Summer Rae / YMMV - TV Tropes

Alternate Character Interpretation: Her corruption of Sasha Banks on NXT. Maybe all she wanted was a friend? Especially since she named their stable the BFFs^note. This theory could be supported by how she and Layla eventually formed an alliance rather than fight over Fandango—and became the best of friends almost instantly.
Badass Decay: On NXT she had an undefeated streak for a while, and formed the Beautiful Fierce Females while still an Alpha Bitch. Upon her call-up to the main roster, she switched characters instead and became a bimbo who could only get fluke wins. While she played the bimbo character probably more naturally, her Jobber status raised eyebrows.
Designated Hero: Her and Layla kinda came across as this in their "feud" with Fandango—what with constantly showing up and screwing with his matches knowing that if he tried to do anything about it he'd be seen as a monster. It was basically the Stephanie McMahon effect all over again. Their becoming tweeners instead of straight faces after that storyline ended only made sense.
Designated Villain: A lot of the time she seems more vapid and stupid than actually mean-spirited. She was still a heel during the break-up of the Beautiful Fierce Females—despite getting kicked out because they didn't like her stealing their spotlight.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Possibly due to her tenure on NXT, Summer Rae got massive pops during the 2013 Survivor Series match which featured basically every Diva on the roster, even above AJ. Numerous Fandango matches have also been interrupted by loud "Summer Rae!" chants. WWE seems to have picked up on it as well, as she's one something of a fast track, appearing on the second season of Total Divas and appearing in the fourth film in The Marine series. She's also a smark favorite despite being stuck as a heel jobber. After the WWE draft, she did not appear on TV for weeks, prompting a Twitter hashtag 'Justice For Summer Rae' to trend worldwide. After a fan released a Twitter DM conversation he had with Mick Foley where they asked about why Summer wasn't being featured more often, Foley basically said she wasn't that great. Fans were furious about this and attacked Foley for it. Keep in mind that Mick Foley is practically a Sacred Cow.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- She and Layla call themselves the SLayers. Summer is a girly blonde, while Layla is an Anti-Hero brunette who's done some pretty nasty things in her time. For extra hilarious points, Buffy's last name is Summers...
- She made her debut as a Face on FCW live events wrestling a heel Paige. When she debuted on NXT, she was now the Alpha Bitch heel against Paige's "cool loser" face.
Jerkass Woobie: Although Summer's usually a heel, and the way she tried to seduce Fandango behind Layla's back while Layla was in love with him was low even by heel standards, when she lost her match at Money in the Bank 2014 and thus her shot at getting Fandango back, her reaction was to cry so hard that she ended up lying back down on the mat, looking sadly at Fandango and Layla leaving together and taunting her. The way that Fandango originally broke up with her added to the sympathy factor.
One-Scene Wonder: When she was in FCW as a ring announcer, she still drew praise from how well she played that role; fans took note of how she announced every match like she was excited to see it happen herself. Sure enough, when NXT was rebranded, Summer was used as a ring announcer while she perfected her wrestling skills in training.
Smurfette Breakout: Within a few months, she was getting chants during Fandango's matches. This ultimately led to her being included in a wrestling role, slowly joining the women's division and being added to the Total Divas cast.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- The Beautiful Fierce Females sadly never got much of a chance to dominate as a top heel stable. The primary feud was between Emma and Paige, and Charlotte had to be taken off TV to get a boob job. By the time she returned, any momentum from her turning on Bayley had been lost. The BFFs ended up mostly putting over the faces of NXT, and Summer eventually had to stop appearing due to her Total Divas commitments. The first time the trio wrestled together was the start of their break-up.
- Summer's pairing with Layla, the Slayers, was also a missed opportunity. Many noted their surprisingly good tag team chemistry in the ring, but the alliance quietly disappeared and Layla eventually decided to retire.
- When WWE started taking women's wrestling seriously in 2016, fans were hoping that Summer Rae would finally get featured as more than just a heel Jobber. Due to an injury, she had to take time off TV. But she was never used again and got released a year later, despite having been ring-ready for months.

YMMV / Summer Rae

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