Bayley had no downside placing her pursuit of particular person accolades and championships on maintain for a shot at a special kind of historical past in WWE.
Now that she’s achieved it, it’s time to circle again to placing some singles gold again round her waist as she hopes to win the 2023 girls’s Royal Rumble for the primary time at Tropicana Subject on Jan. 27 (eight p.m. ET, Peacock).
Successful the Rumble and getting a main-event stage singles match at WrestleMania can be for her the final two main issues to finish her already intensive WWE résumé.
Bayley has by no means even had a singles match on the Grandest Stage of Them All.
She’s been in two multi-person singles matches, a tag crew deadly four-way, a battle royal and final 12 months a six-woman tag that pitted Harm CTRL in opposition to Becky Lynch, Trish Straus and Lita.
“Successful the Rumble, particularly with the brief lineage that it has proper now, so to be one of many first 10 [people] in historical past [to win] as a result of it’s gonna go on endlessly can be very, very, very cool and I might get my first singles WrestleMania match ever,” Bayley advised The Submit. “I’ve had so many alternative WrestleMania matches and final 12 months was a dream come true, clearly. However getting a singles match for a championship is each wrestler’s dream at WrestleMania, so I’ve gotta do it. That is my 12 months.”
You possibly can say the final two years have belonged to Bayley differently.
When she returned to WWE at SummerSlam 2022 after a 12 months away due to an ACL harm, she was flanked by Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai to type Harm CTRL.
Since then, with Bayley because the trio’s on-screen chief, they turned a dominant and seemingly ever-present power and a part of the WWE girls’s division’s greatest storylines.
“At the moment in my profession, that was my purpose [to start a faction] and that to me appeared extra not possible than going after a championship,” Bayley stated. “It’s like, OK, I may get again right into a championship story or I may go after a title and be a champion for nevertheless lengthy. Not been there, accomplished that, however to me that comes a little bit extra pure and a little bit simpler than being, ‘Hey boss, Mr. McMahon or Mr. Levesque, I need to convey these women in and I need to begin one thing model new.’ That’s more durable and that was one thing that was more durable to beat.”
There had been girls’s teams of that measurement earlier than within the firm and Bayley at all times dreamed of extra.
The group went to a special stage when Asuka turned heel and Kairi Sane returned at Crown Jewel in November to hitch Harm CTRL and type WWE’s first all-women’s faction bigger than three folks.
It’s among the many greatest collections of ladies’s expertise ever in a single group and the completion of a purpose Bayley thought earlier than 2022 may be unattainable.
“There’s been girls’s trios, however there was by no means a faction like this of all girls, no less than with WWE,” she stated. “So, this has been mind-blowing.”
Bayley initially believed WWE would give her two extra up-and-coming stars to convey alongside along with her, not these with the pedigree of Asuka and Sane.
“In my thoughts, I might have Jacy Jayne or Cora Jade [from NXT] and like, let’s groom these women, and it could be one thing like that to develop the group,” Bayley stated. “The truth that we bought Kairi Sane and Asuka the place it’s like, I don’t even must do something. There isn’t any beginning over. There isn’t any grooming. This simply lit it on hearth and I can’t even start to elucidate how honored I really feel to have these women by our aspect. We‘re very harmful now.”
The forming of the faction led to what turned out to be a uncommon deal with for followers as Bayley, Charlotte Aptitude and Becky Lynch – three of the 4 Horsewomen of wrestling – have been in matches for the primary time since 2019 throughout their program that culminated in a WarGames match at Survivor Collection.
Bayley stated it didn’t register for her immediately – since she had labored with each girls lots individually on and off TV throughout that point – till she noticed followers beginning to level it out.
“I didnt actually take into consideration that simply trigger [one of] the final occasions have been have been all collectively was them versus me and Sasha [Banks],” Bayley stated. “Once I consider us collectively it’s at all times all 4 of us. As a result of one was lacking, I don’t suppose it actually hit me like that. However folks have been tweeting about it.”
She noticed the WarGames match itself as a good way for her, Charlotte and Lynch to make use of the “fairness” they’ve with the viewers to assist the subsequent crop of ladies to “get on that stage with us” and is aware of it’s going to take time.
Bayley spent a lot of the match saving her Harm CTRL teammates from shedding, although the babyfaces did finally get the win.
“In a immodest approach, I need to present these women in order that they’ll keep in mind Bayley helped,” she stated. “Yeah, Bayley did every part she may to win the WarGames match for these new women in opposition to Becky and Charlotte. Simply couldn’t get it accomplished. I need to be remembered too, main the brand new pack.”
It appeared popping out of WarGame that she and Aptitude might be headed for a program collectively, this time with The Queen as a full-fledged babyface interesting to Bayley’s higher nature.
However Aptitude suffered a severe knee harm throughout a match with Asuka and is predicted to overlook an estimated 9 months.
Bayley is fascinated about selecting up their story every time Aptitude returns — simply possibly not immediately.
“I simply suppose we’re simply at such completely different ranges than we have been the final time we have been in one thing one-on-one,” Bayley stated. “I’m frightened to see how she comes again as a result of she might be essentially the most intense performer and athlete I’ve ever skilled. So to see her come again with a vengeance is gonna be a scary one. So possibly I’ll let her do her factor and are available again round, however will it undoubtedly be particular once we do get to do one thing huge collectively.”
Harm CTRL might be the height of Bayley’s run as a heel, which started in 2019 and has now run longer than her preliminary time as a babyface.
She believes it’s going to stand out to followers essentially the most due to what number of completely different folks she has been capable of assist alongside the way in which, from doing a number of the firm’s greatest work throughout the fanless pandemic exhibits with Sasha Banks, to in some methods being the catalyst for Bianca Belair as certainly one of WWE’s prime stars and babyfaces.
“We helped one another, however her first sightings on Uncooked and SmackDown have been with me and now she’s already main-evented a WrestleMania,” Bayley stated. “She’s already held the championships. I feel it is going to be simply because I’ve been capable of do plenty of various things with plenty of completely different folks regardless of their stage of expertise.”
If Bayley does win the Royal Rumble, she has for now acknowledged she would problem WWE girls’s world champion Rhea Ripley.
Ripley, like Belair, has emerged as a megastar for the corporate, main her personal faction in The Judgment Day and redefining the position girls can play on WWE tv.
Bayley takes observe that Ripley has been in “each different section on TV” for a very long time and was on “each single present” and that’s “draining to do.”
“If I’m capable of work along with her at WrestleMania, that might simply be a dream match I by no means even considered earlier than,” Bayley stated. “She is clearly untouchable. She is essentially the most talked about lady on TV proper now and he or she backs it up. She doesn’t simply have the look. She doesn’t simply have the physique. She doesn’t simply have – in addition to Harm CTRL – a badass group to align with.
“She’s so good and it makes me so mad. ‘I’m like why are you so good, you’re so younger.’ I can’t even throw a drop kick and she will do one over my head. Simply little issues that she does that she’s capable of do and painting on TV could be very onerous to do and he or she does it with ease.”
The purpose for 2024 is to have each wholesome member of Harm CTRL holding gold.
Bayley can be very happy to take the championship burden from Ripley.
“She carried that title on her again proudly,” Bayley stated. “I’m gonna must take it off of her and it is going to be an honor to do. It is going to be an honor, Rhea.”