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Post by abjordans on Jan 6, 2018 8:00:23 GMT -5
Honestly, Bayley got super over with the Florida NxT crowds, then that transitioned to tv because she was so over with the Full Sail crowd, so she was always over with the crowds when NXT travels because she was really over with Full Sail. BUT, the thing about Bayley- she gets over because she is a really good “indy” style worker. I don’t mean she is great at strong style, she is flippy, etc. But, she is great at playing to a live audience. She has a connection to the people therewatching here live, she gets the live crowd involved in her matches, etc. However, a good live crowd wrestler isn’t always a good tv wrestler. Basically, Bayley doesn’t seem as awesome watching her on Raw as she did when I would go watch her work in front of 100 people in Largo. That is bullshit. Bayley may have worked Shimmer but she doesn't wrestle an indy style at all. It was he character that got her over. The WWE she Vince are just useless at creating stars. I mean, it’s really not bullshit to say her act plays better to a small crowd, I don’t know what to tell you.
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Post by Kevin Hamilton on Jan 6, 2018 8:46:08 GMT -5
That argument falls apart though given that the character traits in front of the small crowd and the larger one are different by several degrees.
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avenger
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Post by avenger on Jan 6, 2018 8:53:08 GMT -5
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
It's the gimmick. The gimmick has a short shelf life.
First in NXT she was told by the heels she didn't belong, and she wasn't good enough. And she got over, and proved them wrong. Then wasn't good enough to be champion, and after a couple of failed attempts, she became champion. Then she wasn't good enough for the main roster, and then she got called up. Then on the main roster, she was told she didn't belong, and she wasn't good enough, again. And she got over, and proved them wrong. Then wasn't good enough to be champion, and after a couple of failed attempts, she became champion, ending Charlotte's PPV win streak. Then she won at Wrestlemania.
She's achieved all her dreams. The gimmick has achieved all it ever can. In gaming terms, she's beaten all the end of level bosses and finished the game. The only thing you can do is evolve, or shake up the character. And if you do that, you risk losing the popularity, and killing the character. And the Extreme Rules match would have been the best place to do it. Instead, they killed the momentum, at the expense of retaining the character's gimmick. In doing so, I thought they'd then go and have a redemption story, which is one of the few stories left for the gimmick, but they didn't even do that.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jan 6, 2018 9:04:27 GMT -5
Bayley's failure is a mix of a multitude of things. In no real order let's get down to it. 1. Alexa Bliss. Bayley went up against "Reign of Terror Era" Alexa Bliss and she had no chance. That feud really hurt Bayley and honestly they could have found a way to keep Bayley over in that feud but they didn't because she. Lost. Clean. She, the babyface, lost clean. See that's a problem because even if you wanted Alexa to win you have to keep the face strong in defeat. The best example is Dean Ambrose. He's lost a lot of matches but even after each loss he looks like a top tier talent. He rarely loses clean and even if someone beats him clean it doesn't hurt him one bit. That's years worth of character build and well him working with his character in general. They shouldn't have put Bayley, someone who's "damaged" (I'll break this down soon) against Bliss with that result in mind. 2. Bayley is damaged. A gimmick like that worked with the NXT fans but on the main roster not only are the fans different but she doesn't have the same development. She was damn near Eugene 2.0 in NXT but they used that to turn her into a superfan and had her go up against the other Horsewomen to build herself up. She had years of failure under her belt that the fans connected to so she could be pushed to that upper echelon. Without those years she wouldn't have gotten over even if she wrestled well and had the character she had at the end of her NXT run. Now imagine her being pushed to the main roster without anyone knowing about those years and seeing her struggle. Imagine them seeing her for the first time with her "yay she's having fun and happy" character. Now Bayley is damaged and she's been damaged since she stepped foot on the main roster especially if you have her as this great amazing superstar at the top that quick. Bayley should have started in the middle or as a sidekick and worked her way up because what made Bayley work wasn't her wrestling skills nor her