15 Things WWE's Bad Girl Paige Wants You To Forget
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Born Saraya-Jade Bevis on August 17, 1992, the woman who would become known as Paige has exemplified her self-processed role as the Anti-Diva from the moment she came up with the term. Coincidentally, just as WWE started doing away with the term diva altogether, Paige has started to fade out of the spotlight. It isn’t just that she’s less relevant today than she was only a year or so ago. The bigger problem is Paige’s increasingly tumultuous personal life, although people who’ve been paying attention to her family probably aren’t too surprised by her recent behavior.
Paige’s parents are Ricky Knight and Sweet Saraya, who both wrestle themselves in addition to having run their own promotion for many years. The Knights inspired Paige and her brothers to follow in their footsteps at a young age, and yet Paige has proven the only one able to break out as a star in America thus far. She started to do so after getting discovered by a WWE talent scout touring England, passing her second tryout and signing with the company in 2011.
Since she made her WWE Universe debut, Paige has shined as one of the standout talents during the women’s wrestling revolution. Unfortunately, her actions outside the ring are putting a halt to her career. While Paige’s fans hope that she’ll be able to turn things around and return to prominence before long, the rest of the wrestling community might not be immediately prepared to welcome her back. Keep reading to learn 15 things WWE bad girl Paige wants you to forget.
15. Saraya Wrestled While Pregnant With Her
Most if not all women today know there are certain activities they shouldn’t engage in while pregnant, for both their own health and the health of their fetus. High atop the list of things expecting women shouldn’t do is pursue a career as an active wrestler, and yet that’s exactly what Paige’s mother Sweet Saraya did up until she was seven months pregnant with her daughter. Despite Paige being Saraya’s second child, she would later defend her extremely dangerous actions by claiming she didn’t know she was pregnant at the time. This is pretty much the only defense that could be acceptable, questionable though it may be given how far along Saraya was, plus the fact she had gone through a pregnancy before. Even if it was a mistake, it could have cost Paige her life before she was born, and thus remains a dark point in their family history. Oddly, the information has only really become well known because Paige herself spread the story, but we still think she’ll eventually realize her mother’s behavior in this regard shouldn’t be publicized.
14. Her First Impressions Of The Family Business
Not every wrestler dreams of sports entertainment glory from the day they're born, including those whose parents make their living in the industry. In fact, having parents who wrestle might scare kids away from the sport altogether, which is nearly what happened to Paige when she was a young girl. According to Paige, before she fully understood what wrestling was, all she knew about her parents' profession was that it meant they beat people up every night, unless of course they were getting beaten up themselves. WWE isn’t as hardcore as the Knight family promotion, World Association of Wrestling, but the implication that pro wrestling is violent and terrifying to children isn’t an image that the corporate, family friendly McMahon family wants to become mainstream. What sounds like a silly, ironic story can actually be indemnifying and damaging to the industry if it gets enough thought, and chances are neither Paige nor WWE want fans to think about it too much for that reason.
13. She Had A Miscarriage At 18
People who go through damaging emotional trauma typically don’t like talking about it at length, which makes it a no brainer that Paige would prefer fans forget about her tragic history with trying to have children. The only person who knows exactly the full story is Paige herself, and she’s been understandably tight lipped about having a miscarriage when she was 18, so the best we can do is speculate based on the little information she has revealed on Total Divas. After getting caught having an emotional moment when other female wrestlers were talking about having children, Paige explained that she had been pregnant at a young age only to lose the baby for unclear reasons. Not long after that, she had an unrelated surgery, and a doctor discovered there was very little chance she’d ever be able to conceive another child. Paige also spoke at length about how difficult it is for female wrestlers to have children, which coupled with her family history puts into question how exactly the baby was lost. Regardless of the exact circumstance, she obviously didn’t like talking about her troubles, and would likely rather put it all behind her.
