Bayley will fight Charlotte at ‘Royal Rumble’ this Sunday. (WWE.com)
This Sunday, professional wrestler Pamela Rose Martinez will enter the ring in San Antonio for the biggest match of her career.
Martinez, who viewers know as Bayley, faces Charlotte Flair at Royal Rumble in a match with the WWE Raw Women’s Championship on the line. This comes just five months after she made her debut on the WWE’s main roster.
Pamela Martinez is 27 years old, 5’6″ and 119 pounds. She was born on June 15th, 1989 in Newark, California.
So who exactly is Bayley, and what lead her to her big night this Sunday? Here’s what you need to know.
1. She Started Wrestling in 2008 and Signed With WWE in 2013
Bayley’s career in professional wrestling began in April 2008, when she started training at Big Time Wrestling. After five months, she finally had her first match in September 2008, and she wrestled with Big Time Wrestling for the next few years. At the same time, she performed with a few other independent promotions like Shine Wrestling. During these years, she was wrestling under the name Davina Rose.
In January 2013, Bayley signed with World Wrestling Entertainment and made her debut on NXT. She first wrestled under a mask at a live show, and in March, she made her television debut when she fought against Paige; by this point she had dropped the mask and was now using the name Bayley. She played the role of an obsessive fan, but with the character being more of a creepy stalker type than the endearing wrestling enthusiast we know today.
Bayley’s first win with NXT came in September 2013, when she and Charlotte teamed up against Alicia Fox and Aksana. Charlotte and Bayley fought together for a bit until Charlotte betrayed Bayley in November and joined up with Sasha Banks and Summer Rae. Bayley had several shots at the Women’s Championship over the next several months, including a title match at NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way, but it wasn’t until NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in August 2015 that Bayley captured the title for the first time; she defeated Sasha Banks to capture the championship.
Bayley’s title reign lasted from August 2015 until April 2016, when she was finally defeated by Asuka. Their rematch took place in August 2016 at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II; Asuka retained her championship. This was Bayley’s final event with NXT, and she officially joined the Monday Night Raw roster two days later.
2. She Was the Last of the ‘Four Horsewomen’ to Join the Main Roster
While Bayley was on NXT, she was part of what was known as the “Four Horsewomen” along with Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Charlotte.
But Bayley’s fans were frustrated by the fact that her peers continued to be promoted to the main roster while Bayley remained on NXT. On July 13th, 2015, Sasha, Becky, and Charlotte all made their Monday Night Raw debut, with Stephanie McMahon declaring this was the start of a revolution in women’s wrestling. Bayley was left behind.
Back on NXT, Bayley, now the Women’s Champion, went on to feud with Alexa Bliss, Eva Marie, Nia Jax and Carmella; all of them made it to the main roster before she did.
In some way, this only made fans love Bayley more, as the WWE neglecting her fit with her underdog character. Off camera, Bayley was open about her frustration with this and her desire to make it to the main roster. In an interview on Chris Jericho’s podcast in July 2016, she said that she was initially excited when her friends made it to the main roster but that she had grown a bit frustrated over time.
“Now I think I’ve done what I can [on NXT], and especially after WrestleMania when I saw their amazing match and the new women’s title, I was like, ‘dude, this is where I need to be,'” she said. “So now I’m pretty…’alright, let’s do this.'”
Almost exactly a month after that podcast aired, Bayley finally made her debut on Monday Night Raw, and her entrance received one of the biggest pops of 2016.
3. Her Name is a Tribute to the Bay Area of California
Bayley fights Charlotte on ‘Monday Night Raw.’ (WWE.com)
Pamela Martinez’s original ring name was Davina Rose, and when she signed with World Wrestling Entertainment, she wanted to keep that name. Unfortunately, the company wouldn’t allow it.
On Talk is Jericho, Martinez said that she wanted her ring name to be gender neutral; the company gave her a list of possibilities, one of them being Bailey. She initially wasn’t a fan of that name but it grew on her more when she changed the spelling to Bayley.
“I was like ‘if I choose this one, I have to spell it b-a-y because I’m from the bay area,” she said. “I thought I was so cool. Like, ‘yeah, it has to mean something to me.’ So then I went with that and now I love it.”
Bayley was born in Newark, California.
4. She Is Engaged to Aaron Solow, a Professional Wrestler
Bayley and Aaron attend Wrestlemania 31 in 2015. (Instagram)
Bayley is currently engaged to Aaron Solow, a professional wrestler who performs on the independent circuit. Earlier this year, he was an alternate for the Cruiserweight Classic, though he never ended up appearing in the event.
“To even be considered to be a part of this means a lot,” Solow told WWE.com. “There are thousands of guys that want to be in the CWC. Even though I’m not in the tournament, just to be around it and see how it’s put together, and how WWE is treating these outsiders with so much respect is very, very cool.”
5. She Is Good Friends With Sasha Banks
Off camera, Bayley is close friends with her Monday Night Raw peer Sasha Banks.
The two had a similar path to stardom, starting at NXT at roughly the same time and facing each other in matches quite often.
“My first matches here were against Sasha, and they were just whatever matches, house show matches,” she told Rolling Stone. “I had a practice match with her just so coaches could see how I worked. So it goes that far back, to my first time in Florida Championship Wrestling, and then we get to NXT and we both weren’t really doing anything in storylines, and they’d put us in these matches, like a go-to filler match, and they’d give us five minutes or something, and I’d just kind of joke, ‘Well, I’ve got Sasha again.'”
Bayley added that both she and Sasha grew up watching wrestling and that “deep down, we’re the same person – but when it comes to wrestling, we’re really competitive.”
This culminated in the two of them having a championship match at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in August 2015, where Bayley emerged victorious.
Bayley told Rolling Stone that “when it got to Brooklyn, we knew how special it was. We were going to be able to do this in front of 16,000 people, in the co-main event, and me knowing she cared so much made me emotional, and her knowing I cared made her emotional. And the thought that, if I were to win, it would be one of the last times I’d get to work with her, it was a bittersweet moment. She’s definitely my favorite to work with. It’s a chemistry that you don’t really get with everybody.”