I’m going to do something different for this week’s rant. Instead of pointing out the flaws in the booking of the entire show (which, given the booking seen on a weekly basis, isn’t that difficult), I’m going to concentrate on one particular segment, one that was so bad that people are destroying it on the internet already, and it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet.
The now-infamous Bayley ‘This is your life’ skit directed by Alexa Bliss.
To summarise, this week’s RAW wasn’t all that bad. There were some average matches as usual, but there were also some interesting segments as well. Corey Graves seems to be involved in an angle with Angle, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns had a great match and the Triple Threat match made all three participants look good, leading into Extreme Rules.
But all of those positives were overshadowed by a segment that has come to epitomise the flaws that exist in WWE’s creative department.
Background
WWE have done two such segments before. The first one involved the Rock and Mick Foley, and it was a stroke of genius that led to an explosion in the ratings at the time. But that was almost twenty years ago, a different time and different fanbase.
They did another one with John Cena and Mick Foley, and this one had the opposite effect. It was cheesy, poorly-executed and uninteresting. Foley later admitted that the segment was intentionally cheesy, which makes one wonder why they’d have that mentality in the first place.
Who enjoys things that are inherently cheesy by nature? Certainly not the fans, as they complained enough that Foley had to explain this to them.
There was hope that WWE learned their lesson when it came to poor segments like this and wouldn’t do one again. Nope; not only did they do it again, but they managed to make one that was EVEN WORSE than the one between Foley and Cena.
What actually happened
Alexa Bliss’s goal here was to convince the audience that Bayley was basically a grown-up child. Now, her character in NXT was that she was a sweet underdog that always stayed positive in the face of adversity. For some reason, this was translated on the main roster as her being a woman with the mentality of WWE’s average fan.
She showed all the toys that Bayley played with a child (and might still play with now). She revealed a trophy that she won for Sportsmanship (which is proof that they do, in fact, give out participation trophies, which is beyond pathetic in itself).
Then Bliss revealed that in Bayley’s yearbook was the statement that [Bayley] was ‘most likely to apologise’ (contrast this with Edge, whose yearbook statement was ‘most likely to become a pro wrestler’, which is actually cool).
Then we got the statements from people from Bayley’s past, and it’s at this point the ‘Boring’ chants started to get very noticeable. First was Bayley’s teacher, who said that, while Bayley was a nice girl, she needed her father with her in class, otherwise she’d start crying.
Then there was her childhood friend, who also said Bayley was nice, but they stopped being friends because Bayley liked to watch RAW and SmackDown. You read that right: Bayley lost a friend because she watched WWE’s own products.
Either that makes her a terrible friend for being so judgmental, or someone in the writing department screwed up the message they were trying to convey.
Then there was Bayley’s ex-boyfriend. He mentioned that he tried to kiss her, but couldn’t because she brought her father with her everywhere she went, and almost kissed her father instead. Then, he revealed that Bayley was so uncool, even as a teenager, that he only dated her to get closer to that same friend that had spoken earlier.
These two then kissed each other, while the audience showed their disinterest by chanting ‘DELETE’.
After all of this was done, Bayley tried to fight Alexa, but Alexa got the advantage and beat Bayley with the kendo stick on the pole in the corner and left victorious.
What this means for WWE and the women involved
The purpose of this segment was for Alexa Bliss to convince the audience that Bayley was ‘too nice’ to go extreme, this upcoming Sunday. That goal wasn’t accomplished; instead, this segment did considerably more damage to everyone involved.
It made Bayley look like an uncool geek that no one wanted to hang out with because she was too nice. Even though most of these (most likely fabricated) statements about her happened when she was younger, people might still think differently about the Bayley character going forward.
She’s no longer the lovable underdog that never gives up; instead, she’s a complete geek that lacks any personality traits that would make her cool to WWE’s audience. After all, what kind of fan wants to cheer for someone that brought her dad on her dates?
Since Bayley didn’t get a chance to rebuke these statements, the viewers were left with the conclusion that they were true, which tarnished Bayley’s image.
Secondly, the writers suggested that someone like Bayley should feel bad for watching RAW as a teenager, and her childhood friend admonished her for being a wrestling fan as a kid. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the goal of every storyline to INCREASE fan interest?
How is telling fans that ‘only uncool nerds watch RAW and SmackDown’ supposed to convince people to tune in? If anything, this makes ordinary viewers turn away, and makes hardcore viewers ashamed to watch the product. And WWE wonders why ratings are so bad.
Finally, this segment was a demonstration of everything bad about a ‘soap-opera’ approach to presenting WWE programming. The segment featured bad acting, unrealistic dialogue, and unlike previous skits like this one, it dragged on and on, which only turned fans away in the end.
The RAW Women’s Championship became a complete afterthought in this skit. A two-minute brawl would’ve told a much better story and would’ve given the fans something to be interested in.
This segment was one of those that wasn’t written for any fan of the WWE; it was, apparently, written for Vince McMahon. Whether he found this stuff genuinely funny or not remains to be seen.
An additional theory
There is a possibility that this segment was an example of career sabotage by someone within WWE’s power structure. It’s no secret that Bayley was (and to some extent still is) one of the most popular female wrestlers in WWE. And the reason for this is that she’s a wrestler first and foremost.
Her character is meant to act as an extension of her being a wrestler and not the other way around.
Naturally, there are some in WWE who’d rather the show be structured around wacky characters with a hint of wrestling involved. It seems that there’s a clash between Triple H and his NXT and the main roster production staff.
Triple H wants the rest of WWE television to be more like his NXT, while those that are firmly entrenched in the current WWE power structure see him as a threat. As a result, those who represent the old order and the status quo on the main roster are doing what they can to sabotage as many NXT call-ups as possible.
We’ve already seen a few examples of this that created speculation that this was the case. Bray Wyatt was the most notable victim; he was unstoppable in NXT but fizzled out by 2014. Despite several attempts to rebuild him, Wyatt, as a symbol of the success of NXT, has since suffered immensely on the main roster, despite winning the WWE Championship.
He was once someone that could’ve become the new Undertaker; now he’d be lucky if he could become the next Kane.
Kevin Owens was another example. He was white-hot during his first run, but instead of going over John Cena decisively in their feuds, Owens lost eventually and became just another guy in WWE. Despite being one of the best talkers and a natural dominant heel, Owens’ Universal Championship reign was mired in cheap wins and acts of cowardice.
Now, people care so much less about him and he has lost considerable fire due to backstage politics messing with his presentation.
But by far the biggest victims were the participants of the Women’s Revolution. The Four Horsewomen were arguably the biggest draws in NXT and set the world on fire time and again with excellent matches. But once they debuted on the main roster, all four of them were crippled in one way or another.
Now, two years after Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Becky Lynch debuted on the main roster. All three of them are simply less popular. Charlotte has been turned babyface for no good reason and her PPV undefeated streak was ended abruptly and without just cause. Becky Lynch has become rather forgotten on the SmackDown brand.
Finally, Sasha Banks’s most recent segment featured her dancing with Rich Swann. I thought we were moving forward with women’s wrestling in WWE; instead, it seems like we’ve gone back in time by ten years.
If there was ever a reason to admonish the WWE writers for putting garbage on TV, this segment is all the proof one needs. It showed just how bad the WWE creative team can be when they don’t have any proper understanding of pro-wrestling.
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