12. Her Brother Failed His WWE Tryout
In addition to her semi-famous independent wrestling parents Ricky Knight and Sweet Saraya, Paige also has two wrestling brothers, Roy and Zak. Roy performs as The Zebra Kid, and Zak competes under the moniker Zak Zodiac. The Zebra Kid has largely seemed content staying in England and running World Association of Wrestling with his parents, but Zak Zodiac attempted to follow his sister to America when she had her WWE tryout. It took Paige two tries, but the important part is that she passed and fast ascended to the top of her division. Her brother, on the other hand, failed his every tryout, ultimately told that he was too skinny and lacked the muscle mass to be taken seriously in the WWE Universe. In all fairness to Zak, while he’s never had the definition necessary for him to be a true star, he wasn’t in particularly worse shape than, say, James Ellsworth or Spike Dudley. Then again, perhaps those examples prove WWE’s point. Either way, it must be a bit awkward at Knight family reunions when Zak and Paige talk about their respective career paths.
11. Slapping A Fan In The Face
Immediately prior to starting her career in WWE, Paige was participating in a so-called Queen of the Ring tournament held by a promotion called UK Wrestling Mayhem. Wrestling as Britani Knight, Paige made it all the way to the finals of the tournament, last challenging a British superstar named “Inferno” Jemma Palmer. Paige lost, but her post match antics turned out to be far more memorable than the tournament itself. For reasons that remain unclear, after Palmer left with her arms raised, Knight jumped out of the ring and harshly slapped a male fan across the face. There were rumors he had been making misogynistic comments throughout the match, while others believe it was planned and the fan actually asked her to slap him before the show. Either way, there’s nothing particularly wrong with what she did, but that doesn’t change the fact WWE definitely wouldn’t condone it. Especially in today’s highly PG environment, the idea of a wrestler assaulting a fan would never fly, and there’s a reason Paige hasn’t done anything like this since leaving the UK.
10. Getting Kicked Out Of A Bar With Alicia Fox
There are downsides to being a famous wrestler, not to mention a beautiful woman, such as meeting fan and paparazzi harassment when you’re simply trying to have a quiet drink with a friend. At least that’s the way Paige and Alicia Fox would likely start to explain away the incident that took place at Supano’s Prime Steakhouse in Baltimore, Maryland, circa September 2015. According to Paige, she and Fox were relaxing and enjoying a night out, singing karaoke, when a possibly intoxicated fan approached them and started filming everything they did. Paige asked the woman to stop filming them, so she threw her drink at the WWE superstars. Not used to backing down from a brawl, Paige and Fox responded in kind, and soon a fourth bar patron joined in, causing margaritas to fly all over the establishment. Paige, Fox, and both of their fans/paparazzo/opponents were all thrown out. The two unknown women apparently tried to keep the fight going outside, while Paige and Fox quietly backed away rather than make things worse. It’s nice that cooler heads prevailed, but the fact Paige and Fox fought back at first still makes them look pretty bad, and it makes sense the incident has mostly been swept under the rug.
9. Her Loose Lips Sank A Facebook Q&A
WWE has been making a concerted effort to expand the WWE Universe to include all facets of the Internet, constantly pimping their social media on Raw and SmackDown, in addition to having talent appear in an exponentially large number of online mediums. The main pro to this level of connectivity is that fans can interact with their favorite superstars more than ever before, but the more expansive the WWE Universe gets, the harder it is for officials to oversee every element of it and ensure the superstars don’t say things they shouldn’t. Guidelines can be drawn about what is and isn’t acceptable, but people can forget or make mistakes, even with words it should be obviously they aren’t supposed to say. Like, for example, “f*ck.” In a PG company like WWE, it goes without saying that f-bombs are not allowed. Apparently, however, Paige never got the memo, dropping an f-bomb during a Facebook Q&A in the fall of 2015. She was immediately reprimanded by road agent Scott Armstrong, who ran over to the screen and yelled “No F-Bombs!” at the fans. Paige instantly regretted having said it, and repeatedly promised she wouldn’t do so again.
