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WWE: Bayley’s Booking is Taking Her Down the Wrong Path

By Michael Smith

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Bayley will never reach the full potential of her popularity in WWE.

Many people in WWE have high hopes for Bayley. She touches all demographics and has an innate ability for connecting with an audience. Unfortunately, with the way she’s been booked, she will never reach her full potential.

It’s been said many times that Bayley could be the female John Cena. It’s no exaggeration. Kids adore her, which is the true key to being a cash cow for merchandise. She’s especially a big hit with young girls, which is a market WWE has always had trouble finding great role models for. Now, though, for every young boy in the crowd decked out in Cena gear, there’s a young girl with streamers hanging from her arms, a side-ponytail, and a t-shirt that lets the world know how she feels about hugs.

It’s a big demographic for WWE. It’s all about building a fanbase, and it starts with the youngest fans whose attention you can grab. Bayley does everything right to grab their attention.

All that said, when Bayley won the Raw Women’s Championship on a random episode of Raw, it was a mistake.

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The build to the win was incomplete. She was put in the title picture back in the fall when Sasha Banks was out with an injury, but Banks suddenly returned and Bayley was pushed out.

That’s where it all started to go wrong. While Bayley was fighting to get into the title picture, she beat Charlotte in multiple non-title matches, hurting her standing as an underdog.

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Then, she got her big title match, opening the show against Charlotte, with the title on the line, at the Royal Rumble PPV. The match was booked perfectly. Charlotte dominated, Bayley fought tooth-and-nail, but Charlotte got a clean victory with a vicious Natural Selection on the apron.

The finish worked for each competitor. Charlotte looked like a strong heel champion, and Bayley looked like a fighting underdog who is a legit contender.

It looked like it was about to go in the right direction for Bayley, then they booked the title match on Raw.

It continued the Charlotte-Banks trend of Charlotte winning on PPV, then losing the title on Raw. They tried to put Bayley over, but they pulled the trigger on it too quickly.

The finish for that match was controversial, with Dana Brooke and Banks both getting involved. It worked though in the moment, because it added to the drama the live crowd was feeling, and it could play towards a Bayley-Banks title feud down the line.

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It all led to this past Monday. After Bayley’s controversial win, Stephanie McMahon should’ve walked to the ring and ripped the title off Bayley’s shoulder. The crowd would’ve been red-hot – furious that Bayley was being stripped of the title. The crowd should’ve been left to think that, even though Banks did interfere, it was the right thing to do to even the odds, and that Bayley was being unjustly punished by Stephanie. Instead Banks blatantly interfered in the match, and WWE’s babiest babyface was left to say “oh well, Charlotte deserved it.” That’s not how a babyface should act.

Bayley in NXT was lightning in a bottle. She was booked to perfection, and she got so over that it carried over to the main roster and it has given creative a long leash with her and allowed them to make some mistakes. Unfortunately, all those mistakes start to add up. There’s not one thing they could do that would ruin Bayley, but if they keep going down this road of one step forward, two steps back, they’ll eventually find the tipping point.

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If they ruin Bayley, who’s basically a walking blank check, then they should rethink the way they book everything, because there is no excuse for that.

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