10 Wrestlers We Had To Hate Before We Could Love

5. Bayley

When Bayley first started on NXT in her current character, there was a lot more Eugene in there - crossed with AJ Lee's 'sweet kid' character from when she was in a relationship with Daniel Bryan. That was it: a girl with apparent learning difficulties who got excited about wrestling and lost a whole lot of matches through being naive and clueless. Bayley was not popular - she was kind of tolerated, if that.

The more troublesome parts of her persona made things a good deal worse, because they made her insufferable, but they also made you feel awkward about finding her insufferable. In the same way as the Bo Dallas turnaround, the story of Bayley showcased NXT's slow-burning character development to the hilt. First of all, they quietly got rid of any indication whatsoever that she was on any form of spectrum. Secondly, they built her gradual strengthening of character into her storylines. She lost. She got beaten up. She was betrayed and humiliated by her friends. She lost some more.

All of this gradually stiffened Bayley's backbone - but unlike every other fiery babyface turn in WWE history, she didn't let it make her into a bit of a d*ck. Bayley had the opportunity on countless occasions to become the traditional WWE babyface, all eye-rolling cynicism, sarcasm and bad jokes, and chose to remain a nice person. The nicest person, in fact: she chose to remain Bayley, while simultaneously growing stronger and less willing to be messed around.

The usual WWE method of 'character development' involves a sudden change of personality with the flimsiest of excuses and some new threads. Bayley got over hugely with the NXT crowd over a period of two years by remaining the same sweet, innocent wrestling-fan-turned-wrestler she'd been from the beginning, but with the core of steel that comes from surviving being constantly sh*t on. Again, pity she had to make the step up to the main roster.