An hour prior to Raw going on air, Bayley was shown to her ringside seat by a member of staff. The seats around hers were already occupied, presumably by die hard wrestling fans. Bayley was looking forward to the show, but she couldn't help feeling out of place. She had no idea what lay ahead.
With nothing better to do to kill the time until the show began, Bayley put her large soda down on the floor and got her camera ready to film her first little vlog of the night. She aimed the device at herself and started recording.
To one side of Bayley were a couple who were talking to each other in a foreign language, and showing no interest in Bayley. On her other side was a woman about the same age as Bayley. She had long dark hair, and was wearing a Rowdy Ronda Rousey shirt. Beside her was a tall man with dark hair, wearing a black shirt with 'I am the man' on the front of it in white lettering. From the way they were talking, it seemed they were a couple.
"Okay guys, I'm here at ringside," Bayley said to her future viewers. "I have no idea what I'm about to see, but I'll have a great view of it." She turned the camera around to show the ring. "Look at that. They'll practically be able to hit me from there!"
Bayley panned around the arena. "This place is filling up fast. Look at the people streaming in. And off to my left is the stage, where I was earlier. Nikki will be coming out later in the night. I'm looking forward to that in particular. I'll be back with you when we get our first piece of action."
When Bayley turned her camera off, she noticed the woman with the Rousey shirt looking at her with a quizzical expression on her.
"Excuse me," the stranger said pleasantly. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you get that camera in here? That kind of thing is supposed to be banned by WWE."
"Oh, is it?" Bayley said. "I'm actually kind of here with WWE. I've got a deal with them where I'm going to record videos for my YouTube channel, and in return they give me backstage access and ringside seats."
"Oh my god, how cool is that?" the girl asked, turning to look at her boyfriend, who also looked impressed.
"You must have a pretty big channel then?" he assumed.
"One of the biggest," Bayley confirmed, trying not to sound like she was bragging about the fact. It wasn't in her nature to do that. "I don't know if you've ever heard of BayleyPlays?"
"The name rings a bell," the guy said. "Not sure I've ever watched a video though, I'm afraid to say."
Bayley shrugged. "A lot of people haven't." She offered her hand to him as she formally introduced herself. "I'm Bayley, as you may have guessed."
He shook her hand. "I'm Ads. This is Maggie."
"Good to meet you," Maggie said as they also shook hands. "Is this your first time coming to Raw? Or to a live WWE show?"
Bayley giggled, feeling embarrassed by the answer she had to give. "Honestly? It'll be my first time watching wrestling at all. That was kind of the point as far as WWE were concerned. They want my videos to attract people who are totally new to wrestling, like me."
"That's actually a pretty neat idea," Maggie said. "They've picked out a good Raw for your first one, too. At least, it should be a good one. It was the Royal Rumble last night, and both the rumble matches were great. I guess it means nothing to you, but Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch won them, which was awesome."
"There are rumours Becky might show up tonight and challenge Nikki Bella," Ads said.
Bayley noticed Maggie cringe at the mention of Nikki. "I am so mad they had Ronnie drop the belt to Nikki. What the hell were they thinking? Ronda should have been champion heading into Mania, and everyone knows it. And of all people, they give it to Nikki Bella? It makes me sick. That fake ass part timer deserves nothing."
Hot takes, Bayley thought, reminding herself that the idea seemed to be that fans were supposed to hate Nikki's character. It sure seemed to be working. Even so, for some reason, Bayley found herself feeling a bit offended to hear Nikki spoken about in that manner. She also had to tell herself not to let on that she knew Becky Lynch was backstage. "You're a Ronda Rousey fan, obviously," she ventured instead. "She's pretty much the only one I've heard of."
"I'm actually a friend of Ronda's," Maggie revealed. "That's why we came out to watch the rumble, assuming Ronnie would ruin Nikki. But instead they had her do a job, and now Nikki Bella is going to take the title into Wrestlemania. Ugh, it makes me sick."
"What's so bad about Nikki?" Bayley asked, trying her best to make it sound like she didn't have a dog in the fight.
"The Bellas are from the bad old days of women's wrestling. Before they started using women who could actually wrestle, they used to hire them based on how they looked. The Bellas have no wrestling ability; they can't act; they're just a joke. Nikki only got to be champion for so long last time because she was sleeping with one of the biggest names in the company. It was a joke."
"Maggie is quite passionate about women's wrestling," Ads put in.
"Yeah, I can see that," Bayley said, thinking through her next words carefully. "I met Nikki backstage earlier. She was really nice to me. I didn't know she had a twin sister?."
"Yeah, Brie. She's an even worse wrestler than Nikki," Maggie said. "Thankfully it was only Nikki who came back full time. Brie has a kid though, so I guess that's why."
Grateful for the insight, Bayley decided to change the subject before any more shots got fired at Nikki. Before long, the Raw pre-show got underway and Bayley sat and watched her first wrestling match, filming her reactions for a video. She found the action to over the top in terms of theatrics, but enjoyable nonetheless. Maggie had advised her to look at Raw as a soap opera, but with a lot of athletic ability and action thrown in.
The main show went on air, beginning with a match between Seth Rollins and a guy called Baron Corbin. Bayley was impressed with the reaction Seth got from the crowd. They seemed to all love him, and as a total newcomer, she thought she could understand why. He was very athletic, and his moves looked impressive.
