Bayley might eventually make a heel turn, but there’s a bit of understandable trepidation on WWE’s part to do so because of how much kids love her character — this has long been the assumed rationale behind John Cena never making a heel turn as well.
The “I’m a hugger” thing hasn’t quite translated as well to the main roster as it did on the smaller stage of NXT, but she is still a popular superstar on the roster and kids and adults alike have gravitated to the whole positivity vibe she’s put forth. Sometimes, fans buy in a bit too much and it can lead to extraordinarily cringeworthy moments like what we saw on this week’s Monday Night Raw.
Bayley came out for the 10-woman tag match on Raw to her usual fanfare and that included running over to hug a young girl by the entrance ramp. The problem was there was what appears to be a grown man who thought a hug was coming his way, and what ensued is the most painful wrestling moment since the House of Horrors match.
https://twitter.com/BossMoz/status/988613131646648320
You can play off a rejected high-five, but there is no coming back from a full-fledged hug attempt that gets ignored. Bayley was alerted to this on Twitter and had the appropriate response of basically, “Sorry dude, I was hugging the kid.”
🤷🏻♀️👩🏻🔬My bad dude, I was caught up in da moment between me and that little girl. Next time! https://t.co/mZv0BR3wFu
— Bayley (@itsBayleyWWE) April 24, 2018
First off: there won’t be a next time, we all know that, so let’s not get false hopes up. Secondly, let this be a lesson to everyone that if you are an adult standing next to a child: you are not going to be the target of a hug or any other loving gesture from any babyface wrestler.
This kind of painful secondhand embarrassment (and firsthand trauma for this poor guy) can be avoided if we can all agree that as adults we should not be aggressively seeking out hugs, and should instead stay calm and be capable of reciprocating a hug if it is initiated by Bayley first. (We still reserve the right to fall all over ourselves like goons if this sort of thing happened to us in real life, of course.
