Britt Baker was this week’s guest on Talk is Jericho, and she spoke with Chris Jericho about the notion that she stole her current heel role model gimmick from Bayley:
Baker: “No, we did not steal the role model gimmick from Bayley...the inspiration came from you, from Chris Jericho, for the role model gimmick. I don’t want to say I don’t know totally what’s going on with Raw and SmackDown, because I try to stay in touch with it, but at the same time, I’m a dentist and a professional wrestler. I don’t know every single storyline going on each week. So it wasn’t until I actually said the word ‘role model’ on TV, and then I’ve got the Bayley army coming at me - ‘You’re stealing her gimmick!’, that I even knew that she was calling herself that too. Granted, totally different uses of the words, totally different gimmicks, as we call it. But I want to set the record straight, that no we didn’t steal that from anybody. Well I stole it from you, not from her.”
Jericho: “Yeah and she probably stole it from me too, because I think her and Sasha watch a lot of my stuff and Eddie’s stuff...and I probably stole it from somebody too, so I wouldn’t worry about it. I never saw it as a Bayley thing, I just saw it as a great idea for you to do.”
There are only so many gimmicks to go around in pro wrestling, and the idea of a delusional heel who thinks they are actually a role model isn’t such a novel concept that it should be met with accusations of theft.
But that’s what the power of mob mentality and irrational fandom can create, and it appears that Baker has been dealing with a lot of trolls on social media as a result of her gimmick change. It’s just the latest reminder to avoid wrestling cliques and armies online, and to also understand that not everything in the pro wrestling world revolves around your favorite pro wrestler or mine.
Baker also talked about the famous incident that occurred in December 2019 when she was shown on camera at NXT Takeover when Adam Cole, her boyfriend, was put through a table from the top of a steel cage. She explained that Tony Khan is always cool with her attending those events to show support for her boyfriend, and that it was great because she was the top Google search coming out of that night.
She said Triple H apologized to her backstage, claiming that the crew didn’t know who she was. Jericho wasn’t buying that explanation at all.
You can listen to her full thoughts on that incident, as well as her denial that she used a blood capsule for her nose injury a couple weeks ago on Dynamite, by checking out Talk is Jericho here.