You've probably guessed by now that I have some different tastes when it comes to wrestling. I'm neutral on Jinder Mahal's championship reign, I believe the label of 'injury-prone' is the death of any wrestler wanting to be a major star, I think Jason Jordan can easily be a big name for WWE and the women's match at Battleground I thought was very good amongst other things.
However, there's one opinion I've had, and it's something that many people would hate me for saying. But watching what happened last night with Bayley and the reaction of the crowd, I think now is the perfect time to come out and say it.
Bayley is not and will not be the female John Cena. (And yes, I have seen some of her work in NXT)
Now, what do I mean by this? Well, there are three key differences I think both Bayley and John Cena.
1. Finishers- Now i'm not docking either person for their wrestling ability. Both have shown to be good, capable workers for the company before. But I think we can all agree, the finishers they use are different from each other severely.
John Cena's finishing move is the Attitude Adjustment, or as it's common referred to as a Death Valley Driver. It's a good finisher. Showcases John Cena's strength, creates a good visual and gets a crowd riled up for the end. Bayley on the other hand uses the Bayley-to-Belly, which is really a Belly-to-Belly suplex. I can see the appeal of this move, but to me; it feels extremely generic and kind of makes the opponent look like a chump. Bayley has other moves in her offense and this is the best move she can think of to finish off her opponent? She's even admitted her finisher kind of sucks. I'm not saying that every finisher needs to different and unique, although it helps, but your finisher at least needs to be something that seems threatening enough that it can make opponents look good even when they lose. A simple suplex is not one of those things.
2. Mic Skills- What I mean about this is that I'm looking at them directly in their ability on the stick, the charisma they hold and the overall quality of their acting. John Cena has proven time and time again that he is one of the finest mic workers of his generation, able to go from comedic to serious in the blink of an eye. Ask a fan to name a promo from this guy, you'll likely get a ton of different responses. He's so good, he's even gotten offers from Hollywood. When you have that good of an ability to captivate an audience, you've done your job on the mic.
I've seen Bayley's promo cutting ability not just in WWE but in NXT as well and from what I've seen, she is mediocre at best and really stilted and bad at the worst. This is not something that's come up just recently, this has been a problem her entire career. Going back into 2013, when her career was just beginning. Everyone remembers when she hugged AJ Lee during an interview of her's, she sounded very wooden and a little bit breathy. Going even further back to her presentation skill class, same problems apply here. (Though the part with her in near tears was a nice addition, if I have to be honest) Do you see something wrong here? Bayley is just not very good at cutting promos. It hasn't been a recent issue, this is something that's been plaguing her since day one of her WWE career.
3. Character- This is the deal-breaker for me and also serves as a warning to any and all future NXT call-ups; if you do not evolve, you will be left behind. John Cena started off as the most vanilla babyface this side of Sugartooth Corner, then one night he dressed up as Vanilla Ice and he never looked back. Then after sometime passed, he kept evolving until he became the record tying world champ you see today. You can argue that creative has far from helped Bayley, but even if you're the most die-hard supporter of Bayley, you cannot deny that when you get rid of all the quirks, twists and turns she's had over the years. She's still the same character she was when she started.
Now this is not always a bad thing. Far from it actually, think of all the great characters that have stuck onto a character for long portions of time, (The Undertaker, The Rock, Chris Jericho, Edge, Hulk Hogan, etc) but they didn't just do the same thing over and over again; they evolved their character when they felt it was necessary. Bayley has yet to do so and with a character so mind-numbingly easy and honestly generic to play as, you'd think she'd do something new with it. She did mention in her podcast with Steve Austin, she wanted to try being a heel, why not go up to Vince and ask him to try it out. You are comfortable with talking to him, right?
The point is, for every character in wrestling, there needs to be a moment a character morphs into something different. And you can say that it's called character development, but the difference is that character development is going to happen no matter what. Stories can't happen and characters won't exist if you don't develop them. Evolving your character into something new is something that every wrestler needs to do at some point, it happened with Hulk Hogan, it happened with The Rock, it happened with John Cena, now it's happening with Bayley. And if she doesn't decide to change things up, she'll be thrown away like yesterday's dog food.
Conclusion- I don't know who it was that started this idea that Bayley could be as big as John Cena, but whoever it was; it's clear they set their aspirations too high for her. As much as kids love her to death, and as marketable as she is, it just isn't enough. I'm actually starting to think that the reason for all of Bayley's recent problems is because WWE got cold feet. They realized that she just wasn't performing as well as they thought she would and started wondering if all this talk about her was false or if she was simply overhyped. Again, you can argue that creative did her no favors; but when it comes down to it. Bayley is simply not up to the skill John Cena has been for the last twelve years and it's likely she never will be.
That being said; do I want her to fail? Absolutely not. As I've mentioned before, she is a really good wrestler that has had solid matches with just about everyone, especially with Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss. And she will be forever idolized for helping to start the women's revolution in WWE. Above all else, Bayley is perhaps amongst the nicest people in the business today and many fans have had good memories of meeting their hero for real. She's a professional's professional and she works hard every-day because that's what she loves to do. I still believe that she will have a good career and that great things will come her way. As far as I know, she could easily become the next Ricky Steamboat or the next Rey Mysterio. Just because something doesn't pan out the way people think it will doesn't mean their career is over; if anything, her career is only beginning. If nothing else, we should be thankful for her work in WWE and what she's done to help make women's wrestling in WWE mean something again.
