WrestleMania weekend is about a lot more than WWE these days. As the city where it’s held (Tampa this year) fills up with wrestling fans, indie wrestlers and promoters arrive as well, so that every spare moment can be filled with every kind of wrestling you can imagine, not just what WWE has on offer. That also makes it a weekend full of surprises, and we’ve gotten at least one surprise already, as a performer nobody expected to see return to a wrestling ring is doing exactly that.
“The Bitch is back”
And better than ever!@ArianeAndrew fka Cameron
makes her return to the ring at #EFFYSBIGGAYBRUNCH🎟👇https://t.co/jQMParxLYh pic.twitter.com/5ut3bm9pGG
— EFFY. (@EFFYlives) January 3, 2020
As part of Effy’s Big Gay Brunch, as nontraditional a wrestling event as you could imagine, Ariane Andrew will be wrestling for the first time in about four years. In WWE, Ariane was known as Cameron, but she was never exactly known for wrestling. She was a Funkadactyl alongside Naomi, and a star of the first four seasons of Total Divas.
She’s also remembered as a contestant on Season 5 of Tough Enough, where her choice of a favorite wrestling match famously left Steve Austin speechless. If WWE fans mention her at all, it’s usually to make fun of that, or the time that she tried to pin Naomi when the latter was on her stomach.
In late 2015 Cameron moved back to NXT to improve her wrestling skills. After all, she’d been hired in an era when wrestling skills weren’t what WWE was looking for in a female performer, but the tides had changed. How much better she could get would remain a mystery, however, since she was released in the spring of 2016.
Whether Ariane is serious about getting into indie wrestling or just an attraction for Effy’s show remains to be seen. But the Big Gay Brunch probably appeals to a lot of the same wrestling fans who enjoy Total Divas, and therefore remember Ariane Andrew more fondly than those who don’t.
