San Jose WWE star Bayley has a new attitude — and it’s working.
Ah, the hectic life of a WWE wrestler. The fearsome competitor and San Jose native known as Bayley is fresh off a 17-hour flight from Australia. Now, a day later — and after a quick workout — she’s in Kansas City preparing for a Friday night appearance on Fox. The next week she’ll be in Buffalo, New York, for a tagteam match, and another city the following week and on and on it goes … “It’s a nonstop whirlwind all year long,” she says during a phone conversation. “It just keeps going, but I love it.” Bayley, who grew up Pamela Rose Martinez and played basketball at Independence High School, has seized some attention in recent weeks for delivering a flying elbow to her previous ring persona. Once promoted as The Huggable One, she built her reputation around a cuddly, fan-girl demeanor. But that was before beating Charlotte Flair on Oct. 11 to reclaim the “SmackDown” women’s title. That night she showed up with a striking new hairdo and a fierce, takeno-guff attitude. She even went out of her way to slash the wacky, inflatable tube characters known as Bayley Buddies and uttered a snarling “screw you” to the crowd. So what’s up with the sudden heel turn? “I just thought it was time for a change,” she says. “It wasn’t planned or anything. I’ve been growing as a person and it was (the result of) all real stuff I’ve been feeling. I’d been doing the same thing for seven years. We’ll see where this takes me.” The attitude change comes in a big year for World Wrestling Entertainment, which this fall shifted its longrunning “SmackDown” telecast from the USA cable network to Fox. WWE is also facing a bold new challenger in All Elite Wrestling, which recently premiered on TNT. As TV Guide proclaimed, “This season is a welcome free-for-all for the sport.” The Bayley makeover represents a bit of a gamble. The warm-andhuggy, family-friendly version, after all, appealed to a wide swath of fans, including young children and their parents. And it showed up in various forms of WWE merchandise. After Bayley made the transformation, a video that went viral showed a young fan crying while watching her on TV. “I’d say it’s 50-50,” Bayley says of the reaction she has experienced among wrestling fans. “Some parents of little kids are disappointed.” One of her supporters is fellow WWE superstar Becky Lynch, who in an interview said she liked the move because “it brings out a different edge to her.” “Once you stop trying to please everybody, then you’re a little bit more dangerous,” she added. Bayley shrugs when she hears that kind of talk. “People keep saying it gives me a different edge, but I’m just reacting to how I feel,” she says. “I think it will be good for me. I won’t let it be my downfall.” Meanwhile, Bayley has been pleased so far with the shift of “SmackDown” from Tuesdays on USA to Fridays on Fox. It’s the first time the WWE franchise has aired on a major broadcast network — one that has heavily promoted the WWE during NFL telecasts and the World Series. “It’s a really good opportunity for all of us. It brings more exposure,” she says. “I’ve noticed a change in the audience. There are more people in the seats. I don’t know if that’s because it’s on Friday nights, or not . ... And I’m getting a lot of texts from friends who have spotted me in commercials during football games.” Bayley, 30, is a five-time women’s champion in WWE, and is the only woman who has won the Raw, SmackDown, NXT and Women’s Tag Team titles. It has been an incredible journey for the San Jose native who became mesmerized by the sport at the age of 10 and launched her career at 18 — despite her mother’s initial apprehension. “I think she had hope that, when I was a kid, I’d grow out of it,” she recalls. “But I was obsessed.”