Lash Legend is ready to make a statement at WrestleMania 42

When Lash Legend makes her entrance at WrestleMania 42 this weekend, she’ll do so ready to send a message: The future of the WWE women’s division has arrived.

Legend is one of WWE’s sharpest rising stars. The former college basketball standout will make her in-ring WrestleMania debut in a Fatal 4-Way women’s tag team match alongside her partner, Nia Jax.

Before she was Lash Legend, Anriel Howard was an All-SEC forward who played for Texas A&M and Mississippi State from 2015-19. Howard was selected in the second round of the 2019 WNBA draft, but she was waived a few games into her rookie season with the Seattle Storm.

Howard had an offer to play in China, but she ultimately pivoted to pursue a tryout with WWE in 2020.

Legend has spent roughly six months on the WWE main roster after a prolonged and arduous stint under the company’s developmental brand NXT. During her time at NXT, she second-guessed her decision to leave pro basketball behind, but her persistence has led to this breakthrough moment on pro wrestling’s grandest stage.

“Just being able to say I have a match at WrestleMania — those five-and-a-half years at NXT — I feel like everything is now making sense,” Legend said.

This past February, Legend was named the women’s tag team champion alongside Jax. She secured the title, the first of her career, after stunningly pinning longtime WWE star Rhea Ripley.

A wrestler making their in-ring WrestleMania debut as a champion, as Legend will this weekend, is rare. That should signal the trajectory she finds herself on within the women’s division.

“Being able to say, ‘Yes, I’m only six months officially on the main roster, and I’m going into WrestleMania as a WWE tag team champion’ — I can’t complain. I really can’t.’