Bayley had no problem putting her pursuit of individual accolades and championships on hold for a shot at a different type of history in WWE.
Now that she’s achieved it, it’s time to circle back to putting some singles gold back around her waist as she hopes to win the 2023 women’s Royal Rumble for the first time at Tropicana Field on Jan. 27 (8 p.m. ET, Peacock).
Winning the Rumble and getting a main-event level singles match at WrestleMania would be for her the last two major things to complete her already extensive WWE résumé.
Bayley has never even had a singles match at the Grandest Stage of Them All.
She’s been in two multi-person singles matches, a tag team fatal four-way, a battle royal and last year a six-woman tag that pitted Damage CTRL against Becky Lynch, Trish Straus and Lita.
“Winning the Rumble, especially with the short lineage that it has right now, so to be one of the first 10 [people] in history [to win] because it’s gonna go on forever would be very, very, very cool and I would get my first singles WrestleMania match ever,” Bayley told The Post. “I’ve had so many different WrestleMania matches and last year was a dream come true, obviously. But getting a singles match for a championship is every wrestler’s dream at WrestleMania, so I’ve gotta do it. This is my year.”
You can say the last two years have belonged to Bayley in a different way.
When she returned to WWE at SummerSlam 2022 after a year away because of an ACL injury, she was flanked by Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai to form Damage CTRL.
Since then, with Bayley as the trio’s on-screen leader, they became a dominant and seemingly ever-present force and part of the WWE women’s division’s biggest storylines.
“At that time in my career, that was my goal [to start a faction] and that to me seemed more impossible than going after a championship,” Bayley said. “It’s like, OK, I could get back into a championship story or I could go after a title and be a champion for however long. Not been there, done that, but to me that comes a little more natural and a little easier than being, ‘Hey boss, Mr. McMahon or Mr. Levesque, I want to bring these girls in and I want to start something brand new.’ That is harder and that was something that was harder to overcome.”
There had been women’s groups of that size before in the company and Bayley always dreamed of more.
The group went to a different level when Asuka turned heel and Kairi Sane returned at Crown Jewel in November to join Damage CTRL and form WWE’s first all-women’s faction larger than three people.
It is among the best collections of women’s talent ever in one group and the completion of a goal Bayley thought before 2022 might be unattainable.
“There’s been women’s trios, but there was never a faction like this of all women, at least with WWE,” she said. “So, this has been mind-blowing.”
Bayley originally believed WWE would give her two more up-and-coming stars to bring along with her, not those with the pedigree of Asuka and Sane.
“In my mind, I would have Jacy Jayne or Cora Jade [from NXT] and like, let’s groom these girls, and it would be something like that to grow the group,” Bayley said. “The fact that we got Kairi Sane and Asuka where it’s like, I don’t even have to do anything. There is no starting over. There is no grooming. This just lit it on fire and I can’t even begin to explain how honored I feel to have those girls by our side. We‘re very dangerous now.”
The forming of the faction led to what turned out to be a rare treat for fans as Bayley, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch – three of the Four Horsewomen of wrestling – were in matches for the first time since 2019 during their program that culminated in a WarGames match at Survivor Series.
Bayley said it didn’t register for her right away – since she had worked with both women plenty individually on and off TV during that time – until she saw fans starting to point it out.
“I didnt really think about that just cause [one of] the last times were were all together was them versus me and Sasha [Banks],” Bayley said. “When I think of us together it’s always all four of us. Because one was missing, I don’t think it really hit me like that. But people were tweeting about it.”
She saw the WarGames match itself as a great way for her, Charlotte and Lynch to use the “equity” they have with the audience to help the next crop of women to “get on that level with us” and knows it will take time.
Bayley spent most of the match saving her Damage CTRL teammates from losing, though the babyfaces did eventually get the win.
“In a conceited way, I want to show these girls so that they can remember Bayley helped,” she said. “Yeah, Bayley did everything she could to win the WarGames match for those new girls against Becky and Charlotte. Just couldn’t get it done. I want to be remembered too, leading the new pack.”
It appeared coming out of WarGame that she and Flair could be headed for a program together, this time with The Queen as a full-fledged babyface appealing to Bayley’s better nature.
But Flair suffered a serious knee injury during a match with Asuka and is expected to miss an estimated nine months.
Bayley is interested in picking up their story whenever Flair returns — just maybe not right away.
“I just think we are just at such different levels than we were the last time we were in something one-on-one,” Bayley said. “I’m worried to see how she comes back because she is probably the most intense performer and athlete I’ve ever experienced. So to see her come back with a vengeance is gonna be a scary one. So maybe I’ll let her do her thing and come back around, but will it definitely be special when we do get to do something big together.”
Damage CTRL could be the peak of Bayley’s run as a heel, which began in 2019 and has now run longer than her initial time as a babyface.
She believes it will stand out to fans the most because of how many different people she has been able to help along the way, from doing some of the company’s best work during the fanless pandemic shows with Sasha Banks, to in some ways being the catalyst for Bianca Belair as one of WWE’s top stars and babyfaces.
“We helped each other, but her first sightings on Raw and SmackDown were with me and now she’s already main-evented a WrestleMania,” Bayley said. “She’s already held the championships. I think it will be just because I’ve been able to do a lot of different things with a lot of different people no matter their level of experience.”
If Bayley does win the Royal Rumble, she has for now stated she would challenge WWE women’s world champion Rhea Ripley.
Ripley, like Belair, has emerged as a megastar for the company, leading her own faction in The Judgment Day and redefining the role women can play on WWE television.
Bayley takes note that Ripley has been in “every other segment on TV” for a long time and was on “every single show” and that is “draining to do.”
“If I’m able to work with her at WrestleMania, that would just be a dream match I never even thought of before,” Bayley said. “She is obviously untouchable. She is the most talked about woman on TV right now and she backs it up. She doesn’t just have the look. She doesn’t just have the body. She doesn’t just have – besides Damage 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 are so young.’ I can’t even throw a drop kick and she can do one over my head. Just little things that she does that she’s able to do and portray on TV is very hard to do and she does it with ease.”
The goal for 2024 is to have every healthy member of Damage CTRL holding gold.
Bayley would be more than happy to take the championship burden from Ripley.
“She carried that title on her back proudly,” Bayley said. “I’m gonna have to take it off of her and it will be an honor to do. It will be an honor, Rhea.”
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