From hairdresser to former SmackDown Women’s champion and two time Miss Money in the Bank, Carmella has had an interesting run in WWE. She’s accomplished many things that’ll secure her spot in the history books for sure. She’s got a good look, she’s charismatic on the mic, and she can go in the ring when given the chance. However, it seems there’s always something, or rather someone, holding her back. It seems when Carmella is finally breaking through on her own, WWE places a man in her way. Throughout Mella’s career, she’s had multiple men to manage or to act as her sidekick. While not all bad, the consequences of some of these decisions have caused her to take a backseat in own storylines. Let’s take a look back at Carmella’s career, and the men in it.
NXT: Enzo Amore and Big Cass
After losing her job as a hairdresser backstage due to Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady's antics, she demanded they teach her how to wrestle. A couple weeks later she won in her in-ring debut and was paired with the two. I quite liked this trio honestly. This was Carmella’s TV debut, and pairing her with this charismatic team helped her show off her own talents. They all looked good together, and they had some funny segments too. Their rivalry with NXT Tag Champions Blake and Murphy was great. However, Carmella was mostly just Amore and Cassady’s valet. Sure, she had her own matches and feuds, but the primary focus was always on the tag team. The trio was split when Amore and Cassady were drafted to Raw, leaving Carmella behind in NXT. A couple months later in the 2016 Brand Split, Carmella was surprisingly drafted to SmackDown. With Amore and Cass still on Raw, there were concerns about how she would do on her own and if the moon walking, trash talking princess of Staten Island could make a name for herself without her boys.
SmackDown: James Ellsworth
As the last overall pick of the draft, the future seemed uncertain for Carmella. However, she was the most successful she's ever been during this era and went on to have a better career than her former NXT teammates. Carmella established herself as a heel after a great and lengthy feud with Nikki Bella. The Fabulous Princess of Staten Island was coming into her own. In a surprising turn of events, she aligned herself with James Ellsworth. Ellsworth was a glorified jobber WWE was putting on TV because he looked funny. He was even having storylines with AJ Styles for the World Title. After an assault by Styles, Carmella offered to help Elsworth’s with his injuries. She even called him “uniquely attractive” the next week. By manipulating Elsworth with the idea there could be something more between the two, Carmella had found someone who would do anything she said.
During the very first women’s Money in the Bank ladder match in 2017, it was Elsworth that climbed up the ladder, grabbed the briefcase and handed it to Carmella. This decision was rightfully met with a lot of backlash. The very first women’s MITB match and the briefcase was retrieved by a man. On the SmackDown following MITB, Carmella was stripped of her briefcase and a rematch was made. This time Ellsworth still tried to retrieve the case, but Becky Lynch threw him off the ladder and stopped him from repeating history. As Lynch was moments away from grabbing the case, Carmella stopped her in her tracks with a chair shot. This gave her the chance to climb up the ladder and grab the briefcase on her own. I felt this match’s ending was the one they should have done the first time. It was a great, cowardly heel move that yes, still involved a man, but played to Carmella’s heel character. Couple of months later, after failing to beat Lynch in an inter-gender match, Carmella super-kicked her chinless sidekick. When he became of no use to her anymore, Carmella was more than ready to leave him behind. With Ellsworth gone, this was a chance for her to start a new chapter.
Following this, she had a memorable run with the briefcase that lasted 287 days. She had an exciting cash in on the Smackdown after WrestleMania were she beat Charlotte Flair and became Smackdown Women’s champion. Later, she moved into a feud with Asuka. The two had a match at 2018’s Money in the Bank, where we saw the return of James Ellsworth. He distracted Asuka and helped Carmella retain her title. Carmella’s solo run was nice while it lasted, and now she was back to needing Ellsworth’s help. This return of assistance also interfered in her match qualities. With her cowardly character, she had to find more ways to cheat and avoid offense. Her matches with Asuka were not the best and made even worse with Ellsworth’s interference. What could have been a great way to make a desperate heel character who finds creative ways to cheat to keep her title at all costs, was now thrown away to keep the funny-looking guy with no chin on TV. WWE didn’t trust Carmella on her own, and they needed something to distract from her in-ring skills. Luckily this partnership only lasted for a few weeks, but it negatively affected Asuka and Carmella’s feud and their momentum. Carmella did get to end her title reign on a high note when she lost the title in a pretty good triple threat match at 2018’s SummerSlam against Charlotte and Becky Lynch.
