Bayley on thinking she was more over than she is

[héad.casé]

"When I made my debut, I had that weird one-off at Battleground where I was like Sasha's partner," Bayley said. "And that was an amazing night. It felt like everybody in the arena wanted her partner to be me, so I was like, 'oh yeah, everybody knows who I am and I'm going to be fine when I finally get here, like, for good!' Then, I had my official debut. That was the night after NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn. And Brooklyn is just… it was SummerSlam weekend, so it's kind of like a WrestleMania weekend where there [are] fans from all over [the world] and it's just a load of NXT fans from around Europe and all that and I got a great reception there and I was like, 'yep, I'm good. Everybody knows Bayley' blah, blah, blah. But then, it wasn't until I was there a little bit longer and I had to get on the regular schedule doing house shows and going to TVs in different cities where I realized my reception wasn't as good as my first two things that I did because not everybody knew me. And the NXT crowd, although it is amazing, and we do have great fans all over the world, it's not as huge as the audience we have for WWE, so I'm still kind of like at the point where people know who I am and I might not be as cool as I was in little, smaller venues or, like, a smaller audience, but now I'm at that point where I feel like, 'yeah, I'm WWE,' but it did take a while. I think my head got a little too big when I was like, 'yeah, everyone knows me!' to when I'm like, 'wait! No, they don't.'"

wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2017/1219/635113/bayley-talks-thinking-she-was-more-over-than-she-was-and-turning/

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Actually the real reason is you were legit over, but WWE basically stabbed you, and then shot you, and then when you were in the hospital recovering, they drove over you with a Steamroller driven by Alexa Bliss.

It doesn't matter how over you are when WWE presents you as absolute trash, people will lose interest and your crowd reactions will die, don't blame that all on you Bayley, WWE have done one of the most terrible jobs I've ever seen building such a sure fire character such as yourself.

[Gerard Gerard]

Bayley beating Charlotte by dubious means before WM, only for her to beat Charlotte as WM anyways, was just a textbook example of "I don't even know what you were going for...."

I guess the idea was spawned from that fact that, despite all the rah-rah of "women's revolution", the 'E were still uber-keen on piling the women into multi-man matches for WM and thus the nonsense went from there, but, woo, bit of a flub there and Bayley's character's not recovered since.

[King Devitt: Scrum Guzzler]

But how many of us called it?

When everyone was saying "No way Vince will screw up Bayley"

Vince is like, "Hold my sno-cone..."

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Dec 19, 2017 6:13:46 GMT -5 Gerard Gerard said:

Bayley beating Charlotte by dubious means before WM, only for her to beat Charlotte as WM anyways, was just a textbook example of "I don't even know what you were going for...."

I guess the idea was spawned from that fact that, despite all the rah-rah of "women's revolution", the 'E were still uber-keen on piling the women into multi-man matches for WM and thus the nonsense went from there, but, woo, bit of a flub there and Bayley's character's not recovered since.

Bayley was written into a no-win situation when she beat Charlotte and they did the segment with Stephanie. She had the choice of staying true to her character and forfeiting the title, with the consequence of that fact being lost in the ensuing "STEPHANIE BURIED BAYLEY" narrative (because if they don't make it about Stephanie, WE make it about Stephanie), or standing up to her and keeping the title, but losing her ethical innocence because she's accepting a dirty win.

It all became a moot point anyways when her spine became jelly with the Bliss stuff, but what could Bayley do in that situation?

[Mozenrath]

Dec 19, 2017 6:36:52 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

Dec 19, 2017 6:13:46 GMT -5 Gerard Gerard said:

Bayley beating Charlotte by dubious means before WM, only for her to beat Charlotte as WM anyways, was just a textbook example of "I don't even know what you were going for...."

I guess the idea was spawned from that fact that, despite all the rah-rah of "women's revolution", the 'E were still uber-keen on piling the women into multi-man matches for WM and thus the nonsense went from there, but, woo, bit of a flub there and Bayley's character's not recovered since.

Bayley was written into a no-win situation when she beat Charlotte and they did the segment with Stephanie. She had the choice of staying true to her character and forfeiting the title, with the consequence of that fact being lost in the ensuing "STEPHANIE BURIED BAYLEY" narrative (because if they don't make it about Stephanie, WE make it about Stephanie), or standing up to her and keeping the title, but losing her ethical innocence because she's accepting a dirty win.

It all became a moot point anyways when her spine became jelly with the Bliss stuff, but what could Bayley do in that situation?

I don't get how that segment had to go that way, anyway.

