Several weeks ago when we listed the card for last weekend’s Madison Square Garden show, we noted that Bayley was listed as Elias’ tag team partner in a match against John Cena and Nikki Bella. It was an odd pairing considering that Elias is a heel and Bayley is supposed to be a beloved character. On the day of the show, Bayley was replaced with Sonya Deville but it turns out that there was a good reason why Bayley was originally listed as Elias’ partner. The plan was for her to turn heel sometime before that show but Vince McMahon changed his mind.
Dave Meltzer mentioned this on the Wrestling Observer Forum. He said, “Bayley was scheduled to turn. The MSG card had her teaming with Elias vs. Cena & Nikki right until the decision was made to hold up the turn. It wasn’t a red herring, it was a plan written for a turn by that date that they changed. It appeared Banks did the turn however. Plans like that change weekly. The Banks heel turn was scheduled well before the 2017 Mania at first.”
Back in December on Edge and Christian’s podcast, Bayley talked about wanting to evolve her character and wanting to be more aggressive in the ring and she outright said that she wanted to be a “bad guy” and eventually turn back into a babyface. It appears that she was dropping hints on some of her interviews in anticipation of her heel turn. I guess she’ll have to wait for her chance to show the fans what she can do as a rulebreaker.
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