Bayley was planned to be in a match at WrestleMania 41 this year, but plans had changed. She was set to team with Lyra Valkyria to face The Judgment Day for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships. As a newly formed team, they even defeated five other teams in a gauntlet match to get the Mania spot.
Creative had other ideas and had Bayley “attacked” backstage and Becky Lynch replaced her in the match at Mania. This was a surprise return for Lynch who was on a hiatus. Lynch would go on to win the titles with Valkyria only to turn heel the next night after they dropped the belts back to The Judgment Day.
While speaking with The Undertaker and Michelle McCool on the Six Feet Under podcast, Bayley shared her feelings during this time.
“That was an interesting… I feel like every time I get thrown stuff, it’s like I’m just being tested — not by the company, the universe and the world is trying to test me. It was rough. It was a little bittersweet. I became really close with Lyra in real life, and so I was super excited for her to have her first WrestleMania.
We’re like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna be in a storyline and a tag team with this girl that I don’t even know.’ I remember first telling her, ‘This is what we’re doing,’ and I’m just talking about going to WrestleMania as a tag team. Like, don’t you think that’s kind of strange? You’re the Intercontinental Champion, and we don’t even know each other. So I felt weird about it. But throughout the time, we had a few matches. I’m like, ‘Damn, we have good chemistry.’ Then we had this Tag Team Gauntlet Match to get to WrestleMania. We had like five matches in one night. It was like an hour of wrestling. And I was like, ‘We’re like a good team.’ I felt genuinely connected with her.
When I was told what was happening, I was like, ‘Oh, now I’m bummed.’ For one, I’m not at WrestleMania, but for two, we put all this work in and I really tried to make us look like a team so that it’s believable when we get to WrestleMania. So it was rough.”