‘Adam Cole Bay Bay’: WWE NXT champion reveals story behind the popular catchphrase
Adam Cole is a superstar who is a master at getting the audience to care. His catchphrase ‘Adam Cole Bay Bay’ is an adored phrase by the crowd. As soon as Cole starts with his catchphrase, the crowd erupts in the arena. So how did that catchphrase come about?
One of the big drawbacks of WWE wrestlers performing in empty arenas is the absence of participation of the crowd. Professional wrestling is one of the sports that is very dependent on the reaction of the audience. The relationship between a wrestler and the crowd is very reactive. The likes of Stone Cold, The Rock, John Cena, Chris Jericho, etc were masters of manipulating the audience and had a very ‘reactive’ relationship with the fans.

Adam Cole is also a superstar who is a master at getting the audience to care. His catchphrase ‘Adam Cole Bay Bay’ is an adored phrase by the crowd. As soon as Cole starts with his catchphrase, the crowd erupts in the arena. So how did that catchphrase come about? Cole has an interesting story about its start.
“It was so crazy. First of all before I tell you how I came up with it because a lot of people don’t know this. I have been wrestling for about 12 years and for the first 6-8 years, I did that Adam Cole Bay Bay but no one would pick it up. I just did it myself. Fans would either boo or just stand there and look at me feeling ‘what’s he doing’. But there was a guy Joey Mercury in the WWE and in the independent scene, he was Joey Matthews. On an independent show in Baltimore, Maryland, Joey would beat this guy up and put his fists in the air after every 30-40 seconds and go ‘Joey Matthews’ over and over again,” Cole told Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview.
“I was a young wrestler watching that and I thought that was so smart. If a non-wrestling guy is watching the show and if he had to remember one name after the end then they would remember ‘Joey Matthews’. Seeing guys like Chris Jericho stand on people’s chest and say ‘Come on Bay Bay’ and the baby was really obnoxious. So I thought that’s something cool too and I decided to mix those two.”
“I started to do ‘Adam Cole Bay Bay’ and with a really obnoxious baby. Just for a really long time I did it and somewhere along the way pretty deep into my independent run, it caught on. I actually think it was after a phase where I out for 3-4 months with an injury. After I came back, I think the fans missed me a little bit and they started chanting my catchphrase with me. I never expected in a million years that it would take off the way it did. It was really cool.”
Adam Cole is now the WWE NXT Champion and one of the most popular superstars in the company. He is the leader of the ‘Undisputed Era’, who are themselves one of the most accomplished factions in NXT history. It feels like whatever Cole touches turns into gold.
His confidence on the mic, his wrestling prowess, and his ability to make the audience care has made him a stalwart in NXT.
