While some candy-hungry children may be setting out their John Cena or Rhea Ripley costumes for Halloween, a handful of Dallas-area athletes are finding themselves in the WWE’s developmental scene, hoping to be the company’s next top stars.
This Saturday, “Halloween Havoc” — a premium live event for NXT, WWE’s developmental program, taking place in Arizona — features an NXT women’s championship match between title holder Jacy Jayne and No. 1 contender Tatum Paxley.
Paxley, a Carrollton product who turns 29 later this month, has become a fan favorite in NXT and a weekly staple on the airwaves for WWE with her infectious personality on screen.
“Tatum is an unbelievably unique individual when it comes to being an NXT superstar,” Shawn Michaels, WWE Hall of Famer turned NXT’s senior vice president of talent development creative, told The Dallas Morning News. “She has connected with our audience in a way that very few people have.
Sports Roundup
Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis and opinion delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte.
SIGN UP
Or with:
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
“She is the girl next door, but she also has these dark and kind of strange qualities that endear people to her. … The arc of her storyline over the last several years has just been something that’s been incredibly fun to watch. It’s been an absolute blast to be a part of.”
Paxley, real name Natalie Beidelschies, earned her championship opportunity by winning a 20-woman battle royal on NXT’s weekly television show on CW last week.
Advertisement
Four years ago, the cheerleader at the University of North Texas turned competitive power lifter passed on a potential opportunity to compete at nationals for USA Powerlifting when WWE came calling.
“I just wanted to do more than what I was currently doing,” Paxley said. “So I literally would just, while I was at work, I would YouTube a bunch of women’s wrestling. I watched a ton of Alexa Bliss, a ton of Sasha Banks, and I was like, I think … I think I can do this.
Advertisement
” … I got so lucky, just kind of through word of mouth, a recruiter at WWE heard that I was looking to start pro wrestling, and they sent me an email, and were like, ‘Hey, ironically, we have a tryout in two weeks.'”
Advertisement
Those tryouts are part of a larger picture for WWE, which has begun to hit college campuses and host tryouts at its own larger-scale events on its recruiting trail for the next big thing to walk in between the ropes.
For all the talented students who land Division I scholarships in various sports, even fewer get to take those skills and use them in a professional setting like the NFL or WNBA.
“When the WWE started recruiting from that incredibly huge pool of athletes, it’s just been, to me, a night and day difference in our developmental program here in Florida,” Michaels said.
Advertisement
“They are already athletes that are 100% laser focused on achieving goals. They’re already in phenomenal shape. They’re already disciplined in so many different ways. So they come in kind of built-in, ready to go, and they just are so focused on learning and achieving whatever it is you put in front of them, that as we began to train them in professional wrestling, they just take to it like ducks to water.”
Paxley was a part of a 2021 tryout in Las Vegas in connection with WWE hosting a SummerSlam premium live event at Allegiant Stadium that year. With COVID-19 still a major factor in daily life at the time, she remembers working out for coaches and hearing the good news from WWE chief content officer Triple H that she had made the cut, all while wearing a mask.
The pandemic also affected Wren Sinclair’s path to WWE.
The 30-year-old Texas State graduate who grew up in The Colony did some work as a background extra for WWE in 2020 as an independent wrestler when the company was in the Houston area for the Royal Rumble. But it took a number of years on the other side of the shutdown for Sinclair, real name Madison Dombkowski, to officially sign with WWE.
Advertisement
“Once things started clearing up … I was doing my thing on indies, and I think they had a scout, Gabe Sapolsky, who was looking around the indies, and he started hosting these seminars,” Sinclair said. “I flew myself to his first seminar in Florida to try and be seen. And I think I kind of got on their radar. And then eventually they offered me a tryout, and I killed it, I guess.”
Sinclair debuted on NXT television in early 2024, and has since become another of the show’s staples as part of the group known as No Quarter Catch Crew (NQCC).
“Wren is another just really unique character in that she’s so fun, she’s so spunky, and she also has an innocence about her, which I just think that’s one of the things that makes our women and our women’s division so strong and so endearing,” Michaels said.
