WWE Battleground got off to a huge start with a long-awaited debut of Bayley. After the WWE Draft, the vast majority of the WWE Universe was disappointed that Bayley hadn’t been drafted to Raw or SmackDown. Her main roster debut in WWE has been imminent for months, so the WWE Universe rallied behind Bayley when the fans felt she was being passed over once again.
All week, the WWE Universe was hopeful that Sasha Banks would choose Bayley to be her mystery partner against the current WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte and Dana Brooke, but the rumors filled the week with doubt that Bayley wouldn’t debut during WWE Battleground .
The belief was Bayley would wrap up with NXT, challenge Asuka for the NXT Women’s Championship, and then make the move to the main roster after WWE Summerslam. It was rumored that WWE didn’t want to take any spotlight away from Sasha Banks and Charlotte going into the second biggest show of the year. However, WWE officials obviously changed their minds.
At WWE Battlegroundand revealed by WWE.com , Bayley and Sasha Banks were victorious over Charlotte and Dana Brooke. The victory was a huge step for both women going into WWE Summerslamnext month. The Boss successfully made the current WWE Women’s Champion tap out to The Bank Statement. That is a big statement since Banks vs. Charlotte is penciled infor WWE Summerslam.
For Bayley, it was not only her WWE main roster debut but she has debuted and immediately been elevated to the top of the WWE Women’s division. Bayley is still the standard bearer for NXT. There is still a lot of work for Bayley to do there, but she’s now going to be pulling double duty on WWE programming for the next several weeks.
As of this writing, the expectation is the NXT Universe will finally be seeing the rematch of Asuka vs. Bayley at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn II next month. It will essentially be a year after Bayley’s career defining victory over The Boss to become the NXT Women’s Champion at the original NXT Takeover: Brooklyn . This year, Bayley will have her swan song at the Barclays Center.
It’s very unlikely that Bayley will defeat Asuka at that event, but she will put an exclamation point on her NXT career before moving to the main roster full-time. After making her debut at WWE Battlegroundtonight, the plans for Bayley on the main roster are unknown because most the WWE Universe was just hoping she would actually debut.
Sasha Banks, Charlotte, and Dana Brooke were all drafted to Raw during this week’s WWE Draft. On paper, Bayley would be a Raw superstar, which is a major addition to an already stacked Women’s division on Monday Night Raw. However, it is still possible that Bayley’s debut tonight at WWE Battleground was just a one-off appearance for the WWE Universe.
The truth is almost anyone else takes that spot as Sashas’ partner and the WWE Universe would have been disappointed. It could have negatively impacted the momentum of the other women in the match. It was a no-brainer for Bayley to take the spot. She deserves it, and the WWE Universe was begging for it.
The only question now is if WWE only brought her for WWE Battleground only to be taken off WWE television until after WWE Summerslam . If that is the case, tonight was just