When news broke that Emma, known as Tenille Dashwood in Impact Wrestling, was returning to WWE after half a decade away, was a pleasant surprise.
Sure, after watching the likes of Dakota Kai, Karrion Kross, and the hints of Bray Wyatt make their way back into the WWE Universe, bringing back a performer like Emma, who never won a championship on RAW, SmackDown, or NXT but was a fixture of the “Women's Revolution” made for a fun reaction for fans of professional wrestling who watched the Melbourne, Victoria, Australia work matches from 2012-2017.
But how did it feel for Emma to return to the company and character she left behind half a decade prior? Fortunately, she appeared on Out of Character and peeled back the curtain on that very question.
“It would have been within a few months after Triple H returned,” Emma said via The Wrestling Observer. “I actually was working with Impact and my contract was coming up. Maybe even without realizing it, I had this idea in my mind that maybe I'm done with Impact, and maybe there are other options that I should explore and to see what's possible.”
“That was probably coming from me watching WWE and seeing all these awesome changes and Triple H, what he was doing and I know that I had that kind of rapport with him and all the stuff he did at NXT. Probably in the back of my mind I started thinking, ‘I wonder if I could actually go back to WWE.'”
“It was within a short time after that, probably a month or two, we ended up in touch. He actually said to me that he had been meaning to reach out even sooner, that I've been on his list, and he's just been swamped basically as you can imagine. Next thing you know, I'm actually back.”
When asked if she'd talked to anyone from or with the company since her release, Emma shot the concept down, suggesting that she instead focused on herself.
“Nope. I hadn't spoke to anyone really for five years,” Emma said. “When I left, I definitely was heartbroken. I went out on my own and traveled around the world, did independent shows. I was very removed from WWE for all that time. I hadn't been to a show or really talked to many people even outside my closer friend group.”
“So, it was definitely very random when we spoke. I was thinking some of my best years and where it all started in NXT and that run I had there and the stuff I did with Paige in NXT, the first Arrival and Takeover, we were a big feature for the women on those shows and I was like that was all with Triple H. So, I definitely had that in my mind and had that excitement of the possibilities of working with him again and what we can do and now it's all come together full circle, so very happy to be back.”
Now granted, it's hard to hold Emma soley at face value for her comments, as she began dating Madcap Moss well before she returned to The Fed, but now that she's back, it's sure nice to see the couple on the screen together, especially if it leads to a match against Karrion Kross and Scarlett.
Emma didn't ask to work with Madcap Moss in WWE.
So one would assume that Emma's return to WWE was solely based on working with her shoot boyfriend, right? Maybe so, maybe not, but based on her conversation with Ryan Satin, it sure sounds like the on-screen pairing was an idea from creative, instead of their own cultivated conception.
“I'm still kind of pinching myself sometimes because I really enjoy what I do,” Emma said via Fightful. “Even Madcap and I, we joked about it so many times, ‘imagine if we worked together' and all these storylines we joked about and things we would do, and then I actually end up back, on the same show as him, and then in a storyline together, which we had never discussed. We joked about, but we never really thought it would happen and we didn't discuss it with other people.”
“That wasn't us. It may seem like maybe it was, but he has his own ideas and I have mine. I just thought, ‘okay, they're bringing me back,' and I had this and that in my mind, and a week or two in, they said, ‘we're going to put you guys together.' ‘This is cool, we get to be together and an on-screen couple, what a cool thing.' We're definitely making the most of it.”
So far, the pairing of Emma and Madcap hasn't exactly been fruitful, as the duo are a combined 0-4 since the former's re-debut in WWE, but who knows, WWE has been running mixed tag matches with the couple facing off against Kross and Scarlett so who knows, maybe this could be the start of a beautiful union.
That was one heck of a slap by Emma 😬@Lady_Scarlett13 @realKILLERkross #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/Fmz6mUKRPj
— WWE (@WWE) December 24, 2022
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