It's about EMMA.
Tenille Averil Dashwood (born 1 March 1989) is an Australian professional wrestler who debuted for the Professional Wrestling Alliance in Melbourne as Valentine. After three years in Australia she would be invited to the USA to wrestle for SHIMMER, which she would do as Tenille Tayla. Tenille also went up North to Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling and became a two time NWA SuperGirl's title holder. She also made stops in Manitoba's Steeltown Pro Wrestling and Wrestling Fan Xperience.
After concluding a tour with a different PWA in Canada, the Prairie Wrestling Alliance, Tenille signed to WWE, where she became known on its main roster and in its developmental territory NXT as Emma. She debuted on Raw in 2014 before returning to NXT in 2015. She later returned to Raw in 2016 but was abruptly released on October 29, 2017. After a tenure in Ring of Honor, she signed with Impact Wrestling until 2022; in both cases wrestling under her real name.
She made an unexpected return to WWE, answering Ronda Rousey's open challenge on October 28, 2022 episode on SmackDown, under her previous ring name.
"Emmataining Tropes":
- Aborted Arc:
- The teased love angle with Santino Marella and their feud with Fandango and Summer Rae were both quietly dropped without any real resolution one way or the other.
- She and Paige made a couple of Instagram videos that seemed to imply that Emma had her eyes on not just becoming Divas Champion, but also on becoming Paige (stealing her jacket, using her catchphrase, putting on a black wig and mimicking Paige's signature roar). After Emma got arrested, released and rehired, the arc seems to have been dropped.
- Her and Dana re-teaming up on the main roster to antagonize Becky Lynch had to be abruptly ended when Emma suffered a serious back injury.
- She was set to return from the back injury as Emmalina, a sort of time-displaced Diva. Hype packages towards Emmalina's return aired for over four monthsnote before being abruptly dropped. Allegedly the angle was canned at the very last minute because Emma couldn't pull off the gimmick.
- Almost Kiss: With Santino Marella until Fandango kicked him in the head.
- Arch-Enemy:
- Kellie Skater had some sort of grudge toward Tenille Tayla.
- Summer Rae once hated her. Depicted mostly in NXT, though the feud between the team of Emma and Santino and the team of Summer and Fandango on the main roster counts as a Mythology Gag, considering the women's history with each other.
- Ascended Meme: A fan with a bubble gun blew bubbles at Emma during one of her entrances. Fast forward a few weeks and she's now using a bubble gun of her own, bubbles are incorporated into her entrance and animations of them even appear in her entrance video.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Summer Rae, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks started beating the crap out of Bayley on NXT, Emma and Paige stormed the ring and chased them off.
- Bitch Slap: Delivered one to Bayley after a grumpy speech failed to affect her.
- Blunt "Yes": At one point during their match together on the August 14, 2014 edition of Superstars, Emma flustered Alicia Fox by executing a two-step move that landed Fox on her ass. Fox crawled out of the ring and screeched out "You don't embarrass me!" Emma's response was a straightforward "I just did."
- Break the Cutie: As of her return to NXT in March 2015, this seems to be the effect of her stint on the main roster.
- The Bully: Turned into one when she returned to NXT.
- Captain Ersatz: She continued using her "All About Me" gimmick after leaving WWE but this time under her real name, similar to what Scott Hall did in WCW.
- The Cassandra: During her 2016 feud with Becky Lynch, Emma always berates the latter for being too dorky while evoking her "nice girls finish last" mentality. And while Lynch seemed to prove her wrong by becoming the first ever SmackDown Women's Champion later that year, she did found herself gradually getting Out of Focus for almost two years after this, and only regained prominence by adopting a Darker and Edgier gimmick change not unlike Emma's.
- Character Catchphrase:
- Her initial WWE run had her attach her name to every word imaginable. "Emmalution," "Emmatainment," "Emmalicious," "Empressive"... Lampshaded once by William Regal on commentary, asking if Tom Phillips expected a royalty cheque every time he attached "Emma" onto a word.
- Becomes "It's All About Me!" during her last WWE run.
- Chef of Iron: She loves cooking, and even had an online Cooking Show on YouTube for a while.
- The Chew Toy: Bubbly Emma spent two NXT matches as a heel, but fans found her gimmick endearing and she quickly became a face.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Bubbly Emma really isn't the brightest bulb.
- Combination Attack: Puts two opponents in head locks and grabs their nearest arms while Jessie McKay jumps on all their backs and wrenches the furthest arms.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Started rocking them at TakeOver: London for her match against Asuka.
- Cool Teacher: Had one — and so another pupil of the technical wizard lands on the WWE's active roster.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Outside of the ring, she's apparently been responsible for accidentally injuring Santino Marella (in kayfabe, of course), but he still loves her.
- Distaff Counterpart:
- Not Emma herself, but after being paired with Santino, she wound up incorporating his Cobra into her arsenal, complete with a bright pink Cobra-esque puppet named Ven-Emma.
- An arrogant heel character who wears black gloves, aviator shades, and one other entrance item in addition to her ring gear, after having played a drastically different face character for quite a long time. Are we talking Evil Emma, or "The Cleaner" Kenny Omega?
- The Ditz: She would frequently injure Santino while trying to show him her gratitude or some affection.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Subverted, as announcers would specifically call attention to her Once an Episode appearances on main programming and say she was from NXT; therefore viewers with any sort of knowledge of how things work in a wrestling promotion would know she was debuting soon. This culminated in a segment where Santino Marella called her out of the crowd and into the ring.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: As her heel turn was completed, her blonde hair became replaced with a balayage of brown into blonde.
