IT’S time to come clean to the loyal FT faithful, so let me shout it from the rooftops: I’M A HUGGER!
WWE NXT Women’s Champion Bayley is an enigmatic figure – the most child-friendly PG incarnation WWE boasts in its portfolio other than Cena, yet positioned at the top of the edgiest, young adult brand.
A contradiction? Not a bit of it. The youthful Californian arguably holds two of the top three candidates for WWE Match of the Year at press time, one certainly, and with Rollins out, unless they let Bálor and Apollo Crews finish their match, she’ll clean up.
No casual adulation here – it’s a fact – and one she takes in her stride with humility during our interview this week in advance of the much anticipated NXT tour debut in the UK starting next Thursday.
“Thank you, it’s crazy!” says the 26-year-old. “This year it just seems everything just came together.
“I keep thinking it can’t get better than this, then it gets bigger and the division keeps growing and growing. It really has no limits.”
The match in August with Sasha Banks in Brooklyn was a watershed moment, with all due deference to Charlotte, Becky and Sasha and their efforts beforehand.
It was a wrestling match born of the lifelong passion of both competitors, who had set out from day one in NXT to cast themselves in a different light to the divas on the main roster.
Bayley says: “We both wanted to do this as kids. We didn’t want to be like the divas at the time.
“We didn’t want to have bikini matches or bikini contest stuff, so we were both already fighting for the same thing.
“What we were doing was working and people actually cared about it. It meant everything to us. I’m an emotional person, it was so much more mental preparation than physical. It just took everything out of us.”
The comparisons with Cena might be uncomfortable now, as Bayley has not yet made the main roster, although it’s only a matter of time.
While everyone was looking at the men to provide a successor to the PG Patriarch of the company, this excellent young talent has used her three years in the ranks to hone what seems the perfect blend of inring skill and irresistible personality to make her impact. And not just with the kids: “I start to notice it more and more as we get out and as NXT travels.
“Maybe it’s my bright colours or smiling or whatever but I have this awesome connection with kids and they have fun.
“I see grown men wearing ‘I’m A Hugger’ shirts, and grown women in side ponytails and wearing the tassels.
“I still ask other people: ‘Why do people cheer for me?’ It’s incredible. I hope to go above and beyond and I just want to connect with everyone.”
Expect Bayley to feature strongly in the tour. We in the UK want one over on those lads from Brooklyn, after all.
She adds: “I try not to think about how crazy the crowd is going to be.
“I’m sure they will be because they’re going to be excited. I’ll try to hold back my tears because I cry for everything!”
WWE NXT tours from next week. See livenation.co.uk and ticketmaster.co.uk.