New Raw Women's Champion Bayley was a recent special guest on Lilian Garcia's Making Their Way to the Ring podcast. You can watch the full podcast in the video at the top of the page (the Bayley interview starts about 25 minutes in). You can also download it on iTunes.
Here are some submitted highlights:
How she got interested in pro wrestling:
"My dad and my brother, they were always watching it. I was always doing my own thing and I would just pass by the living room and see it on TV, but I didn't think anything of it. Then one night I passed by and I saw Macho Man, and I was like, ooooh he's cool. He had all these bright colors, I don't know, something about him. I just stopped and I sat down on the couch, like I've never seen this guy. That's really what hooked me and I kept watching."
Being bullied as a child:
"I was really sensitive, because people would say they thought I was a boy, or call me a boy and stuff like that. I always had my hair back and, like I said, baggy clothes. So it was kind of sad. I didn't know what to do about it, and I didn't know what I was doing wrong because I was just being me."
NXT moving to the Performance Center:
"We put the rings together, which is something that I also love to do because I had to learn that when I first started. The rings that are in the performance center I built them with Sasha, and Paige, and Emma, and all of us literally did it with our hands."
How Jason Jordan helped Bayley at her tryout:
"I was just so shy, and he's the one that really was like, come on you gotta show your personality. He was pulling for me because I was the wrestling girl. He was like, show your personality every time we locked up. He's like, come on, do something, do something. He kept pushing me and pushing me and pushing me and I finally brought out some kind of personality."
Bayley's feelings on Becky Lynch, Charlotte and Sasha Banks being called up before her:
"At first it sucked. To be honest, it sucked, because I wanted to go. I wanted that so bad. But when I saw them debut I couldn't feel anything but happiness for them. I was just excited. I was like, OK we're going in the right direction. It's another step in the right direction. Honestly I thought I would be there shortly after with them... I'll be there in maybe a couple more months and that would be fine, because I was the champion so it was OK. But then it took a whole 'nother year, and I have to say that it was probably the best year I've had in wrestling thus far, because I had to rely on myself."
