10 Weird Secrets To Wrestlers' Success
8. Bayley - Becoming Everything She Should Never Have Become
WWE's chaotic and inept storytelling - combined with the constancy of the episodic TV model and how rapidly it can date an act - means that you'll never see the like of a Ricky Steamboat ever again. The days of the career babyface are dead.
But Bayley was the closest thing to it in NXT.
It was thought that WWE would really have to f*ck up bad to resort to a Bayley heel turn. She was so inordinately wholesome and charming that she turned the husk of the cynical adult male pro wrestling fan into mere dead skin, and thousands of people shedded it that night in Brooklyn. The energy she embodied and the struggle she overcame was universally, objectively incredible. She was legitimately one of the greatest WWE babyfaces ever.
And WWE did: mistaking Bayley's act for a wallflower, they dropped the key to the act right down the f*cking drain. Bayley was nice, and fair, but test that and she would stamp your hand off. She wouldn't even use a weapon in 2017.
Stigmatised as a loser who had the temerity to be OK with it, Bayley was knackered - until she got over by doing the unthinkable.
As a highly skilled heel technician outstanding and creative with the cut-off, this version of Bayley is so obnoxious but yet so dangerous that she has perfected the dreaded chickensh*t role - itself an honourable mention here.