BRM Reviews the 5/29/2017 Raw (AWESOME!)

[KILLdozer]

I think what they're trying to do with both the "never kissed a boy" line and the "wrestling isn't cool" line is to make Bayley feel more directly relatable to your stereotypical high school nerd who would self conscious about such things. The problem is that it not only buries the product but also brings up the negative feelings that people watch wrestling to escape. I was watching a shoot interview where someone (definitely a big indy name who spent a lot of time in IWA-MS, but I don't remember exactly who) was talking about the lines you have to tread carefully on as a heel when insulting fans because you don't know what kind of strong negative emotions you might be bringing up that could make that person just decide to not come back (I believe the example was singling out a fan and calling her fat), and I think that what WWE is aiming for here is in big danger of doing that. Having a seemingly normal person like this Tracy- someone who was perfectly happy to be best friends with a clearly quirky and un-cool kid like Bayley- abandon Bayley because the thing that pushes Bayley over the line into being so uncool she's not worth hanging out with is that she wants to watch wrestling... that's pushing into very dangerous waters for a self-conscious 11-18 year old.
And it's all made worse by the fact that Bayley didn't need this sort of "help" in the first place because people loved her already... until the main roster got their hands on her and look what has happened.

Which just returns to my point of stop bullying Bailey and making her out to be borderline stupid and let her be a normal wrestler. It wasn't good with Charlotte, it was actually worse because people were so legitimately tired of Charlotte, and even with Alexa Bliss doing it it's still no good.

It's not the bullying so much as it is her acting like she has the mental age of a child.

That's not another way to put it. I mean some of the stuff they've been doing is like they're saying She's never really been all there. Which I guess isn't the worst thing but combined with the rest it doesn't help.