Bayley’s WWE Heel Turn Was Her Idea

There is no doubt that Bayley is one of the top female Superstars in all of WWE. Her previous reign as Smackdown Women’s Champion lasted 380 days and on top of that, she also has the most days as Women’s Champion in modern WWE. It seems her iconic heel turn was also her idea.

Bayley was away for well over a year after suffering an ACL injury while training at the WWE Performance Center. She finally returned during WWE SummerSlam last year, alongside Dakota Kai and Iyo Sky.

Before all that, Bayley underwent a massive change in character during the October 11, 2019 edition of Friday Night Smackdown. During the episode, Bayley turned heel for the first time on the main roster, as she destroyed her Bayley Buddies.

While speaking to Ariel Helwani on BT Sport, Bayley talked about her heel turn. According to Bayley, the idea for her character change was all her own. She felt that her career wasn’t going as planned, and that the fans were starting to turn on her. She didn’t want to just coast along, and instead wanted to be able to do everything and ride the wave of WWE.

After losing the championship to Charlotte and being instructed to cry and throw a fit, Bayley knew she couldn’t come back as the same character. She talked to Vince and her writers about the idea for a complete 180 character change, and they agreed to it just two days later. Although she didn’t have much time to figure out what the change would entail, it has grown over the years as she’s settled into the role and seen how the fans have reacted to it.

“It was all my idea when it first happened. I was in, I don’t know if you remember, it was such a weird time in my career where it wasn’t really going where we all thought it would and I felt the fans turning on me already and just not buying into it. I didn’t want to just kind of coast along. I knew when I joined WWE and when I wanted to be a wrestler, I wanted to be able to do everything. I wanted to be bad, be good, have this match, do, I wanted to do everything and ride that wave of WWE. I felt it was a perfect opportunity. The last match I had before the change was, I forgot the pay-per-view, but I lost the championship to Charlotte and then I had to break down and cry. They told me just to throw a fit and cry and cry.

I thought it was so strange, but you know, I did it and I just told myself, ‘I can’t come back the same Bayley’. I talked to Vince and I talked to my writers throughout this whole idea of a complete 180 character change. He’s like, ‘Okay, we’re going to do it’, but it was like two days later so I had no time to really figure out what this is going to be. Then we did that change and then it’s just grown throughout the years now that I’ve had time to kind of settle in and see how the fans react to it.”

The former Hugger also had much different original plans for her WWE stable, Damage CTRL.

Bayley is currently the leader of Damage CTRL and is likely to continue her feud with Becky Lynch and Lita in the coming weeks. We’ll have to wait and see how WWE will book Bayley.

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