WWE Stomping Grounds: Bayley finally redeems herself

Her win over Alexa Bliss at WWE Stomping Grounds is more than just another successful title defense for Bayley. It makes up for the lowest booking point of her career.

The other night at WWE Stomping Grounds saw Bayley have her first pay-per-view defense for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. She successfully defended her title against Alexa Bliss, which is significant for a number of reasons. The main one being because the match calls back to a feud from 2017 that The Hugger did not come out of looking so strong.

Let’s wind the clocks back to two years ago for a second. Bayley was still just under a year fresh from her NXT call-up to the main roster and managed to retain her overwhelming popularity the following year. At the start of April, she was the Raw Women’s Champion and had successfully defended that championship against Charlotte Flair, Nia Jax and Sasha Banks at WrestleMania 33.

Who could be The Huggable One’s next formidable challenger? None other than The Goddess herself in feud that proved to be detrimental to Bayley’s character and momentum.

Their feud has become somewhat infamous in the wrestling conversations in the years since it originally aired. The feud saw Bliss defeat Bayley for the title and defeat her at back-to-back PPV events. In addition, the Five Feet of Fury consistently got the jump on Bayley on weekly television with the latter seldom (if ever) getting her heat back from the former in retaliation.

Then, of course, we all remember how cringeworthy the “This is Your Life” segment was. Let’s not talk about it.

Even worse, Bayley came out of the feud looking worse for wear. Seeing the former NXT Women’s Champion basically cower at the thought of using a kendo stick didn’t do her any favors either. There was once a point where the idea of Bayley getting booed by a crowd seemed foreign or flat out impossible to imagine, but thanks to some poor booking from WWE Creative, there were some weeks when Bayley was getting booed unapologetically.

Bayley was booked poorly enough to keep her out of the main event picture for two years, but now she’s back at the forefront as a top champion. A new, aggressive edge to her character has proved to be enough for her to maintain her newfound popularity resurgence.

Now that she’s finally defeated Alexa Bliss in one-on-one championship competition, Bayley has officially redeemed herself for that abysmal 2017 run. With The Goddess in her rear view, Bayley not only can move on to bigger challengers, but can do so with the momentum necessary to be viewed as a credible champion.