Bayley opened up about her ACL injury and said it’s more than what people know.
There’s an extensive interview with Bayley that was conducted by Chris Van Vliet. Along the way, Bayley began delving into the ACL injury she suffered in 2021.
She stated that it was more than just an ACL injury and that’s why she was out until the summer of the following year. She said the injury still affects her present day.
When Bayley returned at SummerSlam, she was accompanied by Dakota Kai and IYO SKY and collectively, they would go on to be named Damage CTRL. Bayley spoke about the initial planning and pitches for the group and shares that Toni Storm, Alba Fyre and Raquel Rodriguez were a part of the initial concept plans.
And this will be a story for another day because I’m not ready to share it yet but, my injury (in 2021) ended up being more than what everybody knows. It was a bigger injury than anybody knows. There’s a few people that are aware of it and obviously the office and stuff. But that’s the reason. Wasn’t just an ACL thing. It was a bigger injury and that’s the reason why it kept me out longer. It still bugs me to this day. I can’t do certain things. It’s hard for me to run, it’s hard for me to do leg curls. There’s a lot of things that I can’t do because of that injury, and so there was a time, maybe in P.T., doing stuff where I was like, man, I can’t even walk, I can’t jump. How am I supposed to wrestle in like three months or something? So there was that little doubt which I’m sure everybody goes through with injuries. But I always knew that I was gonna come back because, I mean, it wasn’t that crazy of an injury. It was just like a where am I gonna fit in kind of thing and my whole idea behind Damage CTRL was like, alright, I’ve won my championships, I’ve had my Mania moments and now as a character and as a bad guy, I could be like, I don’t even want anything for myself. I want it for them. They’re gonna reap all the benefits of my experience and they’re gonna get all the championships and they’re gonna get everything and then when the time is right, I’m gonna steal it right from them. I’m gonna take the spotlight right back, you know, when I’m ready. But while I’m still recovering and finding my ways, they’re gonna do all the work for me, and that was my idea behind it and I had a whole — there’s five of us. My pitch for Damage CTRL, I also had Raquel (Rodriguez) in it. I also had Alba Fyre in it, and I had so many other girls in mind too. I had Toni Storm. I wanted Toni Storm in it. But when I actually sat at the P.C. and shot stuff, it was with Raquel and Alba, and all five of us, I had reasons why I wanted them. Raquel… she was our muscle. But she was teaming with Dakota (Kai) at the time I believe. So they worked out perfectly. Alba and IYO (SKY) I think we’re teaming a little bit there. So they worked out perfectly but, in my mind, it was there’s two tag teams and then IYO was my champion. She was gonna be the champion. I just wanna do everything in wrestling. That’s how I always thought. I wanna be a bad guy, I wanna be a good guy, I wanna be in a faction. I wanna be in a tag team, I want to be a singles wrestler, I want to be in a romantic love angle someday. I want to be able to do everything, because there’s so many different things that we could do in this crazy world. To not try different avenues and work with as many people as possible — I just want to do it all.
Kairi Sane and Asuka ended up joining Damage CTRL. Bayley’s time in the group came to an end after she won the Royal Rumble. Damage CTRL jumped her and she would go on to defeat IYO SKY at WrestleMania 40 for the WWE Women’s Title.
Bayley does not think their storyline was supposed to stretch to WrestleMania, but said Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque took the approach of basing what would happen next off of crowd reactions.
It happened a lot with Damage CTRL. Like, if you look at IYO (SKY), or how big IYO got, he (Triple H) was basing it off of how the crowd was reacting to us. He would be like, ‘This is what we’re thinking. But let’s just see how they react with this’ and then, the story would kind of change depending on — or it went on way longer than he expected it to. I don’t think that this was supposed to go to Mania last year.
Elsewhere in this conversation, Bayley revealed that she has a year and a half left on her WWE contract. To read more, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
