Emma's WWE Career at a Crossroads Ahead of No Mercy 2017

Emma should be riding a wave of momentum into Sunday's No Mercy pay-per-view event, where she will join Bayley, Nia Jax and Sasha Banks in challenging for Alexa Bliss' Raw Women's Championship in a Fatal 5-Way match.

Instead, she will enter Los Angeles' Staples Center at a crossroads, with her career facing great uncertainty as she prepares for her first televised title opportunity since WrestleMania XXX on April 6, 2014.

Consistently one of the better in-ring performers in the Raw, SmackDown Live or NXT women's divisions, she has been undermined by inconsistent booking, a lack of character identity and a major creative flop that unraveled months of promotion.

A Revolutionary

It is commonplace to hear Emma tout the idea that she started the women's revolution as a means of garnering heat and getting her heel persona over. The fact of the matter is the young performer is not that far off with her assertion.

NXT Arrival in April 2014 saw the Aussie challenge Paige for the brand's women's title in one of the more anticipated matches. For 12 minutes, the competitors waged war in a physical, critically acclaimed match that generated buzz for women's wrestling. More important than the fact that Paige retained her title, though, was the idea that there was an audience eager to accept and embrace women's wrestling on an international scale.

Emma's influence on that match cannot be overstated.

She set the tone of the match and matched Paige's physicality throughout. It was the second match between the two that helped establish the brand's championship and announce to the world that women's wrestling could be taken seriously, even in the sports entertainment empire that was WWE.

It was a shame that this talented young competitor had debuted on the main roster as a glorified comedy act whose true in-ring abilities were rarely on display.

Some three years after she sparked a revolution that Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Bayley and Becky Lynch would eventually become the standard bearers for, it is easy to forget how instrumental Emma was in elevating the stock of women's wrestling in WWE.

She was the test dummy—a Superstar thrown into an uncertain situation with the future of women's wrestling on her back. With Paige, Emma ensured there could be a high-profile Triple Threat match at WrestleMania. She was instrumental in guaranteeing Charlotte, Banks, Lynch and Bayley would have the opportunity for an increased role in NXT and, eventually, the chance to headline television and pay-per-view on the main roster.

Which is why her status in the company is even more disappointing in hindsight.

Failed Gimmicks, Missed Opportunities and a Demotion

The quirky girlfriend of career comedy act Santino Marella failed to connect with audiences. Emmalina was a massive flop in which months of vignettes aired, only for Emma to denounce the character upon her arrival and revert back to her heel persona.

In between the two, from a professional standpoint, was a disappointing demotion back to NXT.

The silver lining? A heel turn allowed her to find her confidence again. Teaming up with the equally as arrogant Dana Brooke, Emma found new life as she waged war with the women who originally supplanted her as well as a dominant newcomer named Asuka.

Her match with The Empress of Tomorrow at TakeOver: London should have won her favor with management on the main roster. When she returned to Raw and SmackDown, though, she found herself lost in the shuffle once more.

When the opportunity to engage Lynch in a rivalry and a potential pay-per-view match, Emma found herself bitten by the injury bug and forced to the sidelines.

From 2015 through the beginning of 2017, Emma's career was plagued by one disappointment after another. Even when things were looking up and she built the slightest bit of momentum for herself, it was erased by injury or a questionable booking decision that hurt her credibility and standing with the audience.

Recent booking has not helped matters.

The Crossroads

When Emma strutted onto the Raw stage just 24 hours after WrestleMania 33, fans of her work but unfamiliar with her backstory were excited at the prospects of a renewed push and a series of matches with Banks. Or Bayley. Maybe a babyface Charlotte.

That excitement evaporated when she tapped out to The Bank Statement, losing a Six-Woman Tag Team match.

She floated around the Raw roster aimlessly throughout the spring and summer. It was not until she took to social media and voiced her desire for an opportunity that her role on Raw increased.

Using the hashtag #GiveEmmaAChance, she began petitioning for a chance. She even approached general manager Kurt Angle on the July 24 episode of Raw and demanded as much, going as far as to threaten to date the Olympian's illegitimate son, Jason Jordan.

That earned her a squash defeat at the hands of Nia Jax.

Emma's presence on Raw increased, though, to the point that she and Jax defeated Banks and Alexa Bliss to earn an opportunity at the women's title at No Mercy on Sunday.

Fans who had been through the song and dance did not allow the moment to heighten their expectations or get them too excited for the opportunity. Instead, they assumed Emma had been added to the match to eat the pin a the sacrificial lamb designed to prevent any of the other three competitors slated for the Fatal 4-Way match from having to endure a loss none of them could afford.

The booking of the September 18 episode of Raw all but confirmed those suspicions.

Just six days from the match, Banks, Bliss and Jax were prominently featured in the lone segment devoted to women's wrestling on that broadcast. Then Bayley returned and within an hour, she had been added to the bout, making it a Fatal 5-Way.

Conspicuous by her absence?

Emma.

So irrelevant was she to the bigger picture that Emma was not even featured in what amounted to the final hype for the title bout. She did not appear in a backstage vignette, nor was she present in a YouTube-exclusive video.

Instead, her contribution to the show was via tweet.

Yes, tweet.

It was as blatant an admission of WWE Creative having no future plans for Emma as there possibly was. She was considered so unimportant that management could not be bothered to book her for a nondescript run-in.

Now, as No Mercy arrives, Emma finds herself at a crossroads.

A strong performance against the top female competitors on the Raw brand should be enough to create renewed interest in her by management in a perfect world. Emma's world, which is just another of many in the WWE Universe, has rarely been perfect.

She has been underutilized, mishandled and even disrespected by a writing team unsure of what to do with her, despite a mat game that ranks right up there with the best of any brand. It will take an extraordinary performance that sucks fans in and forces them to demand a push for Emma to enjoy anything resembling a sustained run at or even near the top of the division.

It is unfortunate.

A woman who was so instrumental in bringing a renewed emphasis to women's wrestling in WWE has been left behind by a promotion focused more on those who came after her than the woman who helped lay the foundation for the revolution.