Lyra Valkyria Praises Bayley, Felt Guilty She Missed WWE WrestleMania 41 Last Year

Lyra Valkyria has high praise for Bayley.

Last year, Lyra Valkyria and Bayley were set to challenge Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships at WrestleMania 41. However, before the match, Bayley was attacked backstage, with Becky Lynch returning to take the place of ‘The Role Model’. In the end, the Irish duo pulled off the win and were able to capture the gold, but Lyra has now expressed some guilt over Bayley missing out on WrestleMania.

Speaking to The Takedown On SI, Lyra Valkyria offered huge praise to Bayley, noting how guilty she felt at WrestleMania 41 despite neither of them having control of the situation.

“She was just so supportive of me at that time, and she’s done so much. You really don’t know the value that Bayley has. Everyone knows she’s a Grand Slam champion. Everyone knows how she is with the fans, she has such a great rapport with everyone publicly, but that doesn’t begin to scrape the surface of what she actually does for the people in the back. It’s never to get anything back. She really is the most pure person that I’ve ever met. Even outside of work, she really makes me want to be better as a human being. I felt very guilty last year, even though it was outside both of our control. But looking at how she handled that and how it would’ve been so easy for her to feel bitter towards me, there was just not an ounce of it. Anytime anything like that happens, she’s always still so positive, so encouraging and so helpful to everyone around her.”

-Lyra Valkyria

This year, Bayley and Lyra have the opportunity to rectify what happened in 2025 by leaving the ‘Show of Shows’ as champions. Tonight, on WrestleMania Saturday, they’ll be one of three teams aiming to take the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships from the Irresistible Forces in a four-way match.

However, although Bayley and Lyra will be able to walk into WrestleMania together, recent reports have indicated Nikki Bella won’t be cleared in time for the show. Instead, WWE appears to be lining up a major return to replace her on tonight’s card. You can read more about that here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship match at WrestleMania 42 as soon as we hear more.