YMMV / Carmella

• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • The tension between her and Nikki Bella escalated to new levels when Carmella started attacking her about her relationship with John Cena - leading to some fans to wonder if Carmella was secretly demanding that Nikki fall in love with her instead.
  • Earlier on NXT, the sexual tension between her and Alexa Bliss was intense. They were this close to doing a Headbutt of Love during an interview. Not helped by Alexa having No Sense of Personal Space.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Running Gag of Enzo making advances on Carmella only to get rebuffed has become very uncomfortable given A) Enzo receiving rape allegations that surfaced in 2018 and ultimately resulted in him getting released from WWE (although the accusations ultimately didn't advance further), and B) Big Cass's series of erratic behavior that resulted in him getting released by WWE reportedly included making advances on Carmella, by then his ex.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • When she won a title match against Bayley, many fans expected she would turn heel on her — as so many had in the past. While Carmella did turn heel on the main roster, it's still amusing that she's one of the few Bayley friends who haven't done so by back-stabbing her, and the two have even teamed up as heels following Bayley's own turn.
  • She and her real-life boyfriend at the time Big Cass both had their in-series Moral Event Horizon within 24 hours of each other — Carmella using the weakest man in WWE to win her the first ever Women's Money in the Bank ladder match, Cass officially betraying their longtime friend and partner Enzo Amore after being outed as his backstage attacker. And for what it's worth, Carmella was fully on board with Cass's Face–Heel Turn.
• LGBT Fanbase: Carmella is quite popular among the gay community.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Carmella's performance in a triple threat match against Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss. She comes close to winning several times, and even to pinning Nia. She has a counter for nearly everything Nia throws at her, and the woman is visibly thrown off at the fight Carmella is putting up. Although Nia wins eventually, Carmella still hugely impressed.
  • There's also her completely dominating Nikki Bella during their match at the No Mercy PPV. Carmella at that point is a rookie with only a couple years of training. Nikki Bella was the longest reigning Divas' Champion. Carmella wrestled a strong ground game, ruthlessly targeting Nikki's surgically repaired neck and stayed on top of her for 90% of the match. Although Nikki wins, she only gets a momentary burst of offence, catching Carmella off guard for a moment. Out of kayfabe, it shows that management have a lot of faith in Carmella to have her dominate the former Divas' Champion like that.
  • One of Carmella's early Awesome Moments was a promo against Blake and Murphy right before Enzo and Cass challenged them for the titles. The duo had been trying to sweet talk Carmella with presents and flowers, hoping to lure her away from Enzo and Cass. There was genuine doubt whether she would take the bait, given that she pointed out Enzo and Cass weren't treating her better. But Blake and Murphy attacking them backstage and later costing Carmella a win was enough for her to give them both a "The Reason You Suck" Speech on NXT. It solidified her Face status and showed that Carmella was quite impressive on the microphone.
  • Her scathing promo on the SmackDown after having James Ellsworth, a man, essentially win her the inaugural women's Money in the Bank ladder match. Tasked with making sure the nuclear heat from the fallout would be firmly cemented as heel heat rather than go-away heat, she played the segment perfectly, portraying Ellsworth as an extension of her own agenda, showing self-righteous indignation at being reprimanded for how she won a match with no rules, and in the process winning a lot of fans over.
  • Carmella finally cashing in the contract and winning the Smackdown Women's Championship from Charlotte Flair to a series of massive pops. And than successfully defending it against Charlotte the following month and pinning her clean. 'Mella is Money indeed.
  • While she lost the match, her performance in the triple threat match between her, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair was widely praised, with many noting the vast improvements Carmella has showed since her controversial run as Smackdown Women's Champion.
• Moral Event Horizon: The way she became the first-ever Ms. Money in the Bank, by having James Ellsworth knock Becky Lynch off the ladder, then climb said ladder and retrieve the briefcase, then hand Carmella said briefcase, is seen as an In-Universe MEH and a point of annoyance for viewers not for being particularly violent or perverse, but for making a mockery of what was supposed to be a historic match. It was so bad that despite Carmella somewhat justifying it with the promo she gave the SmackDown after the event, General Manager Daniel Bryan proceeded to strip her of the briefcase and have a redo of the ladder match with Ellsworth banned from ringside. Not that it mattered, since Carmella won again anyway.
• Most Wonderful Sound: "Bada bing, hottest chick in the ring. How you doin!"
• Narm Charm: Her acting alternates between serious and overly bad, she's silly and it's quite obvious that her New York accent is fake, but she's still endearing.
