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Saraya Makes AEW Debut On Dynamite Grand Slam

By John Canton • Published 21st September 2022
saraya aew dynamite look

Saraya made her All Elite Wrestling debut at Dynamite Grand Slam with the AEW fans greeting her with a huge ovation.

The Interim AEW Women’s World Title was on the line during the AEW Dynamite Grand Slam episode on September 21 with Toni Storm retaining her title in a match also involving Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D., Athena & Serena Deeb. Baker suffered a bloody nose during the match after a spot where Athena landed on her face.

After the match was over, Baker was joined in the ring by her friend Jamie Hayter, who teased fighting Baker until she decided to fight with Baker as she has done for several years. While those two women attacked Storm, Deeb was beating up Athena. That’s when a new theme song hit and somebody was making their AEW debut.

It was Saraya (her full name is Saraya-Jade Beavis), who arrived in all black attire along with a pink jacket. The fans gave her a huge ovation because they are very familiar with her career from her days as Paige in WWE. There was also a movie made about her life called “Fighting With My Family” that told the story of her family full of wrestlers.

When Saraya got into the ring, the overwhelming reaction led to all the other women leaving the ring, including Baker. Saraya pointed out the other women in the women’s division and shouted her famous catchphrase: “This is my house.” That’s a reference to Saraya saying she was at home in a wrestling ring.

Saraya started wrestling as a teenager and made her WWE NXT debut when she was just 19 years old in 2011 using the name Paige. She would go on to win the NXT Women’s Title and then she famously debuted on the April 7 edition of Raw after WrestleMania and defeated AJ Lee in a short match to become the Divas Champion. She would win the Divas Title twice in her career.

The return of Saraya made a lot of wrestling fans happy because her major neck injuries are well documented. She has had surgeries to repair the neck injury that forced her to stop wrestling in December 2017. At 25 years old, she was medically disqualified from competing in WWE and then in June 2022, her WWE contract expired.

Following her WWE deal expiring, there were questions about what Saraya might do next and she answered those questions by making her AEW Dynamite debut. It’s certainly possible that she will be wrestling in AEW although as of this writing that’s not confirmed.

AEW’s Owner, President & General Manager Tony Khan welcomed Saraya to the company in a tweet with the “All Elite” graphic.

For a detailed review of everything else that happened at AEW Dynamite Grand Slam, check out the TJR review right here.