It seems that Tiffany Stratton won fans over well before WWE ever assumed she would. Let’s be fair here, and point out the fact that it’s likely that a bulk of WWE fans did not see her on NXT. This is obviously where her character grew and where she became a solid heel. The “Buff Barbie” was able to deliver great work on the microphone from the moment she started. Yet her in-ring work only kept improving every single day.
On top of this, one could argue her athletic ability has even improved during her time in WWE. Sure, Stratton is a former gymnast who was part of the 2016 United States Gymnastics Team at one point in her youth. However, bringing your gymnastics background into play within the WWE can be tough for some. Women like Katana Chance proved it was possible to do in a high-flying capacity. Yet she is much smaller than Stratton and needed to work a high-flying style.
Stratton is more of a storyteller in the ring. While her in-ring psychology is not at an expert level, she tries to use psychology to ensure her matches are not just about doing something for the sake of doing it. Everything has a point and purpose, even when she feels compelled to jump off of the highest structure she finds.
This is one way Tiffany Stratton won fans over so early. Yet there are other reasons for this too.
Barbie: The Wrestler
You’d be forgiven for looking at Tiffany Stratton and thinking she was cosplaying as the new Barbie: Wrestler Edition. After all, Barbie has been many things in her life, so “pro-wrestler” does not seem too crazy. Seeing Stratton, to many, felt like seeing a real-life version of this mystery Barbie. It is clear that she embraced it, as she’s been called the “Buff Barbie” and has made a lot of her entrances focused around that.
Yet the thing is, Barbie is cool right now. Margot Robbie and the Barbie team made a movie that exploded at the box office. The doll has not been bigger than it is right now in several years. Now you have a lot of little girls, even some boys, wanting a Barbie to play with. Enter Tiffany Stratton, someone who gives you a real-life Barbie figure to cheer on every week in WWE.
Keep in mind that WWE is PG and focuses on the family rather than males between 18 to 32 years old. That has led to WWE’s female audience growing and we see a lot of kids at WWE events. It’s not shocking that all of this connects together to give us a person who is easy to cheer on.
Tiffany Stratton won fans over in part, due to this connection she has that no one else has. Outside of Margot Robbie, at least. Yet we’re not seeing Robbie in the WWE ring weekly, but we do see Stratton weekly. This counts for something.
Prettiest Offense Ever
The thing that makes it hard to hate her is not only her looks. She’s also really good in the ring and pretty inventive. Her finisher is a take on Christopher Daniels’ finishing move called the Best Moonsault Ever or BME. Tiffany has a moonsault she calls the Prettiest Moonsault Ever or PME. While the BME and PME have a similar set-up to get to the moonsault, the actual moonsault itself differs.
What’s so interesting is that this move is often tough to nail correctly for younger performers. You end up messing it up and hitting a person’s legs or under/overshooting someone. However, so far in her WWE matches on the main roster, she’s hit it on her opponents perfectly each time.
A really cool finisher can help someone get over with fans, and the PME is just that. However, her offense is not just borrowing from other wrestlers. She also takes a move and tries to make it different, like her Cartwheel into Alabama Slam move.
NXT Stratton often operated as a “mean girl” so she usually enjoyed talking down to her opponents in the ring. On the main roster, we have not seen that. Yet we may see that in future matches she has. Particularly with someone like Bianca Belair, who is also a great athlete in her own right.
WWE’s Overuse Makes Fans Want Someone Different
It has been reported that WWE has been very surprised by the reaction from fans. Tiffany Stratton won fans over at a time when they did not expect her to do so. Yes, they wanted to put her in big positions, such as the Elimination Chamber match. They do believe in her and feel she’s worthy of a future World Championship run. She is also mostly a WWE project, homegrown from the Performance Center.
Most believe Tiffany Stratton won fans over so fast because simply put, she’s great but also “new.”
One could argue that being new does not usually mean that much in WWE. You would not be wrong, as we have not seen so many babyface pops for a heel female wrestler this quickly into their main roster run. Yet WWE has shoved Damage CTRL into everything all year. We have seen more Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair than we’d like in the past few years. Do not even get us started on the overuse of Charlotte Flair.
Fans are tired of seeing the same people constantly in the big stories. They want to see someone new there that they can love and cheer for. This is why Stratton is such an easy choice, as well as someone like Liv Morgan who is also getting a lot of love right now.
Our Breakout Star Of 2024
Heck, we even picked Stratton as our breakout star for 2024 in an article published earlier this year. Going into the new year, we knew she was going to debut and fans would love her…even if they loved to hate her. To be fair, Tiffany has something of a superhero type of body. She’s young, incredibly athletic, and gorgeous.
She has also seemed to become incredible in the ring within 2 years. This type of thing is rare to see all in one package.
How could anyone hate this person? Well, her goal as a heel in NXT was to get hatred. She did get booed, but that was in a place that saw her from the ground up. However, her work on the SmackDown Brand is perhaps the first time most WWE fans saw her.
Sure, Stratton plays a mean girl type of heel for NXT but this has not been the vibe much on SmackDown. Plus, that is not who she is in real life. From what we’ve seen of her in interviews, she’s a bubbly personality with a positive, upbeat attitude. She has also met young fans backstage and she’s been great with the young girls who wanted to meet her. WWE literally has a future role model here and a clear star in the making.
The fact that fans figured this out faster than WWE probably wanted them to should say a lot about how good Stratton is. Without much time, she has become the clear fan favorite female on the SmackDown brand. Let’s hope WWE gives her a featured role at WrestleMania 40 to tell fans that they have been heard. Tiffany Stratton won fans over already, so it would be smart to strike while the iron is hot.