I have now, I’ve worked my arse off to get it.

“So that’s my message — put everything into it.

“Put your mind into it, your body, your heart … especially your heart.

“Because I’m living proof of what happens.

“I’m so proud to be who I am.”