In a company that likes its women camera-ready and prepackaged with all the edge of a cupcake, Zoey Stark showed up like a sledgehammer in a beauty pageant.
Theresa Serrano—better known as Zoey Stark—doesn’t wear glitter, doesn’t bat her eyelashes for the hard cam, and doesn’t apologize for punching you in the mouth first and asking questions never. She’s the kind of talent Jim Cornette would call “a throwback to when you had to earn your scars,” and Bobby Heenan would’ve probably said, “She’s the only person I know who could wrestle a bear and give it advice afterwards.”
Born on January 25, 1994, in the steel-and-smog backroads of American wrestling’s indie wasteland, Serrano didn’t pop out of some glamor agency modeling catalog. She ground her way through the undercards and empty armories of the independent scene starting in 2013, eating more ring post than birthday cake. Under the alias Lacey Ryan, she picked up a few belts and a whole lot of bruises, winning titles in places where they pay you in handshakes and leftover hot dogs.
She took a break in 2014, likely to rediscover the concept of a working spine, then returned in 2018 like she’d been shot out of a cannon. She threw fists with Thunder Rosa, pinned Alex Gracia, and took the FSW Women’s Title off Taya Valkyrie—a woman who looks like she eats steel for breakfast and gargles battery acid for flavor. For a while, Stark was the one-woman demolition derby of the regional scene.
Then came 2021 and a WWE contract. The Performance Center got their hands on her and said, “Okay, she hits like a truck, let’s polish the dents.” And just like that, Lacey Ryan was dead and Zoey Stark was born.
Her debut came on 205 Live of all places, which, if you’re unfamiliar, is WWE’s version of “Who Wants to Be Forgotten?” But Stark made it count. She teamed with Marina Shafir in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. They lost, of course—because dreams are for winners—but Stark was already putting people on notice.
And then came NXT.
You could feel the shift. Within a few weeks, she’s going toe-to-toe with Io Shirai in a non-title match and getting a post-match hug that meant, “You belong.” That’s the NXT version of a christening. And by April 2021, she was doing the unthinkable—pinning Toni Storm at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver. No gimmicks, no run-ins. Just fists and footwork and the kind of confidence you can’t fake.
In July of that year, she partnered with Shirai to win the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship at The Great American Bash, toppling Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell. It was a storyline marriage made in Hell—a stoic striker teamed with a cosmic empress—but it worked like a slap in the face at just the right time.
Then came the setback.
Halloween Havoc 2021—triple threat ladder match. The kind of contest where gravity files lawsuits. Stark took a bump that shredded her knee like confetti. Torn ACL, MCL, meniscus—basically the orthopedic trifecta. That should’ve ended her. For most, it would’ve. But Zoey Stark doesn’t know how to quit. She spent the next nine months training like she was chasing God, and when she returned in July 2022, she immediately won a 20-woman battle royal.
Welcome back, Zoey.
A few months later, she turned heel on Nikkita Lyons, finally tapping into the snarl fans had been waiting for. No more smiles. No more respect handshakes. Just cold, calculated, chain-wrestling violence. And WWE noticed. In the 2023 Draft, Stark got the call-up to Monday Night Raw. The big leagues.
Her first match on Raw? She flattens Nikki Cross like a speed bump in a hurry. Not long after, she aligned herself with Trish freakin’ Stratus—the icon in yoga pants—helping her beat Becky Lynch at Night of Champions. That partnership was fire and gasoline, and it burned bright. It also imploded like everything Trish touches eventually does.
Their alliance collapsed after Stark accidentally slammed Stratus through a table on Raw. What followed was a slap, a betrayal, and a satisfying post-match beatdown that screamed, “I don’t need you anymore.”
By fall, she’d found new purpose alongside Shayna Baszler. It was like watching two switchblades team up to cut through WWE’s women’s division. They called themselves Pure Fusion Collective—or P.F.C.—and they meant business. With Sonya Deville playing mouthpiece and backup, P.F.C. looked like a serious threat.
Then WWE happened.
Deville got released. Baszler got future endeavored. And Stark was left alone—again. But Zoey Stark is like a cockroach in a nuclear war. She doesn’t die. She adapts.
She made her Royal Rumble debut in 2023, lasting over 26 minutes. In a match built for moments, she was consistent—methodical, dangerous, and maybe the only one not out there trying to trend on Twitter. Later that year, she came up short in a Money in the Bank qualifier, thanks to an awkward landing that nearly took her knee out again. Another injury. Another timeout. But betting against Stark is like betting against a cactus in the desert. She’ll be back—and she’ll be sharper.
The truth is, Zoey Stark will never be the poster girl. She doesn’t have the bubbly charisma of a Bayley, the smirk of a Sasha, or the gothic poetry of a Rhea Ripley. What she has is grit. She’s a grinder, a workhorse, the kind of talent you don’t realize you miss until your show’s full of TikTok dancers and half-finished storylines.
She’s not perfect. She’s not flashy. She’s not even particularly loved by the crowd. But she’s respected. And in wrestling, respect is a currency more valuable than gold—or at least more durable than those cursed women’s tag titles.
Whether Stark comes back to gold or just comes back swinging, you can count on this: she’s not done. You can knock her down. You can cut her out of factions. You can throw her in backstage segments with bad lighting and worse writing.
But when the bell rings, and it’s just her and the opponent in front of her, Zoey Stark is the kind of woman who reminds you that wrestling is a fight—and she’s here to win.
