7 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 20)

5. Bayley Doesn’t Get Duped

bayley stephanie mcmahon
WWE.com

Ordinarily, a babyface falling for a heel’s transparent pleas for fairness would be a huge down, so why is it a negative when Bayley didn’t fall for Stephanie McMahon’s pleadings?

Quite simply, the entire exchange and result was out-of-character for Bayley. Since her debut, Bayley has been portrayed as a wide-eyed, somewhat naïve fan-turned-wrestler. She’s the ultimate goodie-goodie. When Steph went on and on about how little girls look up to her and whatnot, she was clearly trying to cajole Bayley unfairly, but she was speaking truth.

The fact that Bayley refused Stephanie with a big “Hell no!” was just a strange moment. Even stranger (and somewhat refreshing) was that Ms. McMahon didn’t turn around and snarl at Bayley and threaten to ruin her.

But yeah, this was just an odd left turn with Bayley opting to hold onto her championship despite the outside interference in her title match.

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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.