Advertisement
“We can have similarities in our characters, but then they also have individuality amongst themselves, in a way that, again, is very hard to come by at this time in professional wrestling.”
Pretty high praise from a Hall of Famer for a performer who admittedly “typed on Google ‘how to become a wrestler’ ” after she graduated from college.
A young Sinclair eventually landed in Michaels’ backyard, beginning her training at Hybrid School of Wrestling in San Antonio, before brief stops in AEW and NWA led her to WWE.
Stories behind the state of Texas pumping out some of the biggest names in professional wrestling’s long history isn’t a new trend.
Advertisement
“The state of Texas has been producing phenomenal professional wrestlers for as long as I can certainly remember,” said Michaels. “I would argue that whether it’s the NCAA or any other sports body they look at, the state of Texas has been one of the most fertile grounds for fantastic athletes.
“Clearly, I’m biased, being from San Antonio, but I think the pipeline, from the standpoint of professional wrestling, that’s come out of Texas has been absolutely phenomenal since probably the 1970s, at the very least.”
Michaels mentioned names like the Von Erichs, Tully Blanchard, Terry Funk and Stan Hansen. Fast forward to his own in-ring era of WWE and fans can include names like The Undertaker, Booker T and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Current WWE champion Cody Rhodes even lived in McKinney, once upon a time.
The future of WWE appears to be in solid hands, too, when it comes to hometown crowds at American Airlines Center or Dickies Arena having familiar faces to root for during Raw and SmackDown events in the coming years.
Advertisement
An athlete who did not grow up in a team sports environment, Sinclair was surprised by the level of support the locker room at WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando provided, a far cry from the “cutthroat” nature of fighting for opportunities as an independent wrestler.
“When the girls [in the locker room] were nice to me, it was very shocking. Like, what is this? … It was a very welcoming environment,” Sinclair said.
“People are very willing and open to help teach you, if you’re willing to learn.”
Advertisement
The environment in the NXT space has been built-in over the years. Reigning WWE women’s world champion Stephanie Vaquer began her WWE career in NXT before taking on the main roster, and she also remembers the absolute support she received transitioning to the United States full time just over one year ago.
“In NXT, it’s different, because it’s not just go in and you work. In NXT, I found a family,” Vaquer, originally from Chile, told The News.
“Because many day-to-day problems — I needed to [sign] papers, I needed a driver’s license, I needed many things … and [in] NXT, many people were like, whatever you need, please, let me know. Everyone. … It’s not just my co-workers, it’s my family.”
And the Texas roots on the NXT family tree don’t stop with Paxley and Sinclair. Some other names in the aforementioned pipeline include Tyra Mae Steele (Olympic gold medalist from Katy), Jordynne Grace (former TNA world champion from Austin) and Drake Morreaux (former SMU offensive lineman), among others.
Advertisement
But before they get their chance in the spotlight, all eyes are on Paxley as she aims for the first title of any kind in her WWE career. It would be quite the feather in the cap to become the new standard bearer for one of the most highly thought of women’s divisions around the world, which has produced names such as Ripley, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch and current WWE women’s champion Tiffany Stratton.
“I’m incredibly proud of what these young ladies do each and every day here at the Performance Center, but also each and every week on NXT,” Michaels said.
“The wrestling world is starting now to see that that isn’t just a line that I’ve been throwing out there the last couple years, that NXT does have the deepest and the best women’s division in all the world. That’s something I hope these ladies are incredibly proud of, because they’ve earned it and built it all on their own.”
Related StoriesRead More’Passion project’ for AEW’s Athena leads to opportunity for women wrestlers all over TexasThe Ring of Honor champion and Garland native is set to host her second “Who Runs The World?” all-women’s event this weekend in Irving.1-on-1 with WWE women’s world champion Stephanie Vaquer ahead of Raw in DallasThe WWE returns to American Airlines Center for Raw’s final stop before “Crown Jewel” in Australia. Advertisement
Find more Sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
To view subscription options for The News and SportsDay, click here.
Read more on The Dallas Morning News