8. Getting Involved With Dark Gypsy Coffee
History has shown many athletes have trouble planning for retirement, so getting involved in an outside business venture often seems like a great way for them to ensure they’ll keep making money regardless of what happens in their sporting career. Because of this, there’s no reason for Paige to feel bad about her decision to invest in The Dark Gypsy Coffee company with Bobby Schubenski and Jim Somers, who also owned Blackcraft Cult clothing. Schubenski is also notable for dating WWE superstar Rosa Mendes, who introduced Paige to their business. This list has been making it clear Paige isn’t very talkative about the non-wrestling elements of her life, and The Dark Gypsy is no different in this regard. All we know for sure is that whatever her relationship with the company was, it has completely ended as of October 2016. Paige made it very clear on Twitter she was no longer associated with the company, telling fans to stop asking her about it.
7. The Original Name For Team PCB
In stark contrast to the heights the division has reached, the women’s revolution started on television not with a bang, but a whimper, when Stephanie McMahon implicitly called for the women to step up and impress her, while also making it clear she was much greater than they could ever be. Digressing from why that didn’t work, another problem was that all of the women in the company immediately banded together in poorly thought out groups. The Bella/Total Divas team was reasonable enough, but Team B.A.D. seemed mostly grouped together based on their race, and the name Team PCB alone should be enough to make it obvious how hodgepodge that motley crew would turn out to be. The name referred plainly to the group’s tree members, Paige, Charlotte, and Becky Lynch, and unoriginal as it was, WWE did have a minor excuse for the lack of creativity—they tried a different name only to instantly regret it. At first, Team PCB was the Submission Sorority. Unfortunately, the Internet being what it is, the Submission Sorority is also an adult web site. WWE very quickly changed their name to the less provocative moniker, never again acknowledging their lascivious mistake.
6. Everything Team PCB Went On To Accomplish
Arguably the most embarrassing part about the Submission Sorority ordeal is that Paige said she discovered the adult web site before anyone else, by way of a simple Google search, only for WWE to ignore her warnings that other people would do the same thing. It’s less likely she could have foreseen the other pitfalls of Team PCB, or the fact they would become one of the most disappointing stables in recent WWE history, especially considering the level of talent involved. Paige had already been leading the women’s revolution for over a year by the time they teamed up, and giving her two of NXT’s Four Horsewomen as allies could have lead to serious dominance over the women’s division on the main roster. Instead, Team PCB very quickly became the same catty caricatures as the WWE divas they were supposed to be replacing, fighting amongst themselves as soon as Charlotte stood out as Paige’s equal. Ironically, the ongoing saga of Team PCB, from their inception to feud Team B.A.D. and the Bellas to their feud amongst themselves, actually set women’s wrestling back by making it seem like WWE was going to treat their new female talents the same way they always had. Luckily, things would soon turn around and it wouldn’t be nearly that bad, but there were still a few missteps along the way…
5. Mocking Reid Flair's Death
Every fan of professional wrestling is aware of the depressing industry trend that retired superstars of sports entertainment tend to die at a younger age than people in nearly any other profession. This has only become more apparent as time goes on, and it’s why Paige’s comments to Charlotte Flair on a late November 2015 episode of Raw were surprising. Referring to Charlotte’s brother Reid, who died of a heroin overdose in 2013, Paige mockingly asked, “your little baby brother, he didn’t have much fight in him, did he?” Although Charlotte had apparently agreed to let Paige use the line, neither “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair nor Reid’s mother had any warning about it, and later claimed they never would have approved it if they did. Most critics agreed it was highly unnecessary, as the women should have been able to stand on their own merits as wrestlers, not needing to resort to such offensive tactics to get Paige over as a heel.