And that is her greatest contribution to the sport she and all of us love so much.
However, there's one opinion I've had, and it's something that many people would hate me for saying. But watching what happened last night with Bayley and the reaction of the crowd, I think now is the perfect time to come out and say it.
Bayley is not and will not be the female John Cena. (And yes, I have seen some of her work in NXT)
Now, what do I mean by this? Well, there are three key differences I think both Bayley and John Cena.
1. Finishers- Now i'm not docking either person for their wrestling ability. Both have shown to be good, capable workers for the company before. But I think we can all agree, the finishers they use are different from each other severely.
John Cena's finishing move is the Attitude Adjustment, or as it's common referred to as a Death Valley Driver. It's a good finisher. Showcases John Cena's strength, creates a good visual and gets a crowd riled up for the end. Bayley on the other hand uses the Bayley-to-Belly, which is really a Belly-to-Belly suplex. I can see the appeal of this move, but to me; it feels extremely generic and kind of makes the opponent look like a chump. Bayley has other moves in her offense and this is the best move she can think of to finish off her opponent? She's even admitted her finisher kind of sucks. I'm not saying that every finisher needs to different and unique, although it helps, but your finisher at least needs to be something that seems threatening enough that it can make opponents look good even when they lose. A simple suplex is not one of those things.
2. Mic Skills- What I mean about this is that I'm looking at them directly in their ability on the stick, the charisma they hold and the overall quality of their acting. John Cena has proven time and time again that he is one of the finest mic workers of his generation, able to go from comedic to serious in the blink of an eye. Ask a fan to name a promo from this guy, you'll likely get a ton of different responses. He's so good, he's even gotten offers from Hollywood. When you have that good of an ability to captivate an audience, you've done your job on the mic.
I've seen Bayley's promo cutting ability not just in WWE but in NXT as well and from what I've seen, she is mediocre at best and really stilted and bad at the worst. This is not something that's come up just recently, this has been a problem her entire career. Going back into 2013, when her career was just beginning. Everyone remembers when she hugged AJ Lee during an interview of her's, she sounded very wooden and a little bit breathy. Going even further back to her presentation skill class, same problems apply here. (Though the part with her in near tears was a nice addition, if I have to be honest) Do you see something wrong here? Bayley is just not very good at cutting promos. It hasn't been a recent issue, this is something that's been plaguing her since day one of her WWE career.
3. Character- This is the deal-breaker for me and also serves as a warning to any and all future NXT call-ups; if you do not evolve, you will be left behind. John Cena started off as the most vanilla babyface this side of Sugartooth Corner, then one night he dressed up as Vanilla Ice and he never looked back. Then after sometime passed, he kept evolving until he became the record tying world champ you see today. You can argue that creative has far from helped Bayley, but even if you're the most die-hard supporter of Bayley, you cannot deny that when you get rid of all the quirks, twists and turns she's had over the years. She's still the same character she was when she started.
Now this is not always a bad thing. Far from it actually, think of all the great characters that have stuck onto a character for long portions of time, (The Undertaker, The Rock, Chris Jericho, Edge, Hulk Hogan, etc) but they didn't just do the same thing over and over again; they evolved their character when they felt it was necessary. Bayley has yet to do so and with a character so mind-numbingly easy and honestly generic to play as, you'd think she'd do something new with it. She did mention in her podcast with Steve Austin, she wanted to try being a heel, why not go up to Vince and ask him to try it out. You are comfortable with talking to him, right?
The point is, for every character in wrestling, there needs to be a moment a character morphs into something different. And you can say that it's called character development, but the difference is that character development is going to happen no matter what. Stories can't happen and characters won't exist if you don't develop them. Evolving your character into something new is something that every wrestler needs to do at some point, it happened with Hulk Hogan, it happened with The Rock, it happened with John Cena, now it's happening with Bayley. And if she doesn't decide to change things up, she'll be thrown away like yesterday's dog food.
Conclusion- I don't know who it was that started this idea that Bayley could be as big as John Cena, but whoever it was; it's clear they set their aspirations too high for her. As much as kids love her to death, and as marketable as she is, it just isn't enough. I'm actually starting to think that the reason for all of Bayley's recent problems is because WWE got cold feet. They realized that she just wasn't performing as well as they thought she would and started wondering if all this talk about her was false or if she was simply overhyped. Again, you can argue that creative did her no favors; but when it comes down to it. Bayley is simply not up to the skill John Cena has been for the last twelve years and it's likely she never will be.
That being said; do I want her to fail? Absolutely not. As I've mentioned before, she is a really good wrestler that has had solid matches with just about everyone, especially with Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss. And she will be forever idolized for helping to start the women's revolution in WWE. Above all else, Bayley is perhaps amongst the nicest people in the business today and many fans have had good memories of meeting their hero for real. She's a professional's professional and she works hard every-day because that's what she loves to do. I still believe that she will have a good career and that great things will come her way. As far as I know, she could easily become the next Ricky Steamboat or the next Rey Mysterio. Just because something doesn't pan out the way people think it will doesn't mean their career is over; if anything, her career is only beginning. If nothing else, we should be thankful for her work in WWE and what she's done to help make women's wrestling in WWE mean something again.
And that is her greatest contribution to the sport she and all of us love so much.