- Eye Scream: Summer once
threw bubble solution in her eyes as revenge after Emma won a match against her. - Finishing Move: As Tenille Tayla on the indies she used a running big boot to the side of a bent-over or kneeled opponent's head, similar to MVP's Drive-By Kick. In WWE as Emma she has the Emma Lock (see below). Since her release Dashwood has gone back to using that kick as a finisher, now called Spotlight the Difference.
- Five Moves of Doom: Dil-Emma (a tarantula), Emmamite Sandwich (a crossbody to an opponent seated at the bottom turnbuckle), catapult into the Emma Lock (a Muta Lock).
- Game-Breaking Injury:
- Spent 2006 and 2007 as a member of the Professional Wrestling Alliance's ring crew due to a shoulder injury putting a break on her wrestling. She was signed to WWE but did not report to FCW for over a year in order to get surgery for the shoulder.
- Happened in 2016 with her back, which put her on the shelf for about six months or so.
- Genki Girl: Really gives off this vibe, particularly as a face.
- Goldfish Poop Gang: She and Dana have made a habit of antagonizing just about everyone they can think of. And most of the time they both got their asses handed back to them.
- Gone Horribly Right: As mentioned above, Emma's constant berating of Becky Lynch for her Girl Next Door personality during their 2016 feud, stating that it will "not get the latter anywhere". While it seemed bitterness on Emma's part at first for her own shortcomings while she herself was like that, her claim was validated when Becky in fact found herself gradually Out of Focus for almost two years after losing her SmackDown Women's Title and only regaining prominence after dropping said friendly gimmick over a Darker and Edgier one.
- Happy Dance: The official WWE profile page for Emma quotes Emma as saying that the Emma Dance is her "victory dance" that she does "to celebrate the fact that I am, indeed, a winner."
- Heel–Face Revolving Door:
- While in the middle of a heel turn on NXT, she still competed as a face in matches on the main roster. And earlier when she first turned face on NXT, she still competed as a heel at live events for a while.
- Finally went full heel when she went back to NXT full-time, bullying Bayley and allying herself with Dana Brooke.
- Heel–Face Return: She made an unexpected surprise return to WWE on October 28, 2022 episode of SmackDown, answering Ronda Rousey's open challenge. That return made her a babyface for the first time in five years.
- Hotter and Sexier: The intended goal of her abruptly dropped Emmalina gimmick change was to turn her into a Ms. Fanservice Femme Fatale character akin to Sable and the Kat.
- I Shall Taunt You: The girl spends half of her in-ring time doing the Emma Dance.
- It's All About Me: Since her heel turn, Emma has been using this as a catchphrase during promos, and even shouts "IT'S ABOUT MEEEEEE!" during matches. It would later becomes her last theme song before her release.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: After a failed attempt on the main roster, she became very cynical when she returned to NXT.
- Land Down Under: She is the first-ever Australian Diva.
- Lovely Angels: Tenille Tayla with fellow Aussie in a foreign land Jessie McKay. And with Dana Brooke on NXT as Team Disingenuous.
- Meaningful Rename: Averted, she was supposed to return as Emmalina, a sort of throwback to earlier Divas, but creative thought that she couldn't pull it off.
- Odd Friendship: With Paige, off and on.
- Only One Name: She's simply addressed as Emma.
- Power Stable: In Ring Of Honor, she's part of "Lifeblood" along with Juice Robinson, David Finlay Jr., Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins and Bandido as the The Smurfette Principle of the stable
- Pungeon Master:
- One of Tenille's signature moves was a Yakuza kick she called "Tayla Made."
- Emma has given pun after pun after pun off her name. See Catchphrase.
- One of her moves is named the Emmamite Sandwich, a nod to Vegemite — a popular sandwich filling in Australia. Emma herself is a huge fan of it.
- The Resenter: To Becky Lynch and Bayley. After seeing Lynch and Bayley get over as Girl Next Door types, eventually to the point of achieving WrestleMania moments of awesome, Emma, still carrying the sting of her initial failure, is determined to make sure that whichever one she shares a locker room with learns that "nice girls finish last".
- The Rival:
- Frequently opposed the Canadian Ninjas Portia Perez and Nicole Matthews. Tenille and Matthews have had some periods of cooperation though. Tenille and Veronika Vice feuded over the SuperGirls title throughout Canada but worked together when they were booked as a team by the Prairie Wrestling Alliance.
- Summer Rae. Even when their feud was long over, they still faced each other in numerous singles matches.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: Her heel turn was foreshadowed when she interrupted Bayley's speech with a slap.
- Signature Move: Tenille's were a roaring elbow, Yakuza kick and bridging Indian death lock.
- Tag Team: A special case with The Influence: She first teamed up with Kaleb With a K (aka: Caleb Konley), her personal photographer in Intergender Tag Team Matches, and later on with Madison Rayne as a regular example.
- Took a Level in Cynic: Her main gimmick since returning to NXT (see Jade-Colored Glasses above).
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Santino Marella. Given that he has since retired from in-ring activity, it is likely to stay unresolved.
- Villain Team-Up:
- She was in the middle of a heel turn while tormenting Bayley. Around the same time Dana Brooke was antagonising Bayley's friend Charlotte. So the two formed an alliance known as Team Disingenuous. Both then debuted on the main roster calling themselves The EnD (Emma and Dana) but Emma had to be taken off TV after suffering a back injury.
- Her return to Raw had her teaming up with Charlotte and Nia Jax in a six-woman tag team match against Bayley, Sasha Banks, and now-face Dana Brooke.
