By the time Aliyah, born Nhooph Al-Areebi, took her final televised bow in WWE, she had already lived five lifetimes in the ring. Some would call her a footnote. But that’d be like calling a match strike in a gas station bathroom a fire hazard—it’s true, sure, but you’re missing the spark.
She wasn’t a superstar molded from granite and propaganda. She was Toronto concrete with hair dye and hustle, stitched together by ambition and duct tape. She was circus school and nursing classes, Beth Phoenix dreams and stiff-necked realism, dragging herself to indie halls before she was old enough to drink in most of them.
She wasn’t built for the spotlight. She chased it anyway.
FROM ST. JOSEPH’S TO SQUARED CIRCLE
Toronto-born, Aliyah was the daughter of Syrian and Iraqi immigrants—raised on the chaos of dual cultures and Sunday night RAW. While other girls scribbled in diaries, she trained at Rob Fuego’s Squared Circle gym, taking stiff bumps in winter-cold warehouses, chasing an illusion with the desperation of a Bukowski bartender praying for last call.
She debuted in 2013 as Jasmin Areebi. The indie circuit doesn’t roll out red carpets. It offers hard rings, colder crowds, and a payout that barely covers gas. Still, she pushed forward—driven, perhaps, by the same fire that leads broke poets to sell plasma for typewriter ribbons.
THE WWE DREAM: FASHIONED UNDER NEON AND VARNISH
Aliyah signed with WWE in 2015, making her first appearance during Tyler Breeze’s entrance—decorative, unnoticed, just another body in the glitter. But she wanted more than that. She wanted to matter.
Her early NXT years were purgatory. She wrestled with a smile too big and storylines too small. The Arabian gimmick faded like cheap mascara in Florida humidity, and slowly, she carved out a new image: flashy tights, slick ponytail, and the kind of smile you wear when you’re smiling through glass.
Victories came about as often as hope in a truck stop bar, but Aliyah endured—more lifer than limelight. She scraped together moments—an upset win here, a Survivor Series snub there. Her biggest splash came not in matches but moments. A 3.17-second squash of Natalya? Fastest win in WWE history. It was over before some fans even sat down—but history doesn’t care how long something lasts. It just asks that it happened.
TAG TEAM GLORY, THEN DARKNESS
Teaming with Raquel Rodriguez in 2022, Aliyah finally held gold—WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions. A 14-day reign, short-lived like summer in Toronto, but it burned hot. For those two weeks, she wasn’t an underdog. She was on the marquee, in the magazines, etched into the company’s chrome-plated mythology.
Then, poof. Gone again. Dropped from television like a glitch in the Matrix. No farewell, no swan song, just a corporate ax swung clean through storyline. Released in September 2023 without a single televised match that year. Wrestling can be beautiful, but it’s also cold, like waking up hungover in a city you don’t remember visiting.
AFTER WWE: GRIT ON THE INDEPENDENTS
Aliyah didn’t roll over. In October 2024, she wrestled Zayda Steel at Destiny Wrestling and began scratching her way back—less for glory and more for the love of the fight. Some wrestlers do it for money, others for fame. Aliyah? She did it like a poet typing drunk under a flickering ceiling bulb—because if she stopped, the silence might swallow her whole.
Her resume now reads like a mixtape of underdog ballads: Destiny Women’s Champion, GXW titleholder, Queens of Chaos alum. No major pay-per-views. No WrestleMania moment. But she never needed a parade. She needed a ring, a bell, and someone to prove wrong.
A STORY THAT NEVER ASKED FOR SPOTLIGHT
Aliyah isn’t a tragedy, though some might paint her that way. She’s a reminder that wrestling careers are written not in WrestleMania moments, but in training tapes, dark matches, and the sliver of light you find when you’re three moves into a squash and the crowd finally starts to give a damn.
She’s not the girl who changed the business. She’s the girl who clung to it when it tried to forget her. That’s something Bukowski would’ve understood—making art out of scraps, carving meaning into failure, and standing up one more time than you get knocked down.
Because in this world of spray-tanned Titans and backstage politics, Aliyah was just a girl from Toronto with two fists, a dream, and the kind of soul that doesn’t quit—even when the cameras do.
Notable Achievements
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WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion (with Raquel Rodriguez)
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Fastest victory in WWE history (3.17 seconds over Natalya)
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Destiny Women’s Champion
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PWA Women’s Champion
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GCW Women’s Champion
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Featured in WWE 2K23
Final Word:
She came in on a whisper and left in a blur—but for those watching close enough, Aliyah proved herself more than a footnote. She was a flame that flickered, sparked, and stubbornly refused to go out.
And in this business, sometimes that’s the biggest victory of all.