Following the Rollins victory, Bayley saw one of the ringside cameramen walking in her direction, with his camera pointed at her. She realised they were going to put her on the big screen. She kept her camera hidden below the barricade and waited to see herself on the screen in the background. When she appeared, with a graphic mentioning the name of her channel, she gave her biggest smile and put her thumb up in a pose that was familiar to her viewers. The cheer she received from the crowd was a lovely surprise. It was by no means as loud as the one Seth Rollins had gotten, but it was enough to tell her that some of the people in attendance were also fans of her work.
Another men's match was up next. Following that, there was a backstage segment shown on the big screen. Then the music began to play for the next person who was going to come out.
"You can look, but you can't touch!"
In the same moment the arena erupted into boos, Bayley saw Nikki's name on the screen. "Christ," Bayley muttered to herself, despite the fact that she was filming. Beside her, Maggie was booing as loudly as anyone else. Bayley wondered if the reaction was a good thing for Nikki or not. Since her character was supposed to be disliked, she supposed that at least in some ways it was a good thing.
"It doesn't sound like Nikki is very popular," Bayley said to her audience.
Nikki walked out into the arena, looking like she was revelling in the negative reaction she was getting. Carrying her title belt over her shoulder, she stood at the top of the ramp and posed by giving the crowd a booty twirl. Bayley's mind was blown as she watched on. Nikki's body was something else, and everything she did showed it off to perfection. That ass was out of this world.
Walking down the ramp, Nikki conveyed indifference bordering on contempt for the fans. She walked around the ring, passing right in front of Bayley before climbing up on the apron and posing again.
"You suck, Nikki!" Maggie shouted.
Bayley watched with rapt attention while Nikki used a microphone to address the audience, talking about how she had outclassed and beaten Ronda Rousey the previous night. Her words got the crowd even more riled up, which Bayley enjoyed immensely.
Nikki had been in the ring for a few minutes when another piece of music abruptly interrupted her. The arena exploded with noise as the fans lost their minds. Even though none of what was going on meant much to Bayley, she cheered too, caught up in the atmosphere. She saw the name Becky Lynch on the screen; no surprise to her since she had known ahead of time that this confrontation was going to happen. Around her, though, everyone was going crazy.
Wasting no time on ceremony, Becky marched down to the ring. She climbed up on the turnbuckles in one of the corners to pose for the fans, then fetched herself a microphone. When her music faded out, the arena was filled with a deafening chant of "Becky!"
"Jesus, this is wild!" Bayley exclaimed, pointing her camera at herself. "I've never been in an atmosphere like this in my life. These people love Becky Lynch."
The only person who didn't seem excited about Becky's arrival was Nikki, who was giving her a look that could kill.
"Nikki, you're out here mouthing off about beating Ronda Rousey. Everyone knows I don't have much time or respect for Ronnie, but let's be honest here: The only reason you're standing there with that title over your shoulder is because you're a cheat." There was another loud cheer.
"You cheated to beat Ronnie, and that's going to be the biggest mistake of your life, Nikki," Becky went on. "You see, while you were backstage celebrating the victory you didn't earn, The Man was out there winning the Royal Rumble."
A "Becky!" chant went up again. Bayley quickly scanned her camera around the fans behind her, doing her best to capture the atmosphere for her video.
"In case you didn't know," Becky continued, talking down to Nikki, "and I guess you probably didn't, since you hardly ever bothered to show up over the past year, the winner of the Royal Rumble gets to choose which champion she wants to face at Wrestlemania."
The fans cheered again, and some of them started chanting "Yes!" while doing some kind of weird pointing action. Bayley had no idea what that was all about.
"Now, I can't say I liked Ronnie having the Raw Women's Championship. Equally, I don't like Charlotte being the Smackdown Women's Championship, especially considering she won it from me. But you, Nikki? You being a champion? That's an utter disgrace to WWE and to women's wrestling. That's why, at Wrestlemania, The Man is going to put an end to it, and put an end to you. Let me show you what I mean."
With that, Becky smashed Nikki in the face with her microphone and proceeded to spend two minutes beating the hell out of her, hitting several powerful moves in the process. The fans roared the Irishwoman on the whole time, loving the ass kicking Nikki was taking. Personally, Bayley felt concern for her friend, if it wasn't too soon to think of Nikki as a friend.
When the beatdown was over, Becky posed with the belt that didn't belong to her, then dropped it on top of Nikki before swaggering her way out of the ring, leaving the champion a battered mess, lying face down on the mat. The fans continued to cheer over Lynch's music.
Bayley turned her camera off and looked at Maggie, who appeared delighted with what had transpired. "That was wild, Maggie. Will Nikki be okay? She took such a beating right there."
Although she had made it perfectly clear what she thought of Nikki, Maggie must have picked up on genuine concern from Bayley, and answered accordingly. "She'll be fine. None of what happened just then will have actually hurt her. I'm sure someone must have told you how wrestling works?"
"Yeah," Bayley nodded. "It's just… it looked like it hurt to me."
Maggie laughed. "Maybe Nikki can wrestle after all. Who knew?"
A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter.
Next time, Bayley will be backstage again after her first Raw, where Nikki will have an offer to make her. What do you think it might be?