YMMV / Ivelisse Vélez

• Broken Base: The hair change from blonde to brown. Ivelisse herself felt that blonde hair didn't fit her anti-Diva gimmick and had been pushing to go brown while still in WWE. Detractors either thought it made her look too generic, played into the Latino Is Brown stereotype or simply didn't suit her. The red hair is less divisive.
• Critical Dissonance: Most journalists and reviewers saw her match at SHINE 18 against Sweet Saraya as a pit stop before Ivelisse's title defense against Serena Deeb. On Diva Dirt, Ivelisse vs Sweet Saraya was voted match of 2014.
• Draco in Leather Pants: After her FWE run, it's not so unexpected but her "dog kicking" in SHINE didn't immediately take. Not at all helped by the fact she has sympathetic motivations, that the multiple title changes that took place in China weren't too well received back in Florida or that as it once again she was denied an anticipated title defense. Then consider that despite her bad attitude, Ivelisse remained a positive influence on the roster until nearly the last minute of SHINE 23 or that Lexie Fyfe's pre SHINE history is by and large not squeaky clean and it only takes a little twisting of events to paint Ivelisse as the heroic rebel. It also doesn't help that even though she demanded it in the whiniest way possible, fans were expecting and a good deal of them looking forward to Ivelisse's rematch with Nevaeh.
• Dork Age: Even ignoring the spat that got Velez kicked out of the company, every televised match she had in AEW was lack luster, with her best being the tag team match were she and Diamante won in the tournament finals against a Nightmare Family team that included a self admittedly not yet ready Brandi Rhodes. While her matches immediately after leaving AEW didn't set the world on fire either, they were a significant return to form for Velez, showing she had gotten out of whatever funk she was in while working for AEW.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Among the Diva Dirt community she was the favourite among the Tough Enough females - largely because she was easily the best wrestler of them.^note Neither Ariane nor Rima had any training, Michelle had been out of the industry for five years and Christina had been training for a year at FCW.
• Fridge Brilliance
  • Self identifying as "The Baddest Bitch In The Building"? Not only was she part of Perros Del Mal, but she had a cut short feud with Jazz, who self identified with a similar title.
  • Her Tag Team with XO Lishus at first just seems like an odd Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy pairing, more random weirdness on show full of it. But in the context of Lucha Underground, Velez had been forced to reconcile with an ex boyfriend, fend off the unwanted advances of a would be suitor and had her actual boyfriend turned against her by a sadist so it makes sense she would latch on to man of incompatible sexual orientation. Furthermore, Lishus is a cheerleader, and Velez developed an appreciation for cheer leading on "Tough Enough". More still, Velez is lifelong fan of The Headbangers, which means aside from the goofier Ass Kicks You offenses he does she'd be unlikely to see anything odd with a man, gay, straight or otherwise, acting like Lishus.
• Harsher in Hindsight: An episode of Tough Enough shows her getting splashed in the corner repeatedly by Bill DeMott - with special attention to how painful it is for her. While the reasons are vague to this day, her WWE release came from speaking out against his abuse of trainees at NXT.
• Heartwarming Moments: Contralona PR set up Ivelisse, Mosh and Thrasher
• Moment of Awesome: SHINE 35. Two shows prior, Velez and Las Sicarias seem to have slippery champion Taylor Made and the much more numerous VALkyrie stable dead to rights, only for Velez to break her ankle, again, in between SHINE 33 and Mercury Rising, Velez having only been on five SHINE shows since she healed from the last time she broke her ankle, in between SHINE events. With Velez out of the picture, various other wrestlers are maneuvering to get Made in place, culminating in both Madison Eagles and Mia Yim wagering their belts from SHIMMER and TNA, respectively, at SHINE 35. Yim getting knocked off in the lead up by arch nemesis Allysin Kay. Kay happens to have the biggest unsettled grudge of anyone against Made, and in case Made gets out of that, a wildcard battle royal where the winner gets to set the conditions for a title shot is preceding this triple treat all champions match. But Velez surprises everyone by coming back to SHINE, medically cleared to wrestle, five months earlier than her last ankle injury. And unlike last time where her foot was obviously tender, Velez seems to have come back stronger! She not only out wrestles three opponents without showing any obvious vulnerabilities to get her "money in the bank", but "cashes in" during Kay and Eagles's triple threat with Made, meaning Velez had to out wrestle three more again in one night, and did. Ivelisse seems completely spent from it, but it's the most emphatic statement by any SHINE champion to that point, and Velez had no one to top but herself.
• Never Live It Down
  • For a while she couldn't live down her rather catty remarks she made during her Tough Enough exit - where she wished ill on Christina for injuring her (accidentally). Despite the sad reasons for her elimination, it made a lot of fans lose respect for her. In an interview with Diva Dirt Ivelisse admitted she wished she could have been more professional at the time.
  • Her match with Thunder Rosa for AEW, during which she got frustrated with Rosa early on, almost started a shoot fight and then stopped selling entirely, literally rolling her eyes at the camera. It pretty much cemented that she wouldn't remain with the company and would have problems finding work anywhere else. She didn't help her cause afterwards either: she accused Thunder Rosa of being unprofessional despite no evidence for it, tried to brag about almost hitting her for real and tried to pull her tag partner Diamante into the situation by claiming she got frustrated out of worry that Rosa would hurt Ivelisse's tag partner (Diamante would later successfully team up with Rosa herself).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • FCW were setting up the Anti-Diva Army to split and feud with each other. This coincided with FCW being integrated into NXT, and Paige and Sofia Cortez did have a match - that lasted two minutes, had no fanfare and Paige was essentially a Jobber.
  • Sofia Cortez and Caylee Turner never had any interactions in FCW - despite their real life rivalry on Tough Enough. They were both released from WWE after they had only just debuted on NXT.
  • There looked like the start of a program between her and Natalya on NXT, where Natalya lost to Sofia Cortez by countout and then attacked her anyway. But Sofia disappeared from TV for a few weeks, wrestled one final match against Tamina Snuka and then was released. She claims that she was to debut on the main roster soon before she was released, so she may have been feuding with Natalya there.

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