EXCLUSIVE The newest TNA Wrestling Knockout is Xia Brookside who has dispelled the online myth that her famous UK wrestling legend dad, Robbie had anything to do with her career

The daughter of a UK wrestling legend is has been kicking arse all on her own since the age of 16.

Xia Brookside, the newest TNA Knockout, has told how she has had no training or career advice from her famous dad, Robbie Brookside. The latter is currently a top WWE coach, and had an illustrious career on the UK independent scene holding 30 different championships between 1991 and 2011.

But despite that, his daughter Xia has made a name for herself across the world, and has now landed at TNA Wrestling, having joined on a long-term contract earlier this year. And despite claims online that she was trained by her dad – surprise, the internet is wrong and she wasn’t.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Star, the 25-year-old Leicester native said: “I was actually trained by Darren ‘Thunder’ Walsh who took over my dad’s training school, so it was technically Brookside School of Wrestling, but it was Darren that was training me.

“And I told my dad I said, ‘Hey, I really want to start wrestling’ and he said, ‘not a chance – go be a vet, go do what you want to do’.

“And I was like, Well, now, you said no, I definitely want to do it. I trained for a year and then I went straight into the ring and that’s when I started training with Dean Allmark. But my dad’s never had anything to my wrestling career.

“As a second generation wrestler, you are always going to get the comments of: ‘she’s only here because of this or he did this or he did that,’ and for both of us to be able to look at each other and look at it ourselves in the mirror and say that it’s not true, that means the most. It doesn’t matter what everyone else is saying as long as you know yourself.”

Xia, despite being relatively young, has been around the wrestling scene for a long time and has amassed three championship reigns across various UK promotions. Before turning to TNA, she spent five years in WWE as part of the new-defunct NXT UK brand.

After the brand was cancelled, she went to Japan to compete as part of the much-loved Stardom promotion group called Club Venus. She debuted alongside fellow UK standout and current AEW star Mariah May, and Japanese wrestling legend Mina Shiarakawa in January 2023.

Since then, Xia has been on a journey of rebirth and growth – and golfing, apparently – and has joined TNA at a time when the company has gone back to the future with re-brand from Impact Wrestling back to the household name it currently holds.

So why TNA?

She explained: “It’s such an incredible company, what they’re doing right now for wrestling as a whole. And all of the wrestlers that are there, it’s just, it’s amazing, we really have so much opportunity here and to go into my first match with the company was a pay per view, I wasn’t signed at the time, and they threw me straight in there.

“They’re like ‘you’re gonna go do an Ultimate X match for the opportunity at the title’ – so much belief in me from day one was just incredible. It really feels like it was meant to be. I want to develop my wrestling brain. I’ve been wrestling for nine years at this point, and I’ve always definitely been the bubbly baby face.

“Just keep in developing, learning new moves, learning stronger moves, like I’m a lot stronger than people think I just don’t show that out there because I’m always the smaller one, you know. So just putting it all on the line I feel like now is the time to just every match that I have and put 110% in.

“TNA has given me that opportunity. You know, they given me these matches that are just incredible opportunity to get out there more.”