APRIL 11TH, 2021
Over one year of professional wrestling with no live fans was coming to an end. The official tagline of WrestleMania 37 was “Back in Business.” This two-night extravaganza celebrated the stars who kept RAW, SmackDown, and NXT afloat during the Pandemic Era. Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley battled for the WWE Championship to kick off Night One. Cesaro got the biggest win of his career over Seth Rollins. Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks made history as the first two Black women to main-event a WrestleMania. But for the real MVP of the Pandemic Era, the reward did not match the sacrifice.
Speaking to Uproxx prior to this year’s Royal Rumble Bayley said “I was so heartbroken that I didn’t even want to go ask what was happening. I felt like I had the best year of my career. Then I hosted WrestleMania, which was an honor. Got to be alongside some legends, have some cool moments, a lot of spotlight on me both nights. Now I can say I’ve done it. But that’s not where I thought I should have been.” It had been a hard journey just to make it to that years Wrestlemania, but it made where she was going that much sweeter.
Ask anyone who watched WWE while they held their events at the Performance Center (and later the Thunderdome), two superstars consistently made shows that should be unwatchable must-see television – Bayley and Sasha Banks. While Sasha had her well-deserved moment in the main event, Bayley’s payoff was deflating. She was shoehorned in as the third “host” and interacted with the NWO on Night One. Before the main event of Night Two, Bayley interrupted Hulk Hogan and Titus O’Neil, claiming she was tired of being disrespected by legends. The Bella Twins appeared and took out the disrespectful Bayley to a mixed reaction. And that was it. Bayley laid out on the ramp while the Bella Twins danced with the hosts of WrestleMania. Dreams of a WrestleMania main event cloudier than ever.
JULY 13TH, 2015
Down in NXT, the Women’s Evolution was a full-blown revolution. Paige and Emma blew fans away with their match on the first-ever NXT streamed event called Arrival. From there, every NXT Takeover was guaranteed to feature a women’s match that would blow away whatever you’d see on RAW or SmackDown. The “Four Horsewomen” of NXT had exploded onto the scene. Charlotte Flair was the second-generation athlete. Becky Lynch showed out as the workhorse of the division. Sasha Banks was dripping with charisma. But Bayley was the undeniable babyface. THE underdog and the wrestler the fans got behind the most. Bayley and Sasha had a generational match at NXT Takeover Brooklyn, showing out for the first NXT Takeover held outside of the Performance Center where Bayley became NXT Women’s Champion.
But just a month before this epic clash, three of the Four Horsewomen would get the call to debut on the main roster. Stephanie McMahon would introduce Charlotte, Sasha, and Becky to the mix, and all three women have been major players in weekly American televised wrestling since. Just one person was missing. It made sense in a way – Bayley was the most over she had ever been and was about to become champion. While she would set off on a great title reign, the rest of the Four Horsewomen would go on to fight at that year’s WrestleMania for the newly designed WWE Women’s Championship. The Divas Title was dead. The revolution was live and in living color. Charlotte, Sasha, and Becky were changing women’s wrestling on the main roster; but Bayley had unfinished business.
Despite being disappointed at not being called up with the rest of her peers, Bayley saw the benefits of staying in NXT. “I was always kind of seen as the weaker link of the four, so I always wanted to prove to everybody, like ‘I can do this too and I can help people, lead people, and carry the division’…I still think that was probably my most valuable time of my career.” A little under a year later from her NXT title win, Bayley made her main roster debut as the surprise partner for Sasha Banks, defeating Charlotte Flair and Dana Brooke. One month later, it was official. Bayley was a full-fledged member of the Monday Night RAW roster.
FEBRUARY 13TH, 2017
Bayley’s feud with Charlotte carried on through the fall and after failing to win the RAW Women’s Championship at the Royal Rumble, Bayley finally became the champion a few weeks later when she defeated Charlotte in the main event of RAW. Bayley walked into WrestleMania 33 as the RAW Women’s champion and retained over Charlotte, Sasha, and Nia Jax. If this were the movies, this is where Bayley’s story would end. The final Horsewoman to be called up standing tall at the biggest show of the year. Unfortunately, wrestling has no off-season. No final credits ran on Bayley’s storybook run. Instead, there were just more obstacles for Bayley to overcome.
MAY 29TH, 2017
Bayley lost her championship to the red-hot Alexa Bliss at Payback. And then came the “This is Your Life” segment. Done before to a huge success (Mick Foley) and…not that (John Cena), this segment fell off the rails fast. It was ten minutes of corny WWE jokes that the crowd thoroughly rejected. Worse, it all set up a “Kendo Stick on a Pole” match at Extreme Rules. Bayley hesitated to use the cane (proving Alexa’s point that Bayley was too soft) and lost after a few shots of the cane from Alexa. Bayley was set to get her rematch at SummerSlam, but an injury forced her to pull out of the match. The shine was lost from Bayley to no fault of her own. The character that had once worked wonders was now DOA.
