One of the most important factors of the WWE women’s evolution over the past few years has been Bayley, one of the most talented and beloved women’s competitors in the world today.
Bayley has had major success in the WWE dating back to her days in NXT and move to the main roster, but she has also dealt with poor booking and lack of character development as well. Many fans began losing interest in Bayley and many even questioned if the WWE had given up on her.
The Hugger had one of the greatest careers of any NXT superstar in history during her stint and would soon parlay that into main roster success when she made her Raw debut in August of 2016. And just a few months later, Bayley climbed to the top of the mountain in the women’s division.
She knocked off Charlotte Flair in February of 2017 to win her first, and so far only, Raw Women’s Championship. There appeared to be no slowing down Bayley after that point and she even successfully retained her title at WrestleMania 33 in a Fatal 4-Way elimination match against the top women on the Raw roster.
But following WrestleMania 33, things began to derail for Bayley. Through no fault of her own, she was put in what would become a lackluster at best feud with Alexa Bliss that saw Bliss capture the Raw Women’s Championship. And to add insult to injury, she lost in barely over five minutes in a poor kendo stick-on-a-pole match to Bliss in her rematch for the title at Extreme Rules.
Then there was the infamous “This is Your Life” segment that was among the worst segments the WWE has produced in a long time. Simply put, this feud took all the wind out of Bayley’s sails and it set her back for a long time. She was booked to look like a chump, in all honesty. Her character showed no backbone and creative definitely damaged her moving forward.
An injury in mid-2017 kept her sidelined for a while, which didn’t help out things either. But when she came back, she was floundering on the card for months with no clear direction in sight. That mercifully began to change in early-2018 when she became entangled in a long-running feud with her friend Sasha Banks. The two had a tiff for months that seemed to only have one inevitable end.
It was teased on several occasions that Bayley and Banks would get back on the same page and salvage their friendship, but that all has changed over the past couple of weeks. The Boss walked away from Bayley on a recent episode of Raw and said she was done with Bayley. However, the major blow didn’t come until the June 25 edition of Raw.
Following a loss to The Riott Squad in six-woman tag team action, Bayley snapped and attacked Banks after the match ended. The Hugger wasn’t in a hugging mood and she unloaded on Banks in an emotional, storytelling type of segment that has seemingly already changed the fate of Bayley’s career and it’s only days old.
In the midst of attacking The Boss, Bayley said she was tired of how Banks treated her. It had been months in the making, but finally seeing it come to fruition was a wonderful sight. And as much as Banks could have made it work, it just felt different seeing Bayley be the one to snap. It was much-needed and it should operate as a launching pad to a career resurgence.
Many have assumed this was Bayley’s heel turn, but it honestly didn’t come across that way. Even if she is now officially a heel, her career should be in for quite a re-invigoration. Regardless of if she’s a babyface or a heel, she can make it work. The WWE damaged Bayley for so long, but it’s great to see her finally get a major moment.
Her character lacked a backbone and it lacked real substance for a long while thanks to how she was being booked. But her recent actions have shown she is capable of standing up for herself and won’t take being mistreated. Being a charity case just wasn’t cutting it and it should be very interesting to see where Bayley goes from here.
It would be great to see a Bayley vs. Banks match at SummerSlam and the two could probably put forth a match that rivaled some of their old NXT matches. Hopefully the counseling Bayley and Banks are set to start taking place in is handled appropriately, however.
Next: Will Counseling Reset Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Feud?
It was needed for a long time, but the WWE finally gave Bayley an edge that should propel her back to the top of the women’s division card on Monday nights.