She was born into the business — the business of canvas burns and bad finishes, of locker rooms filled with false promises and tighter friendships than most therapists can handle. Xia Brookside didn’t stumble into wrestling. She was born under it. Birthed in Leicester in 1998 and baptized in the blood, sweat, and ghost stories of her father, Robbie Brookside, a legend to some and a warning to others.
But carrying a legacy in wrestling is like dragging a dead body through airport security. It gets heavy. It gets questioned. And you’re always trying to prove it isn’t yours.
A Girl Named Brookside
There’s something cruel about expectations. Xia-Louise Brooks had them by the truckload. Trained by her father, and by men who might’ve been built from concrete and old pub chairs—Dean Allmark and Robbie Dynamite—she didn’t get to stumble her way through the indie scene. She had to hit the ground running, smiling, flipping, and selling like her rent depended on it. Because it did.
She debuted at seventeen, still wet behind the ears, but already sharper than a straight razor tucked in a garter belt. Her first match was a tag team affair in Liverpool, where she and El Ligero beat Kay Lee Ray and Sammy D. That night, she wasn’t just Robbie’s kid. She was a baby-faced star in the making—fighting like she’d borrowed her father’s fire but added a little glitter and danger.
The Indie Run: Pay Dues, Collect Bruises
Between 2015 and 2017, she roamed the U.K. indie circuit like a restless spirit. Empress Pro. ICW. Pro Wrestling Ulster. Kamikaze Pro. RevPro. She picked up belts, beat names like Toni Storm and Kay Lee Ray, and lost to bigger fish like Rosemary and Jinny. But every loss carved something out of her, something she replaced with steel.
In Stardom, Japan’s dangerous playground of warrior women and midnight suplexes, Xia teamed with Mari Apache and Gabby Ortiz, then earned points in the grueling 5STAR Grand Prix. She wasn’t a tourist. She wasn’t there for the selfies or sushi. She was in the thick of it, earning respect the way all great wrestlers do: by bleeding for it, quietly.
And then the call came. The three letters every indie darling dreams of and dreads at the same time: WWE.
NXT UK: The Polished Cage
WWE welcomed her into the Mae Young Classic in 2018, only to feed her to Io Shirai in the first round. Welcome to the machine, kid.
Still, she stayed. She was rolled into the NXT UK roster and began the long, televised grind—punctuated by feuds, faction warfare, and the constant battle to keep a sliver of personality in a corporate petri dish.
She feuded with Jinny like it was personal, and maybe it was. The kind of feud that smells like hair spray, cheap perfume, and broken fingernails. Jazzy Gabert got involved. So did Piper Niven. One week she was in a six-woman tag match with champions. The next, she was eating pins like they were breakfast cereal.
And yet, she persisted.
In 2020, she beat Amale, then lost to Jinny. Teamed with Dani Luna, then beat Nina Samuels. It was the wrestling equivalent of swimming against the current with weights tied to your ankles. One match you get the crowd. The next, you get forgotten.
But Xia knew the real fight wasn’t in the ring. It was in the mirror. The one that kept whispering: You’ll never be more than your father’s daughter.
So she turned heel.
Not out of malice. Not for the merch. But because after years of polite smiles and hard work, she finally got tired of playing nice. She brought in a bodyguard, Eliza Alexander. She started cheating. Lying. Winning. And then NXT UK folded like a house of cards in a wind tunnel.
Stardom: Club Venus and Champagne Bruises
In December 2022, she reappeared in Japan like a ghost with unfinished business. Stardom Dream Queendom 2 was the stage. She walked down the ramp beside Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May, three glitter bombs wrapped in attitude. Together, they formed Club Venus, a trio that looked like fashion week but fought like alley cats.
They were popular. Briefly. Brookside’s final Stardom match came just a month later. She walked away, left the club, left the glam, and flew home—another chapter closed without the final paragraph.
But Stardom has a funny way of pulling people back in. In 2024, she returned for one night only, reuniting with May and Shirakawa for a six-woman tag match. They lost, sure, but Xia showed flashes of the old spark. She could still hang with Japan’s elite. The engine hadn’t stalled—it had just been idling.
The TNA Resurrection
Then came the rebirth. Like Bukowski said: “Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside—remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.”
On January 2, 2024, Xia Brookside showed up in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling—the promotion that refuses to die and loves to take in strays with something left to prove.
She debuted in the Knockouts Ultimate X Match at Hard to Kill. It was chaos. It was pain. It was proof that she belonged. Two weeks later, on TNA Impact!, she pinned Tasha Steelz like it was just another Thursday.
No flash. No diva act. Just a woman who’s seen the rollercoaster for what it is and decided to start enjoying the ride.
Still Swinging
Now in TNA, Xia isn’t chasing ghosts or family shadows. She’s finally walking her own path, even if that path’s made of broken glass and elbow pads that still smell like regret.
She’s not the biggest. Not the strongest. But she’s a survivor in a business that eats the polite and forgets the quiet. She’s the girl who’s been counted out, repackaged, released, and rebranded more times than most get booked.
And she’s still here.
Still swinging.
Still smiling—with teeth now a little sharper.