R-Truth
Nearing the end of her reign, a running joke was started that R-Truth wanted to get a title shot “the same way everyone else does”. By pinning Carmella. Their segments of Truth’s determination to get a match with the very confused Carmella were hilarious. After mistaking Maryse for Carmella and upsetting The Miz, Truth convinced Carmella to accompany him ringside for their match. This new partnership started Carmella’s face run. We saw a new attitude and a new change in hair color! Mella hadn’t been a baby face since her NXT days, so now she was able to show off her personality and do some comedy stuff with Truth. The pair even won the 2018 Mixed Match challenge. The two seemed to have a lot of fun in their roles, and you could tell they had genuine chemistry.
After a failed attempt at a tag team with Naomi and a short-lived feud with Fire and Desire, Mella went back to managing Truth. She would help him keep his 24/7 championship by finding creative ways to escape the mob of jobbers going after his title. She even got the chance to have a run with the title herself. However, this alliance between the two ended when another draft came around that ended brand to brand crossovers. This left Carmella still on SmackDown and Truth on Raw. This era for Carmella was really fun. R-Truth is always hilarious and he can make anything entertaining. I felt this alliance helped Mella a lot and showed her she could branch into other characters. It proved she could be a good face, showed she could be funny, and it gave her TV time when she could have easily been lost in the shuffle.
Reginald:
Late 2019 to Mid 2020 was a weird time for Mella. She was racking up wins and even got herself a title match against Bayley. The two had a great match on SmackDown, and it seemed like this momentum was going to follow her. It did not. She and Dana formed a random tag team that lasted a couple of weeks. She had a good showing in that year’s MITB match but was not seen on TV after that. It seemed her future was uncertain until some vignettes started airing on SmackDown in September. It showed a mysterious woman who seemed to be very glamorous and luxurious. It was revealed Carmella was the mystery woman, and she was back. But this time she was “untouchable”. Carmella needed to revamp her character, so this was a welcome change. But how would this new gimmick differ from the Fabulous Carmella we were so familiar with?
On an episode of Smackdown, she made her debut by attacking the Smackdown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks. This character seemed to be more hard hitting and vicious, but she was still glamorous while doing it. She was delusional, and she was crazed with winning. She was smashing champagne bottles on Sasha and then drinking right after. Her entrance consisted of her doing a sexy dance behind a white curtain, and then strutting down to the ring and posing seductively. She had two excellent matches with Banks for the title. Sasha can make anyone look like a million bucks, which Carmella needed with this new character. With this new gimmick they gave her a sommelier. It seemed fitting for her to have someone to do her dirty work or fetch her a glass of wine when asked. However, things quickly took a turn for the worst when Reginald was getting more and more involved with Carmella and Sasha's storyline. He began having a crush on Sasha, which caused him to have more screen time with her than the actual person Sasha was feuding with. Carmella and Bank’s feud started with great promise, but after their match at TLC, the hype died down when they prioritized Reginald and his infatuation with Sasha. After The Royal Rumble PPV, Carmella fired Reginald. Reginald ended up inserting himself in Sasha and Bianca Belair’s feud, which negatively affected their build to WrestleMania. Currently, he's in a storyline with the Women Tag Team Champions Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler. Carmella ended up being outshined by her own sommelier.
What now?
So where does this leave the Untouchable One? She teamed with Billie Kay for one night at WrestleMania 37. This seemed like a great opportunity for both women, but that same week Billie Kay was fired from WWE. On the Bella Twins' podcast, Carmella voiced her displeasure for this decision and for her current role in WWE.
“All I can speak from is my experience and we were super excited for this story. I felt like ‘I’m done with this whole sexy gimmick they want me to do or try to be sexy.’ Which is fine and it’s fun to be sexy, but I wanted to show my personality more. I wanted to show a little bit more of a fun side. And I was really looking forward to doing that with Billie. Our entrance alone, she was cracking me up. She was so funny. I was really looking forward to where that was going to go. And obviously, unfortunately, we can’t do that any more.”
It seemed WWE forced her to do the whole sexy, Untouchable gimmick. The problem with this gimmick is there is only so much you can do with it before you have to change it up or add another layer to it. I’d love to see the Untouchable character become more deranged and hungry to win by any means necessary. Or they could have had a great comedic team in Billie Kay and Carmella with Billie becoming Carmella’s new sommelier. Even Carmella herself wants to do more comedic stuff to show off her personality. This would have been a great way to keep both women on TV and give the women’s tag division some more depth. We got a glimpse of how funny she can be in her run with R-Truth and with her partnership with Big E in 2017’s Mixed Tag Team Challenge.
The future doesn’t seem all too bad, seeing as she just won in a random match on SmackDown last week. Carmella’s now calling herself “WWE’s Bombshell” and still incorporating elements from her "Mella is Money" gimmick; so we’ll just have to see what they have planned for her. I just hope it will be on her own this time.
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