Bayley Cemented Herself as Face of WWE NXT at London Live Special

Bayley’s performance last night at NXT TakeOver: London proved how she is the Queen of WWE NXT.

Bayley, not Finn Balor, proved she is the face of WWE NXT at NXT TakeOver: London. This sounds crazy, right?

Not quite.

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Coming into last night’s live special, the talk was about the main event of Balor defending his NXT Championship against Samoa Joe. This story had been built since Sept. and became a focus of WWE NXT over the past four to five weeks. Therefore, everyone was looking forward to it.

Then when you think of the face of a wrestling promotion, you think of a male. This goes for every one of them you can think of. WWE has never had a woman be the focus of the company going back to the 70’s and 80’s.

Regarding WWE NXT, Balor has been seen as the face of the brand for most of the year. He will go into the new year having held the NXT Championship for over six months while having main-evented two NXT TakeOver specials.

While the former NJPW talent is a mega star for developmental, Bayley may be even more of one. The WWE NXT tour of the United Kingdom proved this.

On Twitter, videos of the crowd reaction to Bayley can be seen. Everywhere she performed at from Cardiff to Nottingham and Sheffield greeted her with insanely loud and raucous chants.

Then there was her NXT TakeOver: London match with Nia Jax for the NXT Women’s Championship. The chants for Bayley were thunderous throughout while going on the ride during her match. It wasn’t a technical masterpiece and no one expected it to be. However, the story told in the bout built sympathy for her character, who had to overcome the dangerous newcomer. The crowd went on a rollercoaster ride with wondering if she would go over. When Nia tapped, the crowd exploded for the Huggable One.

Last night’s match wasn’t just the only reason for Bayley being the face of WWE NXT, as what she has done over the past five months built her to being the top dog. Her win over Sasha Banks at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn was the start of it when they put on a classic that may go down as Match of the Year. The 15,000 people in Brooklyn stood on their feet and flipped out for Bayley, who had to overcome a girl that had been in her way for months. Go back and watch that Bayley to Belly she hit that sealed the deal.

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Then she and Banks got the opportunity that no other woman in WWE had received—the chance to main event a pay-per-view/live special. The icing on the cake was the Ironman match stipulation where they had to wrestle for 30 minutes. The story told in that was off the charts as well and when Bayley won to retain the title, both women were graced with a standing ovation and flowers.

Balor is one fantastic talent and is more than worthy of main-eventing shows. However, he is missing that connection that Bayley has. That’s saying something because the crowds are always enamored with the Irish Superstar. They just don’t “pop” like they do for Bayley and don’t provide him with the absolutely insane chants.

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Balor is also fantastic in the ring, but the stories he has told to build sympathy aren’t up to par to what Bayley has done either. Drawing emotion is a big reason why she has gotten over with the crowd but until we see a heel destroy Finn for the NXT Championship, we won’t get the “Wow, I really want to get behind this guy to win his match” feeling.

Heading into 2016, Bayley is the face of WWE NXT. She is defeating everyone in her path and gaining more support by the appearance as she becomes the headliner of shows. A few months ago, Sasha and Charlotte were seen as the top of the mountain, but with their questionable use on the main roster, Bayley may have even overridden them as the face of women’s wrestling.

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