4. An Engagement To Forget
Like most people who appear on reality shows about their lives, Paige has been in a number of high profile relationships. It could be argued her most recent romance with Alberto Del Rio is her most mainstream beau yet, but she’s no stranger to famous boyfriends, having previously dated Emarosa singer Bradley Walton and A Day to Remember guitarist Kevin Skaff. Paige and Skaff were actually engaged, though they split sometime around February 2016. Altogether, they dated for less than a year, making Paige’s tendency to get engaged early on in relationships seem like something of a pattern. Paige and Skaff were together during the time A Day to Remember were recording their latest album, titled Bad Vibrations, largely co-written by Skaff. That said, it doesn’t appear any of their music was inspired by the relationship or their breakup. In any event, it didn’t take Paige long to rebound, as she and Del Rio went public with their relationship less than three months after she revealed her prior engagement was off.
3. She Failed Two Wellness Tests In A Row
The day of her 24th birthday, Paige was suspended by WWE for violating the WWE Wellness Policy. The report came amidst news that she had been excessively partying lately, usually with her new boyfriend, Alberto Del Rio. According to Paige, this violation wasn’t drug related, but rather an issue related to the questionable and stringent procedural rules that WWE superstars need to follow during testing. Regardless of the cause, within two weeks of her suspension being lifted, she was suspended again, having violated the Wellness Policy once more. This time around, WWE issued a statement openly stating that Paige was suspended after testing positive for an illegal substance, not a prescription drug, nor due to some procedural issue. The true cause of her suspensions notwithstanding, Paige is hardly the first wrestler to make a mistake and fail a Wellness test, so this isn’t necessarily a career killer. If she truly has been caught using illegal drugs, she needs help, but the good news is WWE and outside doctors can definitely give it to her. Unfortunately, if she keeps denying her problem, she’ll only wind up making more problems in the future.
2. She Publicly Argued With Management Over Her Suspension
So, speaking of Paige denying her problems…as already mentioned, she responded to her first Wellness Policy related suspension by claiming she didn’t test positive for anything, and that it was simply a procedural issue. That may have been the case, but WWE was very implicit about her second suspension, and yet she still denied having done anything wrong. In fact, her immediate response was to write on Twitter, “Same shit different day. Kids..Please don’t get prescriptions or doctor's notes. Not acceptable.” Her parents stood behind her, both backing up the assertion that whatever drugs she tested positive for had been prescribed to her. Of course, this goes against the earlier report from WWE that Paige had been found using an illegal substance. This is hardly unheard of behavior from addicts, who deny they have a problem until it becomes unsolvable. On the other hand, it is true that Paige suffered a neck injury that needed surgery around this time, and it is somewhat possible that she was using some sort of painkillers falling in a legal gray area that she nonetheless actually needed. Either way, public spats with management aren’t good for anyone’s career, especially if they want to keep working for their company.
1. Picking Alberto Del Rio Over WWE
The heart wants what it wants, and we wish nothing but happiness for Paige and Alberto Del Rio in their personal lives. With that said, if you’re a fan of professional wrestling, there could be genuine reason to worry Paige and Del Rio’s relationship will ultimately affect both of their careers in a harshly negative fashion. Del Rio has already suffered, essentially getting kicked out of WWE for refusing to cut back on his partying lifestyle, not to mention getting Paige to descend into the chaotic fun with him. Paige has been suspended twice since the relationship blossomed into something serious, with many industry insiders believing it was Del Rio’s influence that made Paige so cavalier about her drug use. In an ideal world, Paige and Del Rio would live happily ever after while experience sterling careers in WWE or whatever other company they wish to work for. More likely, however, is the possibility that WWE will resent Paige for picking Del Rio over them, and she may never get another true opportunity to succeed in the company again. If her relationship with Del Rio goes the same way as her past romances with rock stars, this could truly become her biggest regret of all.
Sources: WWE, TMZ, Channel Guide Magazine, Wrestling Inc.