Bayley would spend much of the next year making history. It’s tempting to gloss over this portion of her career, but that would be leaving out the accomplishments that make up a Hall of Fame resume. Bayley competed in the first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble, Women’s Elimination Chamber, and WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal in consecutive months. In 2019, Bayley and Sasha became the inaugural WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, defeating five teams in the first Women’s Tag Team Elimination Chamber. The Superstar Shake-Up would send Bayley to SmackDown and keep Sasha on RAW. Bayley wasted no time, winning the Money in the Bank ladder match and successfully cashing it in that same night on Charlotte Flair to win her first SmackDown Women’s Championship. Once again, a history maker, Bayley was now the first ever Grand Slam Women’s Champion in WWE. Despite all the accolades, fans still viewed Bayley as needing a change. Many were begging to see a different side of Bayley.
OCTOBER 11TH, 2019
Sasha had returned to RAW as a heel. Fans had seen Sasha nail the villainous role before, but it was a shock when the ultimate good girl Bayley laid out Becky with a chair. Bayley claimed she wasn’t a heel, just helping her best friend – but after losing her championship to Charlotte at that year’s Hell in a Cell, she snapped. Bayley would regain her championship on SmackDown but also gain an edge. Bayley’s trademark ponytail was gone, and soon so were her iconic inflatable tube men. Bayley took a weapon to the “Bayley Buddies”, cementing that the old Bayley was dead. “It was such a weird time in my career where it wasn’t really going where we all thought it would and I felt the fans turning on me already and just not buying into it. I didn’t want to just kind of coast along…I wanted to do everything and ride that wave of WWE. I felt it was a perfect opportunity.”
MARCH 13TH, 2020
Bayley had always been an excellent performer on par with the rest of her Four Horsewomen. The one thing she had never been given, though, was a chance to truly take the ball and run with it. The world shut down with the horrible COVID-19 pandemic, and the wrestlers were tasked with an impossible mission – distract the audience from the perils of real life. And as tough as it was to watch wrestling shows with no fans, Bayley and Sasha Banks rose to the occasion. Bayley immediately understood that no fans meant the cameras were going to pick up way more of what the wrestlers said in the ring. She used that opportunity to be the most obnoxious heel she could be. Talking trash a mile a minute, even starting her now long-standing feud with WWE commentator Michael Cole. Speaking to Fightful, Bayley recalled “I think it just kind of happened…I think they saw how much we were killing it and how much that we were able to not only do what they asked but excel and give them more and more and more.”
Bayley would retain her championship at a fan-less WrestleMania and then, along with Sasha, regain the Women’s Tag Team Championships from Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross. Now Bayley was a double champion and could appear on all three weekly shows. The WWE needed Bayley, and she came through. Bayley’s team with Sasha was always tenuous, but soon Bayley would turn on her best friend after they lost their Tag Team Championships. Bayley and Sasha would have their big blow-off inside Hell in a Cell, with Bayley’s reign ending after a little over a year with the title.
JANUARY 27TH, 2024
It’s been almost four years since Bayley has held a World Championship. She suffered a devastating ACL injury before a scheduled “I Quit” match with then-champion Bianca Belair. Damage CTRL made their debut at SummerSlam in 2022 and have been a mainstay on WWE television ever since. And at this year’s Royal Rumble, Bayley had perhaps the biggest win of her career. She won the Royal Rumble and has booked her ticket to WrestleMania Sunday to challenge her former friend IYO SKY for the WWE Women’s Championship.
Still, Bayley faces challenges. She has been left off WrestleMania posters despite being the Royal Rumble winner. Hell, she wasn’t at the WrestleMania kickoff press conference. For most wrestlers, that would be unwelcome territory to find yourself in heading into the biggest WrestleMania of all time. For Bayley? It’s a familiar space that she has turned into fuel “I hate to say that it gets to me [being left off promo material] but it’s been happening way too often…What else do I have to do? Those things fuel me to do what I did [at the Rumble], to make history. So, if they don’t want to put me on a poster until I make it into the freaking Hall of Fame, then fine. I’ll wait for it.”
Bayley is already a first-ballot Hall of Famer. This Sunday, she has a chance to write another chapter in her story. She and IYO SKY may very well steal the show, and if that happens, you can start building the Hall of Fame wing you’re going to need to hold all her accomplishments.
Sources: https://uproxx.com/sports/bayley-wwe-interview-royal-rumble-2024/
https://www.sescoops.com/wwe/bayley-on-her-reaction-to-not-being-called-up-with-other-horsewomen
https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/exclusives/bayley-reflects-pandemic-era-says-it-was-probably-most-rewarding-time-her-career
https://tjrwrestling.net/news/bayley-reveals-details-behind-her-heel-turn/
https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/bayley-not-being-wrestlemania-banner-just-fuels-me