It'd be literally as easy as Bayley acting like she'd forfeit, show the clip of Dana blatantly interfering, and saying, "On second thought, I didn't do anything Charlotte didn't do first.", and that being it. Steph couldn't talk her way out of that one without explicitly endorsing Charlotte's chickenshit behavior and looking foolish, so she'd just have to stew on it to find some other way of getting at her.

I don't think it's too late for Bayley, really. She'll probably benefit from whenever they do the next roster shakeup, because she's still honestly one of their better face women options, which mostly seem to be Becky on top, Sasha, then Naomi and her. Almost everyone else is a heel or lacking in credibility.

[Sephiroth]

That theory of Bayley joining Bray Wyatt is sounding applicable again. Because she seems pretty brainwashed.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Dec 19, 2017 9:47:21 GMT -5 Sephiroth said:

That theory of Bayley joining Bray Wyatt is sounding applicable again. Because she seems pretty brainwashed.

No one in the company is going to say they're getting screwed over by management in an interview.


Unless you're Dolph Ziggler. 

[sportatorium]

The second half of her statement is hard to read. That sounds like the crap that WWE is going to tell their young talent and makes a ton of sense on what the dynamic is from NXT to the main roster. “Nobody really knows you”. Isn’t that the promotion’s function to get the audience to know people?

I hate reading this kind of stuff from a young wrestler.

[Fauxnaki]

You can't let that nxt crowd get to your ego. They chant over the top because full sail actually believe their part of the show.

[Mozenrath]

Dec 19, 2017 9:52:50 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

The second half of her statement is hard to read. That sounds like the crap that WWE is going to tell their young talent and makes a ton of sense on what the dynamic is from NXT to the main roster. “Nobody really knows you”. Isn’t that the promotion’s function to get the audience to know people?

I hate reading this kind of stuff from a young wrestler.

I think it's largely just saying that only a portion of the audience follows NXT. Even with a million+ subscribers to the network, and whoever was following on Hulu when they showed NXT, that's at most like a third, tops, of the regular viewers. Even then, not all of them watch NXT, many sub just for PPVs, archive binging, or watching Legend House and stuff like that. It's a similar situation to the 205 Live guys, and even they get Raw matches and cameos to try to help their profile. Bayley had won the respect and affections of a lot of die hards, but still, she debuted with not all of them knowing who she was, similarly to what Paige had to deal with post her big debut.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Dec 19, 2017 9:56:55 GMT -5 Fauxnaki said:

You can't let that nxt crowd get to your ego. They chant over the top because full sail actually believe their part of the show.

Incorrect; NXT just has a much rate rate of people actually being over with the crowd, and people give good responses. Go back and watch the Sasha/Bayley title matches and show me where a "We are awesome" chant breaks out, because all I saw were heavily invested crowds completely focused on what was happening, and that counts for the Full Sail crowd and the Brooklyn crowd.

[sportatorium]

Dec 19, 2017 10:00:45 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Dec 19, 2017 9:52:50 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

The second half of her statement is hard to read. That sounds like the crap that WWE is going to tell their young talent and makes a ton of sense on what the dynamic is from NXT to the main roster. “Nobody really knows you”. Isn’t that the promotion’s function to get the audience to know people?

I hate reading this kind of stuff from a young wrestler.

I think it's largely just saying that only a portion of the audience follows NXT. Even with a million+ subscribers to the network, and whoever was following on Hulu when they showed NXT, that's at most like a third, tops, of the regular viewers. Even then, not all of them watch NXT, many sub just for PPVs, archive binging, or watching Legend House and stuff like that. It's a similar situation to the 205 Live guys, and even they get Raw matches and cameos to try to help their profile. Bayley had won the respect and affections of a lot of die hards, but still, she debuted with not all of them knowing who she was, similarly to what Paige had to deal with post her big debut.

Fair enough, but would it kill them when they have three hours of programming to fill to do some introductory vignettes or some
Highlight packages from NXT before introducing talent to the main roster? Especially if that talent hasn’t been on TV before? They could even run them on both Raw and Smackdown and create “competition” on which show would eventually “sign” the NXT talent.

[Fauxnaki]

Dec 19, 2017 10:02:56 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

Dec 19, 2017 9:56:55 GMT -5 Fauxnaki said:

You can't let that nxt crowd get to your ego. They chant over the top because full sail actually believe their part of the show.

Incorrect; NXT just has a much rate rate of people actually being over with the crowd, and people give good responses. Go back and watch the Sasha/Bayley title matches and show me where a "We are awesome" chant breaks out, because all I saw were heavily invested crowds completely focused on what was happening, and that counts for the Full Sail crowd and the Brooklyn crowd.

