YMMV / Naomi (Wrestler)

• Arc Fatigue: Her 2021-22 feud with Sonya Deville, which went on for over half a year with heel authority figure Sonya openly screwing over Naomi at every opportunity for no reason at all. Even the commentators were pointing out that "We still don't know what Sonya has against Naomi", and when Naomi finally forced Sonya to tell her what her problem was, Sonya simply said that she was annoyed that Naomi wanted to be treated like a main event star when "everybody knows you're just an extra". As well as not being an actual reason for Sonya to abuse her position to constantly ruin Naomi's career, this is also provably false as Naomi is both over with the crowd and a 2-time SmackDown Women's Champion (and the commentators still repeated the line about not knowing what Sonya's problem with Naomi is even the week after that segment, meaning even WWE didn't consider it the real reason). The feud has effectively been going on for over half a year while still at chapter 1, with the same angles repeating over and over again (e.g "Sonya inserts herself into one of Naomi's matches as special guest referee to screw her"). Most fans grew sick of it quickly and rightfully claimed that WWE didn't even have an endpoint in mind. The few who said "wait and see how it plays out" ended up with egg on their faces when the feud just sputtered out, with it turning into a reason for Sonya to feud with Ronda Rousey instead (which was itself just a lead-in to Ronda's WrestleMania match against Charlotte Flair).
• Base-Breaking Character: For years ever since her NXT Season 3 days, Naomi was held up as one of the most underrated and misused women on the roster - and numerous fans clamoured for her to get a push. When she finally did in 2015, results were underwhelming and she developed a strong set of detractors. While the hate seems to be dying off as of her 2016 repackaging, fans seem to split over whether Naomi is underwhelming compared to some of the NXT call-ups or if she's got the talent that warrants another push.
• Broken Base: Her finisher, the "Rear View", where she does a stationary jumping hip attack while doing the splits. A good number of fans think it's awful and doesn't look legitimate enough for a finisher, while others think that it's okay and that it fits her character. A third camp think it's fine for her repertoire but again shouldn't be a finisher. Not helping matters is that Naomi has frequently alternated between that and many other moves over the years.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Her defeat of Alexa Bliss in 2017 for the Smackdown Women's Championship, after seven years of being overlooked and misused. Although the build-up was rather fast, most fans were so overjoyed to see Naomi get her moment that the crowd immediately chanted "you deserve it!"
  • A promo she cut on Paige during her 2015 heel run - Leaning on the Fourth Wall with how little opportunities she'd been getting from creative - was widely considered to be the best she ever cut in her career.
• Critical Backlash: While her heel turn in 2015 wasn't received well, people have come to re-evaluate her heel work as time has gone on; finding that she did play heel quite well from a character point of view, but the problems lay in the circumstances (wrestling style tailored to a face role and then immediately put in the title picture before she had time to work out a new ring style as a heel).
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Even when she and Cameron were valets to Tons of Funk, Naomi was always the most popular stable member. She has been a big favourite among Diva fans ever since NXT season 3. Before the season had premiered, A.J. Lee was expected to be the favourite to win (as she was the most experienced, and had filmed vignettes for a debut on Smackdown that was axed). After the first episode, Naomi suddenly became a favourite too. She's a frequent winner of the Diva Dirt's annual "Most Underrated" award at the end of the year.
  • She's also the only person on Total Divas that doesn't get a lot of hate because of her aforementioned levelheadedness.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Her wrestling gear when she first debuted on FCW TV. Diva Dirt columnists did not hold back.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Her feud with Serena over the FCW Divas' Championship, culminating in Naomi becoming the first champion, is what put a lot of fans on notice that Naomi was serious about wrestling - and a Diva to watch out for in the ring.
  • Happened again in 2016 after the brand split, when, after years of pushing for the raver gimmick, she finally got the chance to go full-tilt with it, including new gear, new music, and a spectacular new entrance that instantly sold her as a star. As a result, she quickly got more over with the live crowds than she'd ever been in her career, which led to a push that, by the end of WrestleMania 33, turned her into a 2x Smack Down Women's Champion.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In 2012 Kaitlyn wasn't able to make it to a live event, and Naomi replaced her for a match against Natalya. Reports described it as "one of the best Diva matches in ages". Fast forward to 2017 where Naomi and Natalya get to wrestle each other on Summerslam. Compare it to their spots in 2012 - where Nattie was a Jobber and Naomi was stuck as a dancing valet - and they end up going for the title in a high profile match on WWE's second biggest PPV of the year. Naomi later called that one of her favorite matches.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Her debut on NXT Season 3. AJ Lee was thought to be the favorite, as Naomi was a complete unknown, but she won the entire crowd over with her unexpected flair in the ring and her victory in a capture the flag contest. When asked to talk on the microphone, she was visibly stunned by how well the crowd received her.
