WWE officially announced on Wednesday that Zoe Hines has joined its latest Performance Center class, bringing the former Boston College softball player one step closer to a pro wrestling career. Hines was named alongside Alyssa Daniele, Garrett Beck and Nicholas Panicali in the new group.
The move follows a tryout Hines took part in ahead of SummerSlam 2025 and comes months after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in March that she had signed with WWE. Kennedy said at the time that Linda McMahon was involved in the signing, adding a political wrinkle to a training move that would otherwise have been a routine roster note.
Hines is the niece of Kennedy and Cheryl Hines, and she also represented France's national softball team after playing at Boston College. Her path to WWE has drawn extra attention because of those family ties and because of the current overlap between the company and Washington.
That overlap is hard to miss. The source behind the reporting said WWE has close links to President Donald Trump and his administration, while McMahon now serves as United States Secretary of Education and Paul Levesque is vice-chair of the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition. Kennedy is the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, putting Hines' signing in the orbit of some of the same figures who now sit at the center of federal sports and education policy.
Dave Meltzer reported on Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE had reportedly been forced to sign Hines, saying the reason given was that Kennedy and McMahon were both in Trump's cabinet. WWE did not publicly address that claim in the facts provided, but Wednesday's announcement settles the immediate question of whether Hines was still headed into the company: she is now officially in the Performance Center pipeline.