Xia Brookside discusses how she was recruited by WWE.
Brookside joined WWE's NXT UK brand in 2018 after competing in the Mae Young Classic tournament. Although her run with WWE came to an end in 2022, Brookside got to wrestle the likes of Rhea Ripley, and Blair Davenport throughout her time with the company.
While speaking to Fightful in a recent interview, Brookside recalled getting the call to compete in the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament.
"It started with the Mae Young Classic. I wasn’t signed then. They scouted me, I think, in Japan. So I done two or three tours before I got signed. That’s where I got scouted, but I didn’t hear anything. Then I was actually in America, it was in May, when I was doing that tour then. My dad had gone out for a tour that night with a couple of friends, he had gone out to dinner somewhere, and I got—it was either a call or an e-mail, I can’t remember. It’s a bit blurry—and it was Canyon Cemen who reached out to me. He said, ‘We want you to be a part of the Mae Young Classic.’ I was freaking out because I was 18. I was so young. I ring my dad, and he’s like, ‘I’ve been waiting, I didn’t want to tell you.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ So he knew the whole time."
Brookside went on to explain how her father, Robbie Brookside, knew about the opportunity beforehand.
"Yeah, well, as soon as I got the e-mail—it was either an e-mail or a call, I can’t for the life of me remember, it’s so foggy. I was in a trace when this happened. I rang my dad and I was like, ‘Hey, they want me for the Mae Young Classic. This is crazy.’ He was like, ‘I know! They asked me.’ ‘Cause he’s never been apart of my career. A lot of people don’t know that. I’ve never trained with him even to this day. I never trained with him before I started wrestling and we still don’t talk wrestling now. We kept our journeys separate. He didn’t want me to be a wrestler for all of the obvious reasons. I knew I was gonna get the ‘she’s only here because of her dad’ rag. All the people get that, all the second generations get that. I, at least, wanted to be able to look at him and myself in the mirror and say that wasn’t true. So we kept it completely separate. So when they said to him about the Mae Young Classic, they were like, ‘Do you mind if we bring her in?’ He’s like, ‘Well, if you think she’s good enough.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like trust your own father to be the one to, like, ‘Nope, she’s doing it on her own.’"
Brookside was eliminated from the first round of the Mae Young Classic in 2018, as she was defeated by Io Shirai.
Since leaving WWE, Brookside has returned to form and has wrestled for STARDOM, Black Label Pro, Prestige Wrestling, and many other promotions.
Fans can see Fightful's full interview with Xia Brookside in the video linked at the top of this article.
