Tegan Nox

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Tegan Nox
Newell in 2020
Birth nameSteffanie Newell[1]
Born (1994-11-15) 15 November 1994 (age 29)
Merthyr Tydfil, Wales
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Luchadora The Explorer
Nixon Newell[2]
Steffanie Newell
Tegan Nox
Billed height5 ft 6 in (1.68 m)
Billed weight141 lb (64 kg)
Billed fromWelsh Valleys[3]
Trained byDave Stewart
Mike Hitchman
Debut2013

Steffanie Newell (born 15 November 1994) is a Welsh professional wrestler. She is performing on the independent circuit under the ring name Nixon Newell. She is best known for her tenures in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tegan Nox. Newell has also wrestled on the British independent circuit, most notably for promotions such as Attack! Pro Wrestling, Progress Wrestling, WhatCulture Pro Wrestling, and Fight Club: Pro.

Early life

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Steffanie Newell was born on 15 November 1994 in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, 15 miles north of Cardiff. As a little girl, Newell played football for a number of teams in her area. At one point she took part in trials for both Cardiff City and the Wales national team. At age 13, she suffered a knee injury which would ultimately cost her a place on the Wales Under-16 team. When she finally turned 16, she gave up football, instead planning on taking a long hiatus from all sports, citing her knee injury and a lack of passion for the sport as her reasons.

Shortly after quitting football, she found a professional wrestling school in Port Talbot and began training under Dave Stewart and "Wild Boar" Mike Hitchman. She said that the encouragement of her late grandfather to pursue a career in professional wrestling was her main inspiration. Outside football, she played netball and tag rugby. Despite playing football for the majority of her youth, Newell grew up as a fan of professional wrestling after being introduced to it at the age of five and cites Molly Holly as her favourite female wrestler and dream opponent.[4][unreliable source?]

Professional wrestling career

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Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2013)

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Newell made a one-time appearance on Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling at their pay-per-view event Slammiversary XI as a fan under her real name. She won an all expenses paid trip via Challenge TV. Newell was interviewed by SoCal Val.

Attack! Pro Wrestling (2013–2017)

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Newell debuted for Attack! Pro Wrestling in July 2014, competing three times on the same show. Firstly, she defeated Lana Austin and later in the evening teamed with Austin to defeat Mark Andrews and Pete Dunne to win the Attack! 24/7 Championship for the second time in her career. Later that night, Newell and Austin lost the championship to Mike Bird in a handicap match.[5]

Newell debuted her Luchadora The Explorer character on 24 January 2015, teaming with Brookes in a loss to The Anti-Fun Police (Damian Dunne and Ryan Smile).[6] She competed as Luchadora once again on 14 February, winning a special invitational scramble match.[7] In January 2016, Newell aligned herself with Mark Andrews, forming the extremely popular team known as Bayside High. In their first match as a team, Newell and Andrews defeated #CCK (Chris Brookes and Kid Lykos).[8] Two days later on 3 April, Bayside High became the new Attack: Pro! Tag Team Champions, defeating #CCK.[9] The duo retained the titles until August, when they lost them back to #CCK in a TLC match.[10]

In late 2016, Newell turned into a villainess, abandoning Bayside High and aligning herself with Pete Dunne. In their first match together, Dunne and Newell (dressed as the Suicide Squad iterations of The Joker and Harley Quinn, respectively) defeated Martin Kirby and El Ligero (dressed as Kevin Owens and El Generico, respectively).[11]

Progress Wrestling (2016)

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Newell debuted for Progress Wrestling on 28 August 2016, defeating Alex Windsor.[12] On 27 November, she entered the Natural Progression Series IV Tournament (a single elimination tournament to crown the first ever Progress Women's Champion), defeating Katey Harvey in the first round.[13]

Shimmer Women Athletes (2016)

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Newell in SHIMMER in 2016

Newell debuted for the American all-female promotion Shimmer Women Athletes at Volume 81, first losing to Veda Scott[14] and then losing to Nicole Matthews the following day at Volume 82.[15] At Volume 84, Newell picked up her first win in Shimmer, defeating Scott.[16]

World Wonder Ring Stardom (2017)

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In January 2017, Newell embarked on her first tour of Japan, competing with the all-female promotion Stardom. In her first match on the tour, she and Kay Lee Ray defeated Oedo Tai (Kris Wolf and Viper).[17] On 29 January, Newell challenged Kairi Hojo for the Wonder of Stardom Championship, losing after a diving elbow from Hojo.[18]

WWE (2017–2024)

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In April 2017, it was reported that Newell had signed a contract with WWE.[19] It was reported that Newell was replaced in the WWE Mae Young Classic, because of tearing to her ACL before the tournament had even began. Newell returned to the ring on 13 April 2018, at an NXT live event, where she teamed up with Dakota Kai in a tag team match to defeat Reina González and Vanessa Borne.[20][unreliable source?] After being announced as a competitor in the 2018 Mae Young Classic, Newell entered the tournament on 8 August, under the ring name Tegan Nox,[21] defeating Zatara. Nox returned the following day, defeating Nicole Matthews in the second round before suffering another knee injury in her quarter-final match against Rhea Ripley. After the match premiered on the WWE Network, Nox posted on Twitter that she had suffered numerous injuries during the match, including: a torn ACL, MCL, lateral collateral ligament, meniscus, and patellar dislocation.[22]

