Tegan Nox

Steffanie Rhiannon Newell[1] (born 15 November 1994) is a Welsh professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Tegan Nox where she is one half of the tag team Shotzi & Nox along with partner Shotzi.[5] Newell previously wrestled on the British independent circuit under the ring name Nixon Newell, most notably for promotions such as Attack! Pro Wrestling, Progress Wrestling, What Culture Pro Wrestling, and Fight Club: Pro.

Steffanie Newell was born on November 15, 1994 in Bargoed, Wales, 15 miles north of Cardiff. As a little girl, Newell played football for a number of teams in her area and at one point took part in trials for both Cardiff City and the Welsh 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 of 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.[6]

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.[7]

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).[8] She competed as Luchadora once again on 14 February, winning a special invitational scramble match.[9] 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 (Brookes and Kid Lykos).[10] Two days later on 3 April, Bayside High became the new Attack: Pro! Tag Team Champions, defeating #CCK.[11] The duo retained the titles until August, when they lost them back to #CCK in a TLC match.[12]

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).[13]