• Older Than They Think: As a female wrestler to go through WWE developmental with a character from Staten Island who's implied to be a Mafia girl, Carmella is actually predated by FCW's Serena Mancini right before she joined the Straight Edge Society.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • When Carmella was added to Enzo and Cass's act, fans immediately rejected the idea of someone joining the duo due to fears of the third wheel messing up the dynamic of the team. This hatedom increased, and even started to turn fans on Enzo, due to the Running Gags of Enzo being sexist towards her and getting hit for it every time, and Enzo's frequent hitting on Carmella despite her stated lack of interest in him. This extended to Carmella working as the sole heel member of the group when she started appearing in the ring, and predictably, she was largely booed by the crowd at first. The hate subsided after the unpopular gags were dropped, and Carmella's gimmick slowly shifted to something more in line with Enzo and Cass's babyface personas as she began actively supporting the guys in their chase for the NXT tag team titles. Almost immediately afterwards Enzo was back to being the Ensemble Dark Horse of NXT, and now Carmella gets cheered right alongside the guys as well as when she's on her own. The fact she has since had more singles matches also helped, given the popularity of NXT's women's division.
  • When Carmella won the No. 1 contender spot for the Women's Championship, her real-life friendship with Bayley suddenly came into play for the story. A lot of people were expecting some kind of swerve where Carmella turned on Bayley out of jealously, which tends to happen in most Bayley angles. However, they stayed friends throughout and fans were treated to a rare face vs. face title match, where Carmella held her own and was gracious in defeat, cementing her babyface status. Many fans consider that storyline the Growing the Beard moment for Carmella, and were highly upset that she didn't join Enzo and Cass on the main roster when they were called up, but are glad that she's trying to perfect her wrestling skills first.
  • Her bizarre partnership with R-Truth for Mixed Match Challenge has created a great chemistry. Combined with dying her hair a bright reddish-purple and such antics as their "Dance Breaks", Carmella has won back many fans after her polarizing run as champion by being more her goofy, upbeat personality (not to mention her in-ring work, which had been largely limited as a heel, became significantly better after the face turn).
• Smurfette Breakout: Why she didn't get called up with Enzo and Cass. On Breaking Ground, the documentary series for WWE NXT, Triple H outright told both of them that Carmella wasn't going with them to the main roster because they believed she had the potential to be a star on her own. She did, and ironically, she ended up becoming the most successful member of the group, though not in a way one would expect. Cass got put onto the shelf by an injury after his breakup feud with Enzo, killing whatever heat he had. As for Enzo, it seemed he would subvert this after he became Cruiserweight Champion and the top heel of 205 Live — until rape accusations started popping up in 2018. He was originally just suspended indefinitely, but when it was revealed that the accusations stemmed from October, as did the police investigation (which he most definitely knew of), he was immediately sacked. Most importantly though, he didn't tell WWE that there's a police investigation going on him (something that is a no-no on any company in the world, let alone a globally-known company like WWE) and the company started un-personing him as a result. Then Cass returned, but was fired in June of the same year, leaving Carmella as the only member of the team still employed with WWE.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Her original entrance music, "Fabulous" is an obvious knock-off of "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea.
  • Her late 2021 entrance music, "She's Bad" is likewise a knockoff of "Girls in the Hood" by Megan Thee Stallion.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Charlotte absolutely owning Carmella during a contract signing in which she slammed her head into the table and flipped it over onto her.
  • Few were sad to see her finally drop the Smackdown Women's Championship back to Charlotte at SummerSlam 2018.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Her not being called-up with Enzo and Cass. And when she was called up during the Brand Split, she was drafted to SmackDown while Enzo and Cass went to Raw. It wasn't until the above mentioned Author's Saving Throw that she found her footing on the main roster.
• Tear Jerker:
  • After losing her Smackdown Women's Championship to Charlotte Flair in the SummerSlam 2018 triple threat match, Carmella couldn't believe that she lost her title and begins to cry.
  • After a long, mysterious absence from WWE programming, the sudden reveal in November 2022 that this had been because of two lost pregnancies less than 3 months apart.
• X-Pac Heat: Carmella received a large amount of hatred from fans during as run with the Smackdown Women's Championship, with many seeing her as a undeserving champion due to her weak wrestling ability in comparison to other women of SmackDown (ex. Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Naomi, the IIconics). It didn't really manage to be that horrific until she gave the recently drafted Asuka (as in, the longest reigning NXT Women's Champion of all time who left the brand undefeated) her first (and eventually second) pinfall loss in WWE.