Bayley is Needed on WWE SmackDown Live More Than Raw

Bayley made her WWE main roster debut at Battleground although it was a “one time only” deal. The question becomes, when she does make it to the main roster full time, is she better on Raw or SmackDown?

It would seem easy to point to Raw as a destination for Bayley because she was victorious in a tag match with Raw’s Women’s Champion Sasha Banks against Charlotte and Dana Brooke at Battleground. However, when looking at the two rosters of women, it seems like SmackDown would be the smarter choice just because they don’t have as much depth or talent.

Here are the women wrestlers on Raw: Women’s Champion Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Alicia Fox, Dana Brooke, Nia Jax, Paige and Summer Rae. There’s also Lana, who is managing her husband Rusev.

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SmackDown’s women competitors are Natalya, Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Carmella, Eva Marie and Naomi. There’s also Maryse, but she’s in a managerial role for her husband The Miz.

The numbers are seven for Raw and six for SmackDown with Raw also holding the Women’s Title. Raw also has arguably the two best women performers: Banks and Charlotte. It’s clearly stronger than Raw, so do they want to make it stronger by adding Bayley or help SmackDown? That’s what the decision comes down to.

Bayley isn’t somebody that is going to be known by the entire WWE Universe right away, but if Battleground taught us anything it’s that a lot of fans are very aware of who she is. That’s something WWE should take to heart because it should tell them that wherever she goes she’s going to get a lot of attention.

Let’s not forget that the main reason the brand split was announced two months ago was mainly because SmackDown’s audience had dipped to around two million viewers in the United States after USA Network moved it to Thursday from Friday. The taped shows just weren’t drawing in the crowds, so the decision was made to create “SmackDown Live” and this past week they had about 2.7 million viewers on USA Network, which is a nice improvement from what it was before.

In order to keep growing the SmackDown brand they are going to need compelling stories while also adding people to the roster that fans want to watch. That could mean a guy like Shinsuke Nakamura, who is already one of the best in-ring performers in WWE without even having a match on the main roster. It also means Bayley.

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In Bayley, WWE has the quintessential babyface women’s wrestler that little girls look up to, teenage fans are drawn to because of her demeanor, adult women admire for her heart and the males watching think of her as a cool chick that is into something they love – pro wrestling. She appeals to every kind of fanbase there is and there just aren’t that many people that can do that anymore. That’s why when WWE sees her entrance and in that ring they should have dollar signs dancing in their heads because she is a bankable star that can make the company a lot of money if they truly get behind her.

Currently, SmackDown doesn’t have a Women’s Title. There are rumors that they might add something soon, possibly on the Backlash pay-per-view event on September 11. If that is going to happen, Bayley will be needed to try to add credibility to their women’s division because if you look at things right now it’s really just Natalya and Becky Lynch that are upper echelon women while the others are not at that same level. Naomi is okay, but she hasn’t been used in a while. The trio of Bliss, Carmella and Eva Marie are all too new at this point.

Bayley’s presence on SmackDown would help that brand right away. They need the help more than Raw at this point. That’s pretty obvious. Bayley could easily feud with the top heel Natalya or have some battles with Lynch, who she faced off with in NXT plenty of times. She’s also very familiar with the other recent NXT talent that has been called up.

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The other factor think about with this is that if Bayley is on SmackDown it can build up the anticipation of when she might be on the same show as Sasha and Charlotte. Perhaps in a year from now there will be some kind of draft lottery that shakes things up, so that’s when they can have Bayley feud with one of them. Why give it away right away? Build it up until it means something.

As for when Bayley will be on the main roster, she’s scheduled to face Asuka for the NXT Women’s Title at NXT Takeover Brooklyn on August 20. Assuming that Asuka retains, it would be smart for WWE to call up Bayley right after that. Say she’s a free agent signing on SmackDown either that week or the following week. Why hold it off more? Bayley is clearly ready.

The NXT brand is a wonderful asset for WWE, but it’s still a developmental brand. Bayley’s been in developmental for four years. It’s time to move on and when she does, Smackdown is the right landing spot for her.