Critical Backlash: Despite the stark hatred, there are a number of fans - including women wrestlers today - who idolised Sable in their childhoods or appreciate her efforts.
Ensemble Dark Horse: To an absurd degree back during her original run in the late 90s. A valet at ringside was hugely popular just for her stunning beauty - to the point where an entire division was brought back just to give her something to do.
Despite Sable being pushed for her looks and the division evolving into T&A matches to make up for her lack of wrestling ability, she was hugely popular. She was popular enough to be pushed as a face of the company, something which women had rarely been able to do in WWE. The only other woman to achieve such popularity had been Wendi Richter back in the 80s. Like her or not, she did result in WWE's women's division getting revived.
And there's the fact that when Sable did get into the ring at first, she pulled off some good moves - such as a TKO, Frankensteiner, wheelbarrow splash and of course powerbombs. These did rely on her having good opponents to help her however.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Back in 1993, Lady Victoria started getting popular in Mexico, working for both EMLL and AAA. One of her red barons was "The Sable Luna", which was Word Salad in the sense "Sable" was associated with Masked Luchador who had a swash buckling gimmick and while Luna Vachon was established, it would be hard to call miss Victoria a combination of the two. Five years later, as Luna feuded with a new female Sable, the title retroactively became very appropriate.
Les Yay: It was subtext in her feud with Tori, and overt when she came back in 2003 to feud with Torrie Wilson.
These days, when WWE is full of supermodel gorgeous women, it's a little hard to see why she was so popular. But back then, Sable was one of the first stunningly beautiful women to be seen in WWE. Ditto for how the crowd reacted to her simply kicking Goldust at Wrestle Mania XIV. Back then people were shocked that such a beautiful lady could also be an Action Girl. These days, not so much.
Sable was also unique for the time in that she was presented as a woman who would stand up for herself, no matter what. The very idea that a female in WWE would feud with a male and wrestle him herself in matches was shocking. This was a full year before Chyna got to join the men's division and have matches of her own. Sable arguably helped open doors for intergender matches to happen in WWE at least. The reason so many girls would cite Sable as their idol was because she gave women a role model in the form of an actual wrestler, rather than a valet. And she did this without compromising her beauty or femininity at all.
Overshadowed by Controversy: A lot of wrestling fans tend to remember her for the amount of heat she reportedly had backstage (especially with Luna Vachon and Torrie Wilson), or else her contract stating she couldn't bump.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: When she was brought back in 2003 WWE's Divas had evolved into legit wrestlers. So she was instead put on Smackdown into more of a character and Fanservice role, playing to her strengths. Whenever she did get in the ring, she took a lot more bumps and got a lot more physical than she had before.
Smurfette Breakout: Perhaps the first woman to do this in WWE, eclipsing Marc Mero in popularity. She indirectly wrecked his career in the process - men on the roster (including "Stone Cold" Steve Austin) refused to sell for Mero since, in their minds, selling for a man who sold for a woman would make them look bad.
When she returned in 2003, Trish Stratus was at her peak. She was considered Sable's Spiritual Successor, and a few Diva fans got disappointed that they didn't feud. Granted Trish could actually wrestle, so that would have been tricky, but they never even interacted for the two years that they were in the same company.
Some fans got hopeful that on the 1000th episode of Raw, when Stephanie McMahon returned as part of the Triple H vs Brock Lesnar feud, that Sable could have also made a one-night return to get into a Cat Fight with Stephanie.
Vindicated by History: A lot of her career tends to be viewed negatively due to her lack in-ring skills, but people are more sympathetic to her attempts to jump to WCW, not only because she was planned to be part of a WCW angle that had to be scrapped, but because "independent contractors" and how pro wrestling companies in the USA misuse the term, became a hot button topic thanks to TNA and ROH disputes years later.
The Video Game
Porting Disaster: The Xbox version suffers from poor frame rate (even on Series X), crashes and inappropriate auto saves. User reviews on the Xbox store seem to be evenly split between "great game despite the bugs" and "bad game because of the bugs."
