15 Exact Moments Wrestlers Died Inside
9. Bayley Stans The Wrong Company
The Vince McMahon brain decay era had a way of defeating its talent offscreen while they went 50/50 on it.
In a peak of this development, the system battered the spirit of Bayley in 2017, and it was particularly depressing. An undying spirit is what got Bayley so over two years prior.
Bayley was booked to lose to Alexa Bliss in a Kendo Stick On A Pole match at Extreme Rules. This was a disaster in which the Bayley character, a WWE super-fan, would not use a weapon to win. She wanted to win the right way, or something. The same wrestler who delivered brutal vengeance to Sasha Banks in NXT. Some super-fan, eh?
Did she not watch any Hell In A Cell, Steel Cage, Ladder, TLC, Tables, Street Fight, Last Man Standing, I Quit, No Disqualification, Boiler Room Brawl, Strap, Biker Chain, Falls Count Anywhere, First Blood, Bar Room Brawl, Parking Lot Brawl, Dumpster, or Punjabi Prison matches?
Bayley simply had to know that she'd have to use a weapon eventually, but she didn't, thus depicting her as a wallflower unworthy of your support. She explained her actions in a storyline interview with Corey Graves shortly afterwards, but she didn't seem to be acting. She was asked in reality to justify atrocious booking, and you could see the dread and total lack of confidence surface, morphing into a browbeaten facial expression.
She said a lot, in a struggle of a promo, but all those words amounted to "The hell do you want me to say?"