Bayley explains why her heel turn was necessary.
Bayley memorably turned heel in 2019, as she destroyed the beloved Bayley Buddies. This chapter led to Bayley becoming one of WWE's top stars during the pandemic era. She missed nine months due to a torn ACL but returned at WWE SummerSlam 2022, where she aligned with IYO SKY and Dakota Kai to form Damage CTRL.
Speaking with 8 News Now, Bayley looked back on her heel turn in 2019.
"Sometimes I think about where I would be either the fans because when I became a bad guy, I felt like I lost a genuine connection with fans, where it was like, oh, they don’t know how they feel about me or whether they still want to like me or what it was. It was a genuine disconnection. So sometimes I still think about, man, I wonder if I never would have done that where I would be now, if I would be better, or if I’d be off worse. But then I think about times like during the pandemic, I don’t know if that character would have been able to last through the pandemic and have the type of success that I did then. So I always credit them [for] allowing me to have that moment and them allowing me to explore my growth because I didn’t feel that what I was doing at the time was gonna extend my career any longer. So I knew I needed to turn that page and just make something different happen. As a fan, I want to everything. I want to be a bad guy, I want to be a good guy. I want to have all the crazy storylines, so that was the first taste of doing something different for myself. I catered to a lot of the fans coming in, but that was something I felt I needed for my career, so I don’t regret that at all," Bayley said.
Mercedes Mone recently named Bayley on her Mount Rushmore of opponents. Check out her comments here.
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