More details about Emma’s return to WWE.
After nearly five years since being released from WWE, Emma made her return to the company in October 2022. She answered Ronda Rousey’s open challenge for a SmackDown Women’s Title opportunity.
Emma was not victorious in the bout, but present day, she is featured on-screen with her real-life significant other, Madcap Moss. Emma joined Ryan Satin on the newest episode of Out of Character and she opened up about the day of her return to WWE.
She shared that she was not hidden or kept a secret. She was told to walk into the arena when she arrived to the venue and in addition to that, her name was shown on the big screen as her entrance video was being set up and she was contacted by people who saw it. Emma said it felt normal being backstage and there was a lot of reminiscing.
So funny story actually I guess, before that [her return], all the returns had been secret and hidden for the day and all of that. But, mine was the open challenge with Ronda [Rousey] and so I found out very last minute, kind of a couple days before. Maybe I got my flight the day before I was flying out and then, it was, ‘You’re answering the open challenge and here’s your travel’ and whatever it was so, then I was like, ‘Well how does this work? Is anyone gonna see me at the airport or am I supposed to hide? What do I do?’ And then I guess the feedback was kind of like, ‘It’s fine if people see you, even on the day’ and I was like, ‘Okay’ and then so, some people are on buses or whatever it is on the day, hidden and they just told me just to walk on in at call time and just go to the locker room so, here I am after five years just waltzing on in with everyone else. Just, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Hey, it’s me.’ I just walked on in to the locker room like normal and when I got there — actually, I have this video I have to upload still but, it’s of me walking into the arena and just somehow, coincidentally, as I did, my name was on the tron and they were kind of getting it ready so I thought, well clearly not a secret because at this point, there’s this giant ‘Emma’ written on the arena and you know, everyone’s seen it so then, I started to get text messages and everything and people started to clue in and like, ‘Are you at SmackDown? I’m seeing that you’re gonna be on SmackDown tonight. What’s happening?’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t deal with all this right now’ but, yeah, it was not a hidden thing, it was not a — I guess it was a secret up until the day and then people did start to clue in and that was also fine. It wasn’t a big deal that people found out a little before and yeah, and then next thing I know, my music’s hitting and I’m like, ‘Welp, let’s do it.’
It was weird because it felt kind of normal [being backstage at WWE] but at the same time, I’m like, I haven’t done this in five years and there’s so many new faces too, and old faces but people, they’re just shocked to me, like, ‘What are you doing here? Emma?’ It was definitely a lot of reminiscing and catching up and then yeah, it was a very exciting, fun day.
Further commenting on the return, she said there were people who thought her comeback was a one-off appearance.
People were asking me too, ‘Oh, are you signed now? Or is this just for the night?’ And people really thought it was just a one-night thing [coming back to WWE], like I just decided to take the match and that was it but I was like, ‘No, I’m here. I’m staying’ [Emma laughed]. Can’t get rid of me this time, you know?
In the years she was away from WWE, Emma spent time on the independent scene, in Ring of Honor and IMPACT Wrestling. She explained how she feels she has grown since her previous go-round in the company. She mentioned that she would try to give advice about the production side of wrestling in the places she worked prior to returning.
I think it’s helped me a lot [being outside of WWE] because for one, I was able to work with so many different talents that I had never seen or heard of so it definitely helped me as far as leading in the ring and working with different experience levels and kind of helped me to step it up and make sure that I could get a good match with these various opponents that sometimes I didn’t know anything about until the day, you know? So, that definitely helped a lot and then, just working with people behind the scenes. There’s not always a writing team, there’s not always, you know, people that are helping with the creative side of things or the matches so it’s very different and you’re kind of just thrown into it and you’re just gonna make it work so I think for me, it’s good to work with different people to have those different experiences and I just learned a lot I think and maybe it helped me to be a bit more competent in what I do because I was kind of forced to know what I’m doing, if that makes sense.
And I think it was cool too because I tried to, you know, pass on that knowledge that the people wouldn’t have had from TV so if it was like, ‘Well we should do it this-this way and so that the camera catches us, the best side of this’ or whatever it was or just highlighting certain aspects of a match or even just opening up to the camera or whatever it was, like the look. Just the important things and just kind of try to communicate that to people I was working with and try to create the best product we could wherever I went so, I thought that was definitely fun for me… I play different characters, I was just kind of on the spot sometimes. It’s very similar to WWE in ways and you just kind of, when it’s go time, it’s go time but just being in different scenarios I think helped me grow for sure as a performer.
On the most recent episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Emma had a run-in with Scarlett and slapped her. Karrion Kross stopped Scarlett from retaliating.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Out of Character with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
