Bayley Wanted Former WWE Star In Damage CTRL
Bayley has named a former WWE star that she wanted to be in the group known as Damage CTRL while also revealing other details about the start of the stable.
At SummerSlam 2022, Bayley made her triumphant return to WWE after missing a full year due to major knee surgery. Bayley was joined by Dakota Kai and IYO SKY and the trio have been a big part of Raw ever since while using the name Damage CTRL.
During an interview with BT Sport’s Ariel Helwani, who “asks the tough questions whether you want to answer them or not,” Bayley shared what her original plans were for the Damage CTRL group.
“That is something that I’ve thought about for a couple of 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 was a part of the tag team called The IIconics along with her good friend Bille Kay. The duo was released by WWE in April 2021. Royce has also wrestled as Cassie Lee and moved on from wrestling. She gave birth to a baby boy with her husband Shawn Spears in January 2023.
Bayley also explained the process of coming up with a name for the group.
“I had a few different ideas. We threw out a million different names. Creative came back with a million different names too and we just couldn’t get on the same page. Then you have to also go through legal and all this stuff. My first original one, I wanted it to be called. ‘The Now’.”
“To me, it was that I didn’t care about the championships I won in the past, I don’t care about what happens next, like these girls right here and what we’re about to do, the present is all that matters. The Now was my first idea, but there’s a show called The Now or something like that. You know, it’s just legal stuff.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bayley said she will never give up hope for a Mercedes Mone (aka Sasha Banks) return to WWE while saying she needs her best friend to come back.