WWE Raw: Examining The Best and The Worst of the Brand for 2017
By Bryan Heaton
Worst Promo: “Bayley, This Is Your Life,” May 29
The word “worst” doesn’t even begin to describe this train wreck. Alexa Bliss is terrific at playing the mean girl. Bayley is at her best when she’s the sweet, naive fangirl turned wrestler. All the elements were in place for this to be a winner, but it whiffed. Hard.
You would also think that playing off one of the greatest segment’s in Raw history – the original “This Is Your Life” segment about The Rock from 1999 – would work in favor of this. But the total disconnect between what made a loving homage from Mankind to Rock and this debacle from one wrestler to a threat to her superiority was staggering.
The whole childhood friend/ex-boyfriend thing was a nightmare, and everything just went on way too long before the confrontation happened. Like, why would Bayley stay backstage so long during this? “Better person” or not, if someone is using a national television platform to rip apart my life, I’m running out there to stand up for myself – not waiting what seemed like an hour before heading out to get beaten up.
This promo killed any momentum the Bliss/Bayley feud for the Raw Women’s Championship had. The payoff at Extreme Rules was terrible too, no doubt thanks to the stink of this segment. Moving away from it is the best thing for everyone.
Honorable Mention: The Makeover of Emma to Emmalina, Feb. 13
Never before has a 90 second promo been so utterly pointless. For months, WWE had been hyping up the “transformation” of Emma – a great character who had reinvented herself once before – into Emmalina – a terrible idea that was basically tailor-made for someone like Eva Marie, but was totally wrong for Emma.
Instead, the big payoff was Emma heading out on stage, basically thumbing her nose at the audience, and saying she was going to “transform” again. It was the right move, but it took way too long to get there, and it was an awful bait and switch kind of move.