Bayley defeated Zelina Vega this week (hooray for two women’s matches on the show!) but the important thing was what happened after that, as we continued the story that began when Bayley cut off a piece of Shotzi’s hair, which she is now parading around with. Shotzi’s promo, delivered via the big screen, was generally well-performed and effective; we understand why Bayley was freaked afterward, and we’re looking forward to Shotzi’s new look, at the very least. But while we’re happy to see Shotzi getting a storyline, we just can’t get past the fact that WWE is making yet another one of their female performers start acting stereotypically crazy.

WWE has always had an obsession with the “crazy girl” character. Victoria and Mickie James both did it in the mid-2000s, and Luna Vachon and probably numerous others were doing it before that. AJ Lee did her own variation of it in the 2010s; Alexa Bliss did it during her partnership with Bray Wyatt’s “Fiend” character and seemed to be going back in that direction prior to her recent pregnancy. After losing what was then the “SmackDown” Women’s Championship back to Ronda Rousey, Liv Morgan started to exhibit similar attributes, and she had already done something resembling such a character back when she was part of the Riott Squad. But she’s toned down those elements since being paired up with Raquel Rodriguez in the tag division, meaning there was apparently a crazy girl void to be filled, and Shotzi has apparently been selected to fill it.

Are we overreacting? Possibly. Maybe Shotzi won’t end up playing this kind of character, or maybe she’ll come up with an interesting spin on it. All we know is that we’re tired of WWE having a single-digit list of potential character traits for women and just going back to them over and over, and this one is … well, not the most problematic, because it’s WWE, but still not great. We’re glad to be seeing more of Shotzi, but we wish this wasn’t what it took to make it happen.