YMMV / Tenille Dashwood

• Arc Fatigue: Emmalina had this before even getting her redebut. The promos went on for several months, including several weeks after she was hyped as appearing "next week", leading everyone to just want them to get the hell on with it.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Her main roster run in 2014-2015. She was reduced to a comedy punch line and, while she got plenty of wins, it was mainly on the C-shows and she did absolutely nothing of note - coupled with what seemed to be a regression in her ring skills. Going back to NXT seemed like a step down, but it ended up reinvigorating her as a character.
• Author's Saving Throw: Emma got arrested for 'stealing' (in reality, she was using a self-scanner and forgot to scan an iPod case, and the store needed to meet a quota, so she got arrested) and ended up being fired. The fans went berserk, with quite a few questioning why Emma got fired when people like Cameron (who got arrested for a DUI, lied about where she worked and tried to bribe a cop) and Jack Swagger (who got busted with marijuana) were still on the roster. She was subsequently rehired within two hours. It probably helped that (A) she's the only Australian on the WWE roster and the company was touring there just over a month later (with Emma being featured prominently), and (B) the questions fans were asking could've gotten into the eyes of TMZ, which would not have looked good for their brand.
• Badass Decay: It's not her fault, though. It's pretty much impossible to find a fan who liked that she was paired with Santino. A huge number of fans wanted Emma to go solo.
• Base-Breaking Character: Her new character of Emmalina hadn't even debuted before already getting many, many detractors. It didn't help that the vignettes being played for it made it clear that instead of her old character, she was instead having a modeling gimmick of some sorts. Some people dreaded it, while others pointed out that heel Emma essentially had no gimmick and the Emmalina thing could give her a boost. It ended up not happening anyway, as within a minute of debuting Emmalina she declared she was going back to Emma; after several rehearsals, WWE finally axed the gimmick, since they felt she couldn't pull it off right.
• Comedy Ghetto: Avoided it on NXT as, although she had a comedy gimmick, she was still pushed as a (somewhat) serious wrestler and title contender. But she ended up falling into it on the main roster, mainly due to Flanderisation so that she became a one-note punchline and was not taken seriously at all.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Emma got really popular amongst the fans aware of her work away from the main roster. She ended up being the first of the NXT women to get fully called up, even before Paige! And it should be noted that Paige's call-up was a last minute decision, while Emma's was not.
• Evil Is Cool: Upon adopting the 'Evil Emma' character, she was so cocky and didn't care what anyone thought of her that it made Emma so fun to watch.
• Growing the Beard: Crowd responses to her SHIMMER debut were lukewarm compared to tag team partner Rayna Von Tosh's. Yeah, Tenille Tayla was the bland one. Once she was given a slight makeover (going from brown to blonde, adopting catchier ring gear) and brushing up on her skills, she was held in higher regard.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: During her 2016 feud with Becky Lynch, Emma constantly berates her for being an Adorkable Girl Next Door, stating that it will lead her nowhere much like what happened to Emma herself. While it seemed to be an example of Harsher in Hindsight at first due to Becky becoming Out of Focus for almost two years following her dropping of the SmackDown Women's Championship, this trope came into play when Becky revitalized her career by donning a Darker and Edgier gimmick not unlike Emma's, but as a result got herself significantly more popular than she's ever been.
• Ho Yay:
  • Quite a lot with Paige.
  • With Dana Brooke as well, particularly in a 2017 segment where Dana refused to resume their partnership - which felt very much like a break-up of two bitter lovers.
• Jerkass Woobie: When she returned to NXT, even though she was making a heel turn, it was impossible not to feel sorry for her; she'd been called up to the main roster, seemingly ready for a big push...and then got barely used and had to go back to NXT to restart her career. Her Jade-Colored Glasses were very understandable.
• Narm Charm: The entire point of the dancing gimmick. It was so silly and yet once it got over, it was lots of fun.
• Never Live It Down: Her WWE run was not smooth, to say the least.
  • The Shop-lifting fiasco mentioned above.
  • Her quirky dance as a Face.
  • She got the dubious honor of being known as the first NXT call-up to be sent back there. The fact that she had to acknowledge it on-screen basically added insult to injury.
  • Her performance in the 2014 Survivor Series match which, while noted to be both poorly booked and weakly performed, her work stood out particularly bad in comparison to her NXT work.
  • The botched "Emmalina" gimmick, specifically the Arc Fatigue surrounding its build-up that ultimately went nowhere.
  • On a slightly more positive side, her being the one taking the pin during the infamous Tag Team Squash Match (where she teamed with Paige) that directly led to the #GiveDivasAChance movement which revitalized Women's wrestling in WWE.
• Tear Jerker: The segment that confirmed Emma would be turning heel on NXT. Bayley attempts to give a Rousing Speech to turn her cynicism about the main roster around...and Emma slaps her! It showed a real end of an era for the initial three top faces of NXT (the other being Paige).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Arguably after she debuted on the main roster. Apparently the idea behind her being teamed up with Santino was that since he's a ditzy comedic face and she's a ditzy comedic face, they'd make a good team... except that hardly any of the fans agreed, because on the one hand, Emma by herself is a fan favourite who is quite capable of getting over without assistance; and on the other hand, while it might have been possible to pair her up with a male superstar in a team that would actually work, Santino is definitely not that superstar. Nobody liked the resulting team, which resulted in the two of them getting progressively less screen time, which just led to fans getting angrier. In the end, it took Emma getting punished for accidentally shoplifting and Santino retiring from in-ring work for her to finally get to go solo, and returning to NXT as a heel over a year later for her to finally get some momentum back.
  • The 'Emmalina' character certainly had potential - designed as a throwback to Attitude Era Divas like Sable in particular. The problem however was that Emma was not the right fit for it; a serious wrestler who had proven on NXT that simply being a Dark Action Girl was more than enough to get her over as a heel. However, which woman on the roster was sitting around doing nothing, had a past as a model and could go in the ring in addition to being Ms. Fanservice? Summer Rae! Sadly both women would be released from WWE on the same day.

---