After being out of action for over a year with a serious knee injury Bayley returned to WWE at SummerSlam 2022. Although she didn’t arrive alone.
After coming out to interrupt Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair, the star was joined by Dakota Kai and IYO SKY. This marked Kai’s return to the company after being released that April, while SKY had been injured for a number of months and had been expected to leave.
The trio was later dubbed Damage CTRL and Dakota Kai and IYO SKY have won women’s tag team gold twice. However, the original lineup for the group almost looked very different.
Speaking in a new interview with Ariel Helwani for BT Sport, Bayley said that she began working on the idea of the faction a couple of years earlier. She explained that while she always wanted Dakota Kai in the group, she also wanted Peyton Royce and Tegan Nox. Kai has previously stated that she was supposed to be included alongside Nox.
“That is something that I’ve thought about for a couple years before it actually happened. I know Dakota has talked about this in her interviews in the past. It had a different group of people as the time went on.
Peyton Royce was someone that I really wanted in there. Tegan Nox was someone that I wanted in there.
There were a lot of people that it just kind of changed throughout time and as people left the company and things like that, but Dakota was always, she’s one of the OG’s that I always envisioned in this group.”
Peyton Royce signed with WWE in 2015 and found success alongside Billie Kay. The real-life friends became a popular part of the WWE roster until being released in April 2021. The pair went on to join IMPACT Wrestling in October 2021. The duo, best known as The IIconics, left the company just six months later.
The star also known as Cassie Lee gave birth to her first child on January 17th, 2023.
Bayley Comments On Mercedes Mone Returning To WWE
Speaking during the interview, Bayley also discussed her friend and former tag team partner Mercedes Mone. The star said that she will never give up hope that the former Sasha Banks would be back as WWE is her “home.”
H/t to WrestlingNews.Co