character, what made Bayley work is that she had an upward climb and we connected to it. 3. She's stuck. Look at all the women on Raw when she moved up. Charlotte, Sasha, Nia and Paige. Now look at SDL and you see Becky, Nikki and Naomi. Since then you've seen Alexa, Carmella, Mickie and now Asuka step up to the plate. If you look at everything then it's no surprise that she's not given more spotlight because there's way too many out there who wrestle better than her, are better on the mic, have a better look than her, have more presence and also have better characters than her. It'll keep on keeping on. Bayley right now isn't the one. She's gotta switch up her gimmick to stop from being "buried" under the pile of women climbing over her. The sad part is that she's been Raw Women's Champion but given how she's been booked and how she's presented you guys remember Sheamus's WWE Title reign a few years ago where he feuded with Reigns over Bayley holding that belt. 4. Bayley's hype was too much. WON reports that they saw Bayley as the "next John Cena" and I shit you not when I say that's what I read in reports. They used that to compare how popular she is with young girls and then furthermore they looked at her time in NXT. I'm sorry but "the next John Cena" is something that you don't predict like that. You can't say "they're next up" if they're trying to be Big Match John. Putting that on Bayley's shoulders would weigh her down as soon as she stepped into the building. It's too much hype. It's like when they said Bleek was going to be the new and improved Jay-Z. Man nobody is overcoming that. 5. The. Bookers. In. This. Company. Are. Idiots. Simple as that. We can book better storylines than these guys so it's no surprise they can't even think of a simple concept like "maybe Bayley doesn't need to lose clean to the heel talking shit to her given it'll prove the bad guy was right." 6. She's too f***ing nice. Goes back to that Bliss feud. Bayley was too nice and she had no edge and people dislike that shit. Even Cena had a mean streak to him. He's a good guy but Cena's a dick. These days the bad guys and the anti-heroes rule over all. Every babyface has to have some type of edge to them otherwise they're f***ed and if a character is mega-nice and are somehow always happy then well...they're a heel. 7. They're keeping her a face. Yeah she's Bayley and all but turn this girl heel on some Bo Dallas shit and see how she does because this ain't working right now. She'll keep getting pushed down the card, booed more and she'll continue to look like a joke. If that doesn't work then hell, the final straw is... 8. They're keeping her on Raw. Ok. Raw is done. She needs new blood. Put her on SDL and put her against Charlotte, Becky, Carmella, SDL would do Bayley some good and honestly I hope she switches during the draft because she needs it. Overall it's a lot of different things. She was f***ed from day 1. I gotta disagree with you on the "anti-heroes and heels rule all" thing. Because Daniel Bryan was white-meat as they come, and became a star just based on being a total badass. The Bayley that we got on Raw who refused to use the kendo stick wasn't a typical, standard babyface. She was written as a total wimp. I don't see Cena chucking those steps at Bray as "edgy". That's what a good fighting babyface is SUPPOSED to do. Ricky Steamboat, Sting, Bret, Hogan and Savage were always presented as heroes, but they frequently lost their temper, ran down the aisle and violently attacked their heel rivals without pity. It wasn't like all top faces were kissing babies and giving out balloons before Stone Cold came along, that's a misconception. In the case of Bayley, I don't know what the hell they were thinking with her for the Bliss feud. It was bewildering.
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Post by eJm on Jan 6, 2018 9:47:09 GMT -5
That argument falls apart though given that the character traits in front of the small crowd and the larger one are different by several degrees. Yeah, if they put Bayley’s gimmick from NXT in WWE, that was one thing. They didn’t and revamped it so much that it wasn’t even the gimmick she had there or even one that could work on the main roster. They have a three hour show and they couldn’t build Bayley’s history in NXT up and showcase that to the main roster before debuting her or as she came in? Because that’s literally all they had to do to at least have a fair comparison.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Jan 6, 2018 9:53:15 GMT -5
For everyone saying her gimmick had a short shelf life you realize that her gimmick of being a babyface who had to fight from underneath to finally win the big match use to literally draw millions of dollar all over the world right? And not just for a year or to. For like 40 year. Bailey is doing what babyfaces should be doing. It's WWE that has turned into this thing that sucks.