Its because the nxt crowd is full of smarks and their the easiest people to please in wrestling. Its completely different once your out in the mainstream.

Though I can't really fault Bayley wwes booking has been awful for years.

[TWERKIN' MAGGLE]

The mishandling of Bayley and Finn Balor are 100% examples of Vince telling Hunter that he's still the boss.

[Mozenrath]

Dec 19, 2017 10:07:44 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

Dec 19, 2017 10:00:45 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

I think it's largely just saying that only a portion of the audience follows NXT. Even with a million+ subscribers to the network, and whoever was following on Hulu when they showed NXT, that's at most like a third, tops, of the regular viewers. Even then, not all of them watch NXT, many sub just for PPVs, archive binging, or watching Legend House and stuff like that. It's a similar situation to the 205 Live guys, and even they get Raw matches and cameos to try to help their profile. Bayley had won the respect and affections of a lot of die hards, but still, she debuted with not all of them knowing who she was, similarly to what Paige had to deal with post her big debut.

Fair enough, but would it kill them when they have three hours of programming to fill to do some introductory vignettes or some
Highlight packages from NXT before introducing talent to the main roster? Especially if that talent hasn’t been on TV before? They could even run them on both Raw and Smackdown and create “competition” on which show would eventually “sign” the NXT talent.

Vignettes are probably THE thing I'd change if I had the reigns, so I agree with you there, that and getting the Cole interviews onto TV in excerpts or full.
JR's interviews with Mankind, Kane, and others helped them get across higher concept characters in a way that doing a bunch of 20 minute promos or heatless matches would have done. It doesn't always work, sure, but it helps combat monotony like WWE's tedious current programming is causing.

Probably wouldn't hurt to not have matches run really long if they don't need to. Sometimes, a 6 minute match will do more for someone than a 15 minute match with padding.

[Allie Kitsune]

To play Devil's Advocate, Bayley was going from crowds at big shows that would sing that terrible DJ Otzi song for her to crowds that just plain weren't going to do that.

I can see how she might think she's not as "known" when that all stopped.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Dec 19, 2017 10:10:07 GMT -5 Fauxnaki said:

Dec 19, 2017 10:02:56 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

Incorrect; NXT just has a much rate rate of people actually being over with the crowd, and people give good responses. Go back and watch the Sasha/Bayley title matches and show me where a "We are awesome" chant breaks out, because all I saw were heavily invested crowds completely focused on what was happening, and that counts for the Full Sail crowd and the Brooklyn crowd.

Its because the nxt crowd is full of smarks and their the easiest people to please in wrestling. Its completely different once your out in the mainstream.

Though I can't really fault Bayley wwes booking has been awful for years.

Sure, smarks are the easiest people to please, that's why this board is so full of positivity threads about Roman and the general state of Raw every week.

[Fauxnaki]

Dec 19, 2017 11:07:05 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

Dec 19, 2017 10:10:07 GMT -5 Fauxnaki said:

Its because the nxt crowd is full of smarks and their the easiest people to please in wrestling. Its completely different once your out in the mainstream.

Though I can't really fault Bayley wwes booking has been awful for years.

Sure, smarks are the easiest people to please, that's why this board is so full of positivity threads about Roman and the general state of Raw every week.

Yet were all still watching.

If you wanna please smarks just two workrate indie guys and they'll chant "this is awesome" till they blow out their ass. Finding someone with mainstream appeal like hogan, cena, the rock is much harder

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Dec 19, 2017 11:14:12 GMT -5 Fauxnaki said:

Dec 19, 2017 11:07:05 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

Sure, smarks are the easiest people to please, that's why this board is so full of positivity threads about Roman and the general state of Raw every week.

Yet were all still watching.

If you wanna please smarks just two workrate indie guys and they'll chant "this is awesome" till they blow out their ass. Finding someone with mainstream appeal like hogan, cena, the rock is much harder

Because people want the show to actually be good and hope desperately it will be; that doesn't mean they're easy to please, and it doesn't mean NXT can throw out just any old garbage and get the crowd white hot for it. There was a big difference in how main roster Bayley was presented and it was all mangled pretty hard, regardless of audience make-up. But even so, nobody right now is showing mainstream appeal and that's not even relevant to the Bayley topic. Bayley got over with a very straightforward white meat babyface character in front of an audience of hardcores with no ROH cred, and then when she came up casual fans were introduced to her as the awkward girl who read bad poems and "didn't want to hurt people".