Anriel Howard (born May 6, 1997) is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE where she performs on the NXT brand under the ring name Lash Legend.
Howard is a former college and professional basketball player who played for the Seattle Storm of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).
Basketball career
College
Howard came out of high school as the 100th rated recruit of the 2015 Class per
ESPN's HoopGurlz rankings. She was also rated the 15th best forward at her position.
Howard committed to play for Texas A&M. She played for them for three seasons before she transferred to Mississippi State for her senior season.
During her time at Texas A&M, Howard was the first player in Texas A&M history to have over 1,000 career rebounds with the school, getting 1,002 rebounds.
Howard announced she was going to transfer following her junior season, and ultimately chose to go to Mississippi State. Howard stated, "As soon as I landed I felt like it was the place...In high school when I was recruited, I just felt like Texas A&M was the place for me on my visit. Usually when I go on a visit there's something that I question, but I just never got that feeling and that was the first time ever."
She was named to the 2019 First Team All-SEC by both the Associated Press (AP) and Coaches, 2019 SEC All-Tournament Team, and to the 2019 AP All-American Honorable Mention team during her one season with the Bulldogs.
College career statistics
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 2015–16
| style="text-align:left;" | Texas A&M
|32||17||16.9||.465||0.0||.558||6.5||0.4||0.7||0.3||1.1||4.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 2016–17
| style="text-align:left;" | Texas A&M
|34||34||31.1||.415||
.500||.660||10.4||0.9||
1.5||0.3||2.0||10.2
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 2017–18
| style="text-align:left;" | Texas A&M
|36||36||
33.6||.441||.308||
.752||
12.2||
1.9||1.0||0.4||2.1||12.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 2018–19
| style="text-align:left;" | Mississippi State
|36||36||29.1||
.512||.337||.725||8.4||1.5||1.1||
0.5||2.1||
16.4
|-
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2 | Career
|138||123||27.9||.462||.331||.701||9.4||1.2||1.1||0.4||1.8||11.0
|- class="sortbottom"
|style="text-align:center;" colspan="14"|Statistics retrieved from
Sports-Reference.
WNBA
In the 2019 WNBA draft, Howard was taken 24th overall by the
Seattle Storm.
After debuting against the
Minnesota Lynx on May 29, Howard played a total of three games with the Storm. She was waived from the team early in the season.
WNBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| align="left" | 2019
| align="left" | Seattle
| 3 || 0 || 6.7 || .400 || .500 || .000 || 1.0 || 0.0 || 0.3 || 0.0 || 0.7 || 1.7
|-
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2 | Career
| 3 || 0 || 6.7 || .400 || .500 || .000 || 1.0 || 0.0 || 0.3 || 0.0 || 0.7 || 1.7
Professional wrestling career
WWE (2020–present)
Debut and early beginnings (2020–2023)
Howard signed with
WWE on December 2, 2020.
On the September 21, 2021, episode of
WWE NXT, Howard made her televised debut during a backstage segment with
Franky Monet, presenting herself as
Lash Legend.
On the September 28 episode of
NXT, Legend began being regularly featured as host of a pre-taped
talk show segment,
Lashing Out with Lash Legend.
On the December 10 episode of
205 Live, Howard made her in-ring debut, defeating Amari Miller.
In February 2022, Legend and Miller confirmed they would team up to compete at the Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic;
The Meta-Four (2023–2025)
On May 28, 2023, at NXT Battleground, during a British Rounds Rules match for the NXT Heritage Cup between the champion
Noam Dar and Dragon Lee, Legend alongside Jackson interfered in favor of Dar, helping him to retain the Heritage Cup in the process.
Dar would introduce the group of himself, Legend, Jackson and
Oro Mensah as
The Meta-Four.
On the February 20, 2024, episode of
NXT, Legend faced
Lyra Valkyria for the NXT Women's Championship in an open challenge. However, Legend failed to defeat Valkyria for the title.
At NXT Battleground, she participated in a six-women ladder match to crown the first NXT Women's North American Championship, but failed to win the championship.
At Week 1 of on July 30, Jackson and Legend failed to defeat The Unholy Union (
Alba Fyre and
Isla Dawn) for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship; prior to their match, Legend and the rest of The Meta-Four turned face when stablemate Oro Mensah began feuding with
Ethan Page, who attacked him and Noam Dar backstage back in May.
On the October 11 episode of SmackDown, Legend and Jackson made their main roster debut where they unsuccessfully challenged WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill for the title.
Singles competition (2025–present)
At Evolution on July 13, 2025, Legend entered the 20-woman battle royal and was the runner up of the match.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2025)
At Sacrifice on March 14, 2025, Jakara Jackson and Lash Legend made their Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) debut where they appeared after the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championship match to confront the new champions Ash by Elegance and Heather by Elegance.
On the April 3 episode of
Impact!, Jackson and Legend made their TNA in-ring debut, defeating Spitfire (
Dani Luna and
Jody Threat).
On April 27 at Rebellion, Jackson and Legend competed in a four-way tag team match for the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championship, but failed to win.
Other media
On September 30, 2024, Howard, as Lash Legend, announced her new
YouTube series,
Dash of Lash, a weekly
cooking show premiering on October 17 which will also feature NXT wrestlers as guests.
Personal life
Howard is in a relationship with fellow American professional wrestler Matrick Belton, better known under the ring name
Trick Williams.
External links