On 25 June 2019, Nox made her in-ring return at an NXT live event in Orlando, Florida.[23] On 11 September, Nox made her NXT UK debut when she defeated Shax.[24] Afterwards, Nox began a feud with NXT UK Women's Champion Kay Lee Ray, resulting in a non-title match between the two on 3 October episode of NXT UK, where Nox was unsuccessful.[25] On 16 October, Nox returned to NXT, defeating Taynara.[26] Thereafter, Nox began teaming with long-time friend Dakota Kai, with the two defeating Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir to become number one contenders to the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship on 23 October episode of NXT.[27] Nox and Kai would go on to lose their title match against The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) on 30 October episode of NXT.[28] Two days later on SmackDown, Nox and Ripley were one of the many NXT wrestlers to invade the show, challenging Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville to a tag-team match, which Nox and Ripley emerged victorious. Later that night, Nox joined Triple H and the rest of the NXT roster as they declared war on both Raw and SmackDown, and vowed to win the Survivor Series brand warfare.[29][30] Nox was chosen by Ripley to join her team as part of a women's WarGames match at NXT TakeOver: WarGames. At the event on 23 November, just before the match took place, Mia Yim was attacked backstage and unable to compete in the women's WarGames match, before her teammate Dakota Kai replaced Yim on Team Ripley. Ripley's team defeated Shayna Baszler's team, however Nox would not take part in the match after Kai turned on Team Ripley and attacked her. Nox had a title match for the NXT Women's Championship on 15 July episode of NXT, but was defeated by Io Shirai. On 30 September, WWE announced that Nox had once again suffered a torn ACL and would be out of action for an indefinite amount of time.[31]

After a near ten-month absence, Nox returned on 6 July 2021 at The Great American Bash, causing LeRae and Indi Hartwell to lose the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship.[32] On 9 July episode of SmackDown, Nox made her main roster debut teaming with Shotzi as Shotzi & Nox to defeat the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions, Natalya and Tamina in a non-title match.[33] The two would then go on to defeat Natalya and Tamina in numerous tag team matches, but would never receive a championship match. As part of the 2021 Draft, Nox was drafted to the Raw brand while Shotzi remained on the SmackDown brand, thus ending the team.[34][35] On 18 November, she was released from her WWE contract without ever appearing on Raw.[36]

After a year, Nox returned to the WWE on 2 December 2022 episode of SmackDown, after rescuing Liv Morgan from an attack by Damage CTRL (Bayley Dakota Kai and Iyo Sky).[37][38] On 16 December episode of SmackDown, Nox and Morgan lost to Damage CTRL for the Women's Tag Team Championship.[38][39] As part of the 2023 WWE Draft, Nox was drafted to the Raw brand.[40] On 25 September episode of Raw, Nox picked up a victory over Natalya to receive a NXT Women's Championship match against Becky Lynch. Two weeks later on Raw, Nox unsuccessfully challenged Lynch for the title.[41] In the weeks to follow, Nox would form an alliance with Natalya. This alliance would result in Nox defeating both Women's Tag Team Champions Chelsea Green and Piper Niven in singles matches. On 20 November episode of Raw, Nox and Natalya won a fatal 4-way tag team match to receive a Women's Tag Team Championship opportunity.[42] The following week on Raw, Nox and Natalya would challenge for the titles in a losing effort.[43] On 27 January 2024 at the 2024 Royal Rumble, Nox entered in her third women's Royal Rumble match at number 12, eliminating Natalya before being eliminated by Bayley. During the 2024 WWE Draft, Nox was drafted back to the SmackDown brand.[citation needed] On 1 November, Nox was released from WWE for a second time.

Return to Attack! (2024–present)

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On 6 November 2024, it was announced that Newell would make her return to Attack! Pro Wrestling on 14 and 15 December.[44]

Professional wrestling style and persona

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Newell has stated her ring name "Tegan Nox" is a tribute to both her Welsh heritage and being a fan of the Harry Potter franchise. This also relates to her nickname: "The Girl with the Shiniest Wizard" – as she uses a step-up knee strike, commonly referred to as a shining wizard, as her finishing move.[45] She has dubbed herself NXT's resident "Lady Kane"; a moniker that she gave herself in honor of her favorite WWE Superstar, Kane, as well as adopting his chokeslam finisher.[46][47]

Other media

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Newell made her video game debut as a playable character in WWE 2K22.[48]

Personal life

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Talking on WWE's online show The Bump, Newell confirmed she is bisexual. Newell said, "For me, it's always been, like, not about gender. If someone makes me laugh and they make me feel good and they're nice people, I'm all for that. It doesn't matter if they're man, woman, it doesn't matter to me."[49][50]

Championships and accomplishments

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References

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  1. ^ Clapp, John (25 April 2018). "Exclusive interview: How Steffanie Newell overcame a heartbreaking introduction to WWE". WWE. Archived from the original on 21 May 2023. Retrieved 21 May 2023.
  2. ^ WWE (11 November 2017). "Iconic Trio? NXT Superstars name their dream WarGames team: Ask the WWE PC, Nov. 10, 2017". Archived from the original on 10 July 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2018 – via YouTube.
  3. ^ "Tegan Nox". WWE. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
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  22. ^ Nox, Tegan [@TeganNoxWWE_] (17 October 2018). "Well...that happened 🖤 I may be out for a while but I cannot thank my friends and family for everything they've done the past few weeks and for all the kind words I've received, it genuinely warms my heart and gives me that extra 🔥 to come back even better 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🤙🏼 https://t.co/1CzYBOGGrq" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 29 October 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2022 – via Twitter.
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