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mattperiolat
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Post by mattperiolat on Jan 6, 2018 9:59:01 GMT -5
Send her to Smackdown to rebuild her? She’s already in trouble and you want to feed her to Road Dogg’s House of Horrors Booking? How does that help? Seriously, I feel like we need to get Pat Patterson out of retirement to teach booking 101 to these people. I know people love Bliss and love Bayley too. Well, when Patterson booked, we had Hogan and Savage and both stayed over and hot no matter how often they touched. Why can’t we do the same here? Oh, but that would require not booking Bayley as an “aw shucks” supergeek. Yes, she is a fan girl. Yes, that can be celebrated, but not at the expense of character development and talent. It’s such a nightmare these days... this is why most Network time for me is in the Vault with classic programming and NXT from 2012 forward.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jan 6, 2018 10:24:30 GMT -5
For everyone saying her gimmick had a short shelf life you realize that her gimmick of being a babyface who had to fight from underneath to finally win the big match use to literally draw millions of dollar all over the world right? And not just for a year or to. For like 40 year. Bailey is doing what babyfaces should be doing. It's WWE that has turned into this thing that sucks. I don't think WWE should try to recreate the "underdog who eventually wins the big match" story with her anymore. Bayley should have been booked as the ace of the Raw women. She was over enough to go on a multi-month title reign.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Jan 6, 2018 10:40:02 GMT -5
For everyone saying her gimmick had a short shelf life you realize that her gimmick of being a babyface who had to fight from underneath to finally win the big match use to literally draw millions of dollar all over the world right? And not just for a year or to. For like 40 year. Bailey is doing what babyfaces should be doing. It's WWE that has turned into this thing that sucks. I don't think WWE should try to recreate the "underdog who eventually wins the big match" story with her anymore. Bayley should have been booked as the ace of the Raw women. She was over enough to go on a multi-month title reign. I agree. That brings to another thing I saw people talk about in this thread, the idea of a heel based promotion vs a babyfaced based promotion. IMO the point was missed. in a HBP the babyface is usually chasing the heel, wins and has a short reign and then goes back to chasing. But the face is never promoted as an idiot who can't win the big match or even as an underdog who has to make a comeback to win every single match. The Rock n Roll Express were most famous for the Morton heat segment and the hot tag comeback. But in jobber matches Ricky and Robert just pummeled those guys. Because the RnR were booked as really good wrestlers. So you can have a heel based promotion where the faces are chasing while still not having to book every match with the faces as underdogs for that to work.
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Post by Jokaine on Jan 6, 2018 11:21:33 GMT -5
Man, there's a lot going on in this thread. I'm not even going to try put a piece together, so I'm just going straight to bullet points.
-- Meltzer opines WWE is through pushing Bayley, he's a genius with the inside scoop. He talks to people presumably in the know about the TV business and gathers opinions saying the next TV deal will be big and he's a damn moron.
-- Where does the opinion come from that Bayley was going to be the "female John Cena?" And why does a board that features so many posters who spent years gating Cena think that is a good thing?
-- I've read the thing about kid appeal when it comes to Bayley? Other than a small portion of a small, repetitive crowd in Florida, where does that opinion come from? Little girls apparently love the Ballas, Sasha and Becky so maybe its not a sure thing that a grown woman who acts like she's 12 is such a sure-fire hit with them. I don't know that little boys look up to any of the female stars as role models, heroes, etc. so there's that.
-- I have about 10 friends who are still into wrestling. They're fans in the sense that they watch a good amount of TV and PPVs and will probably buy tickets to a show if it's local. They don't hang out on message boards and they don't do internet research. I'm probably the most wrestling nerdiest of us.
Several months back, probably after reading something online, I started asking each one who they felt had the most star potential and crossover appeal of the Horsewomen. The top three spots differed quite often but Bayley came in last on every list.
--To the guys who made comments about wedgies and Viagra: Congrats on your comments. Why not just go for the jugular and say people like Alexa, Sasha and Carmella spent time on the casting couch to get their spots.
--Is the obsession of some with the idea that Bayley is a huge crossover star that Vince ruined just the latest in the attainable superstar crush? I mean people like Trish and Alexa are too supermodelish but Mickie, Bayley, hell even AJ are perceived to be more relatable and ultimately attainable.
--Lastly, whoever made the statement about polar opinions of Bayley being wrong and her being in the middle hit the ball right. Bayley isn't the goddess of wrestling but she doesn't suck either. She's a pretty good performer in the ring who can bring excitement if she's working with the right person. I've never seen her cut a good promo, even in NXT, and I never got invested in her unless the person (s) she was with carried the story.
Going ballistic about the division not being based around her would be about like getting bent out of shape over Smackdown not being the Bobby Roode show.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2018 11:37:21 GMT -5
Bruce Prichard and his podcast. Mystery solved, thank you!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2018 11:40:35 GMT -5
I honestly think her super push she got for the title on the main show did more harm than anything else.
