10 Hyped WWE Debuts That Were Total Misdirections
It's good, but it's not the one.
The Raw debut and demise of the 'Emmalina' persona left viewers scratching their heads, after seventeen weeks of abstract build-up were flushed away when she announced an immediate reversion to her old character.
It remains to be seen what will happen next for the former NXT favourite, but it's not the first time a gimmick has been aborted upon appearing in front of live crowds after a trademark WWE run of polished and well-produced vignettes.
Often due to how the person looks or acts in the flesh, WWE are forced to tweak the presentation from whatever concept they'd initially drafted and completely re-invent a character or story.
But equally, it appears that sometimes the company employs a last minute twist just to get a kick out of fooling its own audience.
Looking back at some of the biggest offenders, here are 10 Hyped WWE Debuts That Were Total Misdirections.
10. Nathan Jones
Labelled 'The Colossus of Boggo Road' after the seven years he spent incarcerated in the infamous Australian maximum security prison, Jones was promoted in vignettes as an unhinged psychopath ready to take his suppressed rage out on the WWE roster.
Despite the concept of a dangerous loner brooding from inside his now-open cell, during his early-2003 debut, Michael Cole explained a student/teacher relationship Jones had crafted with The Undertaker, casting the monster in quite a different light altogether.
It was this storyline WWE chose to persist with, with Jones partnering Undertaker in his battles with A-Train and The Big Show, dropping the entire maniacal element in favour of a sub-Karate Kid underdog story.
The strange shift in focus saw two memorable low-points befall for the character as a result.
Jones and Taker first enacted a woeful 'training' segment, knocking some locals around in the ring while the crowd were filing in, followed by reality and fantasy colliding when the mammoth Australian was pulled from the planned WrestleMania 19 tag team match due to a total lack of confidence in his ability.
Despite a lackadaisical run-in by Jones on the 'Show of Shows', all steam was lost, and even after further fine-tuning and a brief heel turn, he was gone from the company before 2004.