WWE has announced that SmackDown performer Bayley has suffered an injury and will miss approximately nine months of action.
The company released the news on Friday afternoon stating that Bayley suffered the injury while training and a replacement will be named for Money in the Bank on tonight’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown.
The WWE report didn’t provide any additional details regarding the type of injury or what caused it.
Bayley had been scheduled to challenge Bianca Belair for the SmackDown Women’s Championship next Sunday at the Money in the Bank event in Fort Worth, Texas.
BREAKING NEWS: @itsBayleyWWE has suffered an injury while training and will be out approximately nine months.
Noooo wtf?! One of the lone bright spots on their shows… I always look forward to her segments. Hopefully they can keep her active in a speaking role of some sort without ruining her character.
Well that sucks. If that nine-month time doesn’t change and she remains a presence on TV, she should be healthy by the time WrestleMania rolls around and would be able to do something on the card. Then again, she was healthy during this year’s WrestleMania and was given bupkis.
Just horrible timing and I couldn’t feel worse for someone who across wrestling was an upper echelon MVP candidate of the pandemic era. If their long-term plans for her as a heel, I like the idea of keeping her on TV like the Miz is…whether hosting or commentary or something. But if they’re open to turning her (and the crowd probably won’t give them a choice after this), I’d leave her off and do the huge Rumble pop for her (if she can at least do that by then) or whatever before Mania. Without knowing the specific injury, I can imagine having some real time off after the type of usage she’s had this year might be beneficial for the character and the person.
That’s a big loss, she’s one of the few women who can make the most out of the crap so many talents are given. They need to start calling up NXT women as both main roster women’s divisions are super thin