3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (19 January - Results & Review)

3. The Worst Odd Couple

In some ways, WWE has evolved somewhat since Vince McMahon steered the ship. Case in point, Bayley’s whole “hearing voices” or split-personality gimmick was drastically toned down after several weeks of ridicule. Whereas Vince would have stubbornly carried on with the gimmick until it completely tanked, Paul Levesque at least dialed it back a notch.

Despite the character shift, Bayley and Lyra Valkyria’s relationship is producing some of the worst backstage segments on Raw these days. Lyra continuously makes strange, contorted faces as she tries to figure out if she’s getting the Huggable One or the deranged Role Model on a weekly basis, while Bayley alternately laughs and yells depending on the situation.

Monday, Valkyria was timid about approaching a ranting-to-herself Bayley, saying she felt like she had let her friend down. Bayley hugged her and noted that they didn’t get pinned in the triple threat tag match last week and that they had all of 2026 to turn things around… all while Lyra just made weird faces.

Bayley has been on this track for five months now, and the gimmick isn’t doing anyone – especially Valkyria – any favors. Poor Lyra has to act “confused” every week and try to slap Bayley the correct number of times to trigger the right personality traits. It’s just dumb television that isn’t helping anyone.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.