Rachael Ellering is no stranger to NXT and the WWE Universe. As well as being the daughter of WWE Hall of Fame manager Paul Ellering, who managed both the Legion of Doom/Road Warriors (Hawk & Animal) and Authors of Pain (Akem & Rezar) to tag team gold, she’s also a former indie wrestling superstar who was recently signed and announced as part of the February 2019 class at the WWE Performance Center. She made her official full-time NXT roster debut tonight in St. Petersburg, Florida, in a tag match alongside Deonna Purrazzo against Mia Yim & Taynara Conti.
https://twitter.com/RobbyDeese/status/1106351665555357702
Hello @WWENXT.
Let’s get to know each other! ☺️ pic.twitter.com/lWKS8QHvlz
— Rachael Ellering (@RachaelEllering) March 15, 2019
But Ellering has been through the WWE Universe before. A student of Lance Storm‘s Storm Wrestling Academy in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and worked a few tapings as enhancement shortly after her debut, in 2016, appearing as both Rachel Evers and Rachael Fazio. She did a few more enhancement roles on NXT TV in 2017, before competing in the inaugural Mae Young Classic, now settled on the Rachel Evers name (which is a tribute to her mentor and trainer Lance Storm, whose real last name is Evers). She beat Marti Belle in the first round, before losing to Abbey Laith (Kimber Lee on the indies) in the second.
In 2018, she returned for the second Mae Young Classic but lost in the opening round to Japan’s Hiroyo Matsumoto. The former star of SHIMMER, Japan’s Stardom, WrestleCircus, and more signed with the WWE in early January to join the NXT brand full time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeONQVmk9iQ&t=8s
