Trivia / Naomi (Wrestler)

• Cast the Expert: Brought up to the main roster as a dancing valet for Brodus Clay. She was previously a dancer for the Orlando Magic. It also seems rather ironic that she languished in developmental without a character for a whole year - and ended up being given a a dancing one.
• Creator Backlash: If Total Divas is to be believed, she was unhappy with her heel run, due to how different it was from her usual persona. She later said she did it for the sake of getting a title push but knew it wouldn't work out.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • After she failed to win NXT and spent so long in FCW - while her fellow contestants were called up - she contemplated just leaving altogether. She opted to do the Planet Funk gimmick just to get up to the main roster.
  • In 2019, she had to take several months off due to a death in her family and several lingering health issues.
• Doing It for the Art: Claims she initially spent lots of money on finding the right glow-in-the-dark fabric and outfits to really make her gimmick work.
• Dye Hard: More so in her NXT Season 3 days, where she favoured coloured streaks in her hair. Sometimes in the Funkadactyl gimmick too. And of course as part of her current gimmick she has green glow-in-the-dark tips.
• Enforced Method Acting: According to her, she and the rest of the NXT contestants were kept in the dark as much as possible, in the hopes of generating authentic reactions.
• Executive Meddling:
  • When she first started wrestling in FCW, she wore her hair naturally in braids. As she was about to debut on NXT, she was shown a picture of Naomi Campbell and told "we want you to look like this". As a result, she didn't properly start wrestling with her hair in an afro until 2020!
  • She claims that when she was in The Funkadactyls, she was told to tone her athleticism down so as not to make the less-experienced Cameron look bad.
• Fan Community Nickname: 'The Glow Squad' appears to be the one Naomi is pushing for, whereas a few fans use 'The Naomob'.
• Playing Against Type: She debuted as a heel in FCW and they tried to push her as such, but she ended up being pushed as a face to win the first Divas' Championship. She also appeared as a face on TV until 2015 - where she tried a heel run. Even so, she was back to being a face the next year.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • It appeared that they were building toward Naomi competing for and possibly winning AJ's Divas Championship — up until an overly stiff knee drop from Aksana fractured Naomi's orbital socket. She was more or less pushed aside in favor of a new face fresh from developmental, and the rest, as they say, is history.
  • She suffered an injury when she won the Smackdown Women's Championship from Alexa Bliss and thus had to relinquish it two weeks later. But then the injury recovered and she was able to return in time for WrestleMania to reclaim the title.
• Romance on the Set: Currently married to Jimmy Uso.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Despite being incredibly talented on NXT Season 3, the win went to Kaitlyn who had barely any training and had to go back to FCW to train anyway after the show was over. Over the next year, the rest of the NXT Season 3 Divas would debut on the main roster - A.J. Lee, Aksana and Maxine - while Naomi would remain on FCW. When she finally was called up, it was in a valet role. It was another year before she actually started wrestling.
  • She's also had pushes routinely started and stopped for her. After getting put on the injured list and returning with plenty of momentum against AJ, she gets forgotten about and shunted aside in favour of Paige. Then after putting on a stellar match at Money In The Bank, she gets forgotten about again to make room for AJ's return.
  • If this Cageside Seats Rumor Roundup bears any weight, then Naomi was denied her long-anticipated Divas Championship at Elimination Chamber 2015 because Vince McMahon "changed his mind." She ate the pin in the Triple Threat, and her push after her Face–Heel Turn has seemingly been dropped, to the point of her not appearing on TV for two weeks after the PPV — only to finally reappear on Main Event, a B-show.
• What Could Have Been:
  • She and Cameron did a gimmick in FCW where they played Heels who were Jive Turkeys to Byron Saxton, Cameron being the Screaming Woman of the group - complete with coloured wigs and bodysuits. They did it for one set of tapings before it was dropped completely.
  • It was rumoured that Naomi's 2015 storyline involving The Miz was going to result in her turning heel and hooking up with him. The storyline was quietly dropped, though she did eventually turn heel on Paige later in the year.
  • She claims that she had been pitching the rave gimmick for years before they finally let her do it.