  • Her winning her first title in 2017. Not only was her hard work finally being recognised but the crowd exploded into applause and began chanting "you deserve it!"
• Memetic Badass: Her fans often refer to her as "Slayomi." It's now canon and being referenced on TV.
• Memetic Loser: Ironically falls into this with some fans, considering her poor luck since NXT Season 3. She was the runner-up in favour of the inexperienced Kaitlyn, languished in FCW for over a year while her fellow cast members got called up, her eventual call-up had her stuck in a dancing valet role for a further year, and she's had pushes stopped and started for her routinely. Merging this with the above trope has turned her into something of an Iron Woobie for many fans. Further exacerbating matters is her winning the Smackdown Women's Championship but having to relinquish it due to injury only two weeks later.
• Narm Charm:
  • She wrestled a match while wearing a Hamburger Helper Hand costume - without being affected by the outfit at all. It looked both silly and pretty darn impressive.
  • Some of her rave gimmick's outfits are truly bizarre, but yet still work.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Inverted. She was almost universally praised for most of her career. As of her 2015 heel turn, she's entered Base-Breaking Character status. Some will say that while she plays the heel role decently, she's far better in the ring as a face.
  • This seems to have been played straight as of her 2016 return. She was back to being a Face and had now adopted a gimmick of a raver with a good look and fun entrance. Crowd response to it has been very positive. Some fans are already clamouring for Naomi to get a Smackdown Women's Championship push. When she won the title, fans chanted "you deserve it".
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: When she first turned heel, she adopted a pair of big shades as part of her entrance. She was immediately criticised by smarks for copying Sasha Banks - who wore shutter shades as part of her gear - and dropped them almost immediately. Hilariously though she and Sasha would end up teaming together a few months later.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • It's almost universally agreed that her heel turn was badly thought out and robbed the main roster of a babyface Diva that was both likeable and fun to watch in the ring - especially since Naomi had been trained almost exclusively as a Face and was visibly out of her depth as a Heel. This point was emphasised with a Total Divas episode showing how hard she found it adjusting to the heel role. She herself thought it wasn't a good idea and only went along with it to get a championship push.
  • Earlier in her career, Diva fans were not pleased when Kaitlyn got the NXT Season 3 win and barely featured on TV for months - since she was too green to appear on the main roster regularly, and had to train at FCW. Naomi meanwhile was at least at a point where she could wrestle on TV, and spent a year languishing in FCW while the remaining Season 3 contestants got called up. When she did get called up - in the role of a dancing valet - people were still annoyed at her being so wasted.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • As noted under Aborted Arc, AJ Lee had retained her title in the Vickie Guerrero Invitational by making Naomi's hand tap out. This was never followed up on and could have been a good way to continue a feud that never got started. Especially since they hurriedly had to take the title off AJ and chose to put it on Paige...who then infamously spent three months as champion getting barely any mic time or characterization beyond bland underdog. It could possibly have served the division better to give Naomi the title, given she was an established character somewhat.
  • The Funkadactyls break-up was built up quite well, with Cameron failing at challenging for the title and resenting Naomi's success. Then their first match was just a three-minute affair on a PPV pre-show, where nothing was followed up on. If Total Divas is to be believed, the break-up was started by Cameron wanting to go back down to NXT to train more so it was never going to be a long feud - but more could have been done to set Naomi up as a solo competitor (since she spent the majority of 2014 playing the Token Black Friend to whoever was the top face).
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Her Face–Heel Turn in 2015 was met with Jerkass Has a Point reactions. She already had two pinfall victories over the Divas' Champion, was not given a title match and had to wrestle a battle royal to win the number one contendership. Likewise Paige when she's a face tends to come across as the Designated Hero, making Naomi seem rather justified in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• X-Pac Heat: Only when she wore her Hamburger Helper Hand costume.

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