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Pro-wrestling has come a long way from those times when a gimmick was necessary for a performer and the wrestlers were comparable to circus acts.
Native Americans, hostile foreigners, demented heels and supernatural personas have all ruled the roost in the past before wrestlers embraced a toned up version of their real selfs in the ring.
Women's division in the WWE remained in the old 'bra and panties' state for another decade or so before the focus shifted to the action inside the ring. The glitz and glamour gimmick did work on certain female wrestlers like Torrie Wilson and more recently, Lana, but the issue was that every Diva for more than 20 years was expected to follow the same gimmick -- except for a few behemoths like Jazz and Beth Phoenix who took up the monster heel gimmick.
The scene has become quite better in recent years with the likes of AJ Lee and Bayley breaking down the strictly glamour-based definition of a WWE female wrestler.
But even after the quality of women's wrestling became high, many wrestlers were still saddled with horrible gimmicks that were eventually scrapped.
This list takes a look at five cancelled gimmicks for WWE female wrestlers in recent times.
#1 Female Shield
The Shield has been one of the most memorable stables of recent times. WWE did it by the book in introducing Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, and building them into main event stars.
Dominant as a unit, The Shield were broken up at the right time and just over a year later, the three had claimed WWE Championships.
The impact of the Shield was so great that during the early stages of its inception, WWE wanted to try the same idea in the Women's division in NXT.
Paige, Summer Rae and former developmental talent Anya were supposed to be the female version of the Shield, who were to dish out 'justice'. They even cut a promo for the same in 2013.
If Summer Rae's expressions in the promo are anything to go by, it seems all the better that the female version never saw the light of day. It would have been cool to see Paige in such a group, though.
The concept never went beyond that promo as Anya broke her arm during training and was released shortly after.
#2 Alexa Bliss - Southerner
Alexa Bliss has been a revelation ever since making her debut on the main roster. Playing the role of a cocky heel, Bliss has been great on the mic and regularly has entertaining matches, so much so that she has displaced the much hyped 'Four Horsewomen' to become the best draw in the WWE Women's division.
But it could all have been so different.
The future 'Harley Quinn' of the WWE was initially supposed to run with a 'sassy southerner' gimmick and even shot promos with Scott Dawson where she used a southern accent. You can see the promo below.
Dawson and Bliss were supposed to be the new version of the long forgotten Southern couple that Jamie Noble and Nidia had portrayed in 2003.
Thankfully, WWE did not go ahead with the gimmick and despite not winning the Women's title down at NXT, Bliss made a tremendous impact on the main roster.
Her cocky persona paved the way for the "Five Feet of Fury" to dominate the likes of Becky Lynch on SmackDown and Sasha Banks on RAW, winning the Women's title three times and becoming the only woman to have held the SmackDown and RAW Women's titles.
#3 Becky Lynch - Irish dancer
Rebecca Quinn had her first pro wrestling match way back in 2002. She would then have matches in Europe, North America and Japan before suffering a head injury in 2006 that led to her missing the next seven years of in-ring action.
Quinn decided to take another plunge when NXT came calling in 2013. She was renamed Becky Lynch and made her NXT debut at a live event. So how did the WWE introduce the soon to be ultra-popular baby face? By giving her a generic Irish gimmick.
That is right, Lynch came to the ring dressed in Irish Emerald Green colours, did silly dancing jigs and basically proclaimed that she was Irish -- sort of like a cheerful Finlay without the shillelagh.
That gimmick thankfully ended when Lynch turned heel -- not before she was stuck with a 'headbanger' gimmick that projected her as a demented heel.
That didn't last long either and Lynch finally settled for the popular steampunk gimmick coupled with the goggles which came over as a fair reflection of her natural vibrant self.
Becky would go on to become one of the most popular wrestlers in NXT which led to her getting called up to the main roster. She then became the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion.
This is what Becky said about her debut gimmick. “Let us never talk about that again. You know what, you can’t get worse than that."
#4 Lana - Dancer
Lana made her presence known as the sexy manager of Rusev -- her Russian accent and power suits were very popular with the WWE fans and the positive reaction that she got made the WWE focus more on her singles career.
A split with Rusev led to a face turn and she joined up with Dolph Ziggler only to see the angle meander into a disappointing quadrangular love story involving her, Ziggler, Rusev and Summer Rae.
Not yet trained to have a match inside the ring, she turned heel again and joined with her real-life husband Rusev while the WWE tried to make her match-ready.
Her presence on Total Divas helped the show greatly and it seemed that the WWE fans couldn't get enough of the 'Ravishing Russian'.
Finally, vignettes aired on SmackDown regarding the arrival of a repackaged Lana - and they were a little too steamy for the PG era-WWE. The vignettes showed Lana dancing suggestively with a chair as a prop.
She brought the gimmick to multiple house shows, but when she debuted it on TV, there was no chair and no dancing. Rumours have been circulating that WWE felt that the chair-dancing-Lana might scare away the family-friendly audience and significantly toned down the gimmick.
Lana challenged Naomi for the SmackDown Women's title but the match proved that she was not yet the complete package inside the ring and now looks set to be Tamina's sidekick for the time being.
#5 Emma - Emmalina
No other gimmick has been an utter flop in recent times like the Emmalina fiasco that the WWE fans saw at the turn of the year. An excellent wrestler in NXT, Emma's main roster entry has been hampered after one horrible gimmick after the other.
First, it was the laughably awful gimmick as Santino Marella's valet, alongside those awful hand gestures while coming to the ring. After that tanked, Emma went away for a while before reappearing as a formidable bad ass heel with those black shades and black lips.
While there seemed to be a lot of promise in this gimmick, WWE chose to repackage Emma after she suffered an injury. Emma was basically to transform into Emmalina -- a character more in the mould of Sable and Sunny rather than a technically adept wrestler that Emma really was.
Weeks of vignettes followed and in the end, it went too long. Backstage, WWE officials were not happy about Emma's portrayal of her new seductive self and Emma herself wasn't too keen either.
Finally, all parties agreed to nix the gimmick. But Emmalina did premiere on RAW and immediately announced that she was going to transform herself back to Emma.
The original black shades-wearing Emma was back on RAW within a few weeks, leaving Emmalina to become the butt of jokes regarding poor gimmick choices by the WWE.
