Don’t Call Bayley Attacking Sasha A Heel Turn

Any unbiased look at the breakdown in the friendship between Bayley & Sasha Banks can only come to one conclusion. It’s Sasha’s fault.

After all, it was Sasha that eliminated Bayley from the Women’s Royal Rumble. It was Sasha that pushed Bayley off the top of the Elimination Chamber pod. Sure, Bayley got a measure of revenge by eliminating Sasha from the WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal. Naomi immediately eliminating her afterwards took the joy out of that victory. They’ve gone back & forth over the past couple of months. Bayley tried to take the high road & stay friends while Sasha had an attitude about the whole thing.

Many of us have had friendships where we try a lot harder to stay in the relationship than our friend does. Even though they treat us like dirt, we’re the last ones to see it. We can’t imagine life without them, nor can we imagine other friendships taking their place. They use us for all we’re worth, and we get little in return other than the feeling of friendship.

Eventually, that feeling isn’t enough. It takes time. Long-running friendships rarely end overnight over one little dispute, unless both people involved are just that petty. It takes a number of misunderstandings, disagreements & arguments before the bond is finally broken to the point where it can’t be repaired. It’s tough to give up on a friend, but sometimes you have no other choice.

Bayley finally reached that point on Monday night. Sasha reached it a long time ago, but Bayley was the one that put the final nail in the coffin.

It’s funny. Traditional wrestling experts have a wide variety of talking points concerning aspects of the business they thought were better back in the day. A popular one is the idea that stories are told way too quickly now. With hours upon hours of television time to fill, WWE blows through feuds & angles in weeks that once upon a time could have carried a promotion for a year. The fact that wrestling promotions either can’t or won’t do this in 2018 is seen as a point against modern day wrestling.

Then we get something like the Bayley & Sasha Banks story, and everybody complains that it’s going on for too long. They wonder why they don’t just get to the point and have one of them turn on the other already before people stop caring about it. Heck, people already stopped caring. It’s just something for them to do that keeps them away from Ronda Rousey.

That crowd reaction tells a different story. They were ready to see Bayley & Sasha go at it after all these months. I think some people there would have popped for whoever attacked the other, but Bayley was the right one to launch an attack. The story being told indicated that Bayley had to be the one to stick the knife into Sasha’s back & end the friendship for good. Sasha was just going to keep using her until there was nothing left to use.

The story is far from over. In fact, we might not even get to a proper Bayley vs. Sasha match if Raw General Manager Kurt Angle has his way. He feels that a better way to solve Bayley’s problems than feeding her Sasha Banks is to get her some psychiatric help. No word yet on whether or not Dr. Shelby will be involved.

When I saw this my natural reaction was to roll my eyes. Counseling? Bayley finally stood up for herself after years of abuse. Why would she need counseling? I had to think about it from Kurt Angle’s perspective, which I believe is the perspective of fans that have followed Bayley since her start in NXT.

As we know, Bayley started out as the world’s biggest wrestling fan. She’d mark out whenever one of WWE’s top stars or legends appeared on NXT. She was an impressionable young girl that often had problems standing up for herself. This made her a tremendously likeable babyface & one of the Full Sail crowd’s favorites. Many NXT watchers would talk about how Bayley was the greatest babyface in the modern era, and that she should never turn heel like her name was Ricky Steamboat or something. The problem with that idea: characters have to evolve. Bayley couldn’t remain the way she was forever & hope to survive. People don’t remain young & innocent forever, especially if they’re in the wrestling business.

NXT fans would say that Bayley’s early WWE run was hampered by the fact that they didn’t simply restart her story when she made it to the main roster. Which would have made no sense. Non-NXT viewers would have wondered how the hell this girl made it to WWE, while NXT viewers would have gotten bored & complained about WWE wasting Bayley with the same old stuff.

Did they handle Bayley’s character perfectly? Not if her getting booed out of arenas after losing the Raw Women’s Championship to Alexa Bliss was any indication. It was shades of when Family Man Ricky Steamboat was getting booed in 1989 NWA while feuding against Nature Boy Ric Flair. Not that I’m comparing Alexa Bliss to Ric Flair (yet), but the bloom definitely went off of the Bayley rose last year. The main reason, from what I could tell, is that she was toothless. She was a hugger, not a fighter. Hugs are cool & all, but there’s a time for hugging & a time for fighting. The wrestling ring isn’t a place for hugs, unless you’re applying a BEAR HUG.

We don’t want to feel sorry for our favorite wrestlers after their hearts get broken & they’re beaten down & depressed. We want them to fight back & kick ass. Bayley fought back after years of frustration & being taken advantage of by her “best friend”. She kicked some ass on Monday night & got a better reaction than I’ve seen her get in a long time.

Don’t call it a heel turn. Call it Bayley finally getting accepted by the WWE Universe as a legitimate competitor. She proved she belongs with the big dogs & the bosses. If Sasha Banks has to pay the price, so be it. Bayley has earned something even more important than the love of the fans…their respect.

Hopefully this new Bayley isn’t as impressionable as the old one & will tell the good doctor what to do with his advice.