The Wrestling Underground, Wrestling Opinion

IMPACT Signs Tenille Dashwood and Fans are Perplexed

In a move that can only be summed up as “Lance Storm wanted this”, IMPACT Wrestling has officially signed Tenille Dashwood, formerly Emma in the WWE.  The often embattled Australian grappler trained under Lance Storm for some time early in her career and Storm now works for IMPACT.

Dashwood is a curious case because we kept being told how good she is, but have never actually seen how good she is.  She’s had some good matches here or there, but even when she was on her own in the indies she wasn’t turning heads.

She burnt out hard in the WWE, never securing a fan base to warrant air time. Then she got busted for shoplifting.  WWE salaries must be so huge, am I right?  After she built her way back up and after that stupid hand point gimmick, she finally gets brought back as Emmalina.  The gimmick is some sort of modeling idea but it never gets off the ground, and a loss to Asuka later and she’s let go.

Her run in ROH wasn’t even bad, it was forgettable.  Never mind ROH’s lack of general interest these days, but even a relative unknown commodity like Kelly Klein got people to take interest in her.   Emma for over a year did nothing of value in the promotion other than gain awareness for skin conditions.

That’s fair, I get that, nothing wrong with that.  But when your brand is now more associated with the dangers of dermatitis than you are a bad ass wrestler, that says everything you can.  Finn Balor is a gay rights activist, but that’s not who we see him as a combat artists, no.  He’s Finn ‘The God Damn Demon’ Balor, who’s also an advocate.

Dashwood hasn’t had one match that I would consider signing her off of.  With the roster that IMPACT has, with Tessa Blanchard, Jordynne Grace, Rosemary, and Kiera Hogan, someone like Dashwood is coming in and that’s not helping anyone.  Talent like Shotzi Blackheart, Delilah Doom, Mercedes Martinez and even Jazz have all done more than enough to warrant a shot at IMPACT’s top prize for women.  We need more Tessa Blanchard/Jordynne Grace’s in the company, not more WWE cast away’s.

Dashwood falls into the Jessicka Havok, Johnny Impact, Rob Van Dam models of bringing in past their sell-by-date cast off’s and hoping to squeeze something out of them.  The company needs to associate action as their brand, not more of what’s failed in the WWE.

I’ll give Dashwood an opportunity to work off that reputation, but she’s got a long way to go.  Considering her name, and who put in the good word for her, I think she’s going straight to the title scene.  Typical.  More of the same for Scott D’Amore and his crew.