If there was someone who needed the "chase" for their gimmick, she was the one.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Jan 6, 2018 11:41:52 GMT -5
People are making this way more complicated than it needs to be.
Bayley's gimmick got morphed from "adorable, innocent underdog who's probably somewhere on the spectrum" to "5 year-old wrestling superfan." (this happened before she left NXT)
Vince, and the rest of the people who run the WWE, hate superfans. They're marks. They're beneath contempt.
So, of COURSE being a loser was going to come out in her booking. It's baked in to the inherent way they see the kind of person she was supposed to be.
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cjh
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Post by cjh on Jan 6, 2018 11:56:30 GMT -5
Just to address the idea of Bayley being the "female John Cena," that's not meant to be anything about her character but rather the fact that in NXT, she was considered by fans (and possibly WWE itself) as a potential merchandise goldmine who could make the company tons of money with shirts, wristbands, etc.
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Post by Jokaine on Jan 6, 2018 12:12:52 GMT -5
Just to address the idea of Bayley being the "female John Cena," that's not meant to be anything about her character but rather the fact that in NXT, she was considered by fans (and possibly WWE itself) as a potential merchandise goldmine who could make the company tons of money with shirts, wristbands, etc. Got it. But again, there's zero proof that projection was accurate. From everything I've ever read (which granted even the best of sources on this sort of stuff is probably only semi-credible) Sasha moves the most merchandise among them women and the gap is fairly large. So, again, it seems more like a small group of fans working themselves into a frenzy over something that never actually was on the table to begin with.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2018 13:32:21 GMT -5
Bayley's failure is a mix of a multitude of things. In no real order let's get down to it. 1. Alexa Bliss. Bayley went up against "Reign of Terror Era" Alexa Bliss and she had no chance. That feud really hurt Bayley and honestly they could have found a way to keep Bayley over in that feud but they didn't because she. Lost. Clean. She, the babyface, lost clean. See that's a problem because even if you wanted Alexa to win you have to keep the face strong in defeat. The best example is Dean Ambrose. He's lost a lot of matches but even after each loss he looks like a top tier talent. He rarely loses clean and even if someone beats him clean it doesn't hurt him one bit. That's years worth of character build and well him working with his character in general. They shouldn't have put Bayley, someone who's "damaged" (I'll break this down soon) against Bliss with that result in mind. 2. Bayley is damaged. A gimmick like that worked with the NXT fans but on the main roster not only are the fans different but she doesn't have the same development. She was damn near Eugene 2.0 in NXT but they used that to turn her into a superfan and had her go up against the other Horsewomen to build herself up. She had years of failure under her belt that the fans connected to so she could be pushed to that upper echelon. Without those years she wouldn't have gotten over even if she wrestled well and had the character she had at the end of her NXT run. Now imagine her being pushed to the main roster without anyone knowing about those years and seeing her struggle. Imagine them seeing her for the first time with her "yay she's having fun and happy" character. Now Bayley is damaged and she's been damaged since she stepped foot on the main roster especially if you have her as this great amazing superstar at the top that quick. Bayley should have started in the middle or as a sidekick and worked her way up because what made Bayley work wasn't her wrestling skills nor her character, what made Bayley work is that she had an upward climb and we connected to it. 3. She's stuck. Look at all the women on Raw when she moved up. Charlotte, Sasha, Nia and Paige. Now look at SDL and you see Becky, Nikki and Naomi. Since then you've seen Alexa, Carmella, Mickie and now Asuka step up to the plate. If you look at everything then it's no surprise that she's not given more spotlight because there's way too many out there who wrestle better than her, are better on the mic, have a better look than her, have more presence and also have better characters than her. It'll keep on keeping on. Bayley right now isn't the one. She's gotta switch up her gimmick to stop from being "buried" under the pile of women climbing over her. The sad part is that she's been Raw Women's Champion but given how she's been booked and how she's presented you guys remember Sheamus's WWE Title reign a few years ago where he feuded with Reigns over Bayley holding that belt. 4. Bayley's hype was too much. WON reports that they saw Bayley as the "next John Cena" and I shit you not when I say that's what I read in reports. They used that to compare how popular she is with young girls and then furthermore they looked at her time in NXT. I'm sorry but "the next John Cena" is something that you don't predict like that. You can't say "they're next up" if they're trying to be Big Match John. Putting that on Bayley's shoulders would weigh her down as soon as she stepped into the building. It's too much hype. It's like when they said Bleek was going to be the new and improved Jay-Z. Man nobody is overcoming that. 5. The. Bookers. In. This. Company. Are. Idiots. Simple as that. We can book better storylines than these guys so it's no surprise they can't even think of a simple concept like "maybe Bayley doesn't need to lose clean to the heel talking shit to her given it'll prove the bad guy was right." 6. She's too f***ing nice. Goes back to that Bliss feud. Bayley was too nice and she had no edge and people dislike that shit. Even Cena had a mean streak to him. He's a good guy but Cena's a dick. These days the bad guys and the anti-heroes rule over all. Every babyface has to have some type of edge to them otherwise they're f***ed and if a character is mega-nice and are somehow always happy then well...they're a heel. 7. They're keeping her a face. Yeah she's Bayley and all but turn this girl heel on some Bo Dallas shit and see how she does because this ain't working right now. She'll keep getting pushed down the card, booed more and she'll continue to look like a joke. If that doesn't work then hell, the final straw is... 8. They're keeping her on Raw. Ok. Raw is done. She needs new blood. Put her on SDL and put her against Charlotte, Becky, Carmella, SDL would do Bayley some good and honestly I hope she switches during the draft because she needs it. Overall it's a lot of different things. She was f***ed from day 1. I gotta disagree with you on the "anti-heroes and heels rule all" thing. Because Daniel Bryan was white-meat as they come, and became a star just based on being a total badass. The Bayley that we got on Raw who refused to use the kendo stick wasn't a typical, standard babyface. She was written as a total wimp. I don't see Cena chucking those steps at Bray as "edgy". That's what a good fighting babyface is SUPPOSED to do. Ricky Steamboat, Sting, Bret, Hogan and Savage were always presented as heroes, but they frequently lost their temper, ran down the aisle and violently attacked their heel rivals without pity. It wasn't like all top faces were kissing babies and giving out balloons before Stone Cold came along, that's a misconception. In the case of Bayley, I don't know what the hell they were thinking with her for the Bliss feud. It was bewildering. When I said "antiheroes and heros rule all" that doesn't mean there's no way for babyfaces get over nor does that mean good guys are never popular. It means that they are usually more popular these days. It's not strictly a wrestling thing but in wrestling you do notice that they're characters are noticeably better. Cena himself has way more edge to his character compared to a Bayley. Even if she beat Alexa and had a streak going on her character is still damaged. But it makes you think exactly where they failed with her because I know they wanted her to win the belt at WN and I know they were gonna turn Sasha some she'd feud with Bayley but not even that happened. When did they become sour on her? I can't pinpoint it.
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Post by The Rick Jericho on Jan 6, 2018 13:38:50 GMT -5
AJ got heat for getting a tattoo of her championship win date.
You damn right this company hates marks.
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AlexaBliss4Life
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Post by AlexaBliss4Life on Jan 6, 2018 23:22:05 GMT -5
AJ got heat for getting a tattoo of her championship win date. You damn right this company hates marks. Couldn't have been much considering she in my eyes is the longest reigning Divas Champion.
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Post by cabbageboy on Jan 6, 2018 23:31:51 GMT -5
It shouldn't shock anyone that WWE on the main roster saw more in Bliss than Bayley. Bayley's milquetoast gimmick just wasn't going to work on the main roster long term, whereas Bliss with her bitchy mean girl shtick is just something Vince gets and will push. But really it was the Extreme Rules match that forever wrecked Bayley, especially coming out on TV the next week and being like "Oh, I don't want to HURT anyone!" That was so terrible. How can anyone cheer someone like that?
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Post by Dub H on Jan 7, 2018 1:15:32 GMT -5
Just to address the idea of Bayley being the "female John Cena," that's not meant to be anything about her character but rather the fact that in NXT, she was considered by fans (and possibly WWE itself) as a potential merchandise goldmine who could make the company tons of money with shirts, wristbands, etc. Got it. But again, there's zero proof that projection was accurate. From everything I've ever read (which granted even the best of sources on this sort of stuff is probably only semi-credible) Sasha moves the most merchandise among them women and the gap is fairly large. So, again, it seems more like a small group of fans working themselves into a frenzy over something that never actually was on the table to begin with. Bayley was outselling all of then in merchs before being move out of NXT. She wasnt main roster and was outselling every single one. Obviously the news articles by now are old and I won't dig pages to find it ,so take it as you wish to.
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