WrestleMania Backlash 2021: Bayley working to not let women, like opponent Bianca Belair, ‘pass me up’

For 380 days, Bayley was SmackDown ladies’s champion. It was an unimaginable run, made all the higher by her work as a heel character, one thing many felt was out of the 31-year-old’s vary when she first made the transfer from NXT to WWE’s “essential roster.” At WrestleMania Backlash on Sunday, Bayley has the chance to once more change into champion, practically seven months after shedding the title.

“It was a little bit bizarre as a result of I would look in my bag and freak out as a result of my title wasn’t in there or I’d attempt to put my title away or seize it earlier than I make my entrance and notice I haven’t got it anymore,” Bayley instructed CBS Sports activities of these preliminary months after shedding the title this previous October. “So, there have been some unhappy moments in there.”

On Sunday, Bayley will face Bianca Belair, the rising star who captured the belt from Sasha Banks in the principle occasion of Evening 1 of WrestleMania.

Belair is likely one of the leaders of the technology that got here after the category of Bayley, Banks, Charlotte Aptitude and Becky Lynch. To Bayley, Belair — together with Uncooked ladies’s champion Rhea Ripley — represents a continued development of the “concept” of what a feminine wrestler will be in WWE. Nonetheless, the hyper-athletic crop of younger celebrity expertise current new challenges for established stars to face whereas making an attempt to carry on to their high spots.

“It is superior to see how a lot NXT has grown and the way it’s nonetheless going sturdy,” Bayley stated. “Simply the individuals alone that they employed after a few of us had been employed, they had been nonetheless solely in search of a sure sort of woman, sure sort of girl, sure sort of wrestler on the time. Now it is actually all are welcome. Any dimension or fashion, anybody might come to NXT and change into a star. Clearly, Rhea Ripley labored a lot earlier than that in Australia and continues to be so younger, however watching her and Bianca come and be capable to be themselves and look the way in which they do as simply excellent freaking specimens and discovering success is cool to see.

“My problem is to be sure that individuals like Bianca and Rhea do not go me up. I’ve labored too onerous on Uncooked and Smackdown and in NXT to get pushed to the facet earlier than I am prepared. To me, they’re my challenges. Yeah, I wish to see them do good and achieve success however I’ve nonetheless obtained quite a bit that I have to do, too.”

After being on the middle of the evolution of ladies’s wrestling in WWE and holding the SmackDown title for longer than every other girl in historical past, Bayley has seen milestones come and go. That features watching Banks and Belair of their WrestleMania essential occasion, the second time ladies have been the principle occasion for the most important present on the wrestling calendar.

Bayley stated the aim for girls in WWE is to have these milestone moments be much less vital by turning into the expectation as the ladies’s locker room continues to show they’re on equal footing with the lads.

“I feel it is only a constant equality, you recognize? Constant matches on TV, time on TV, tales on TV,” Bayley stated. “That is actually all we would like. Not all people must be a champion or have a essential occasion at WrestleMania, however all of us work actually onerous in simply attempting to get to that subsequent stage and be seen in the identical eyes constantly, not only one pay-per-view or one match for the primary time ever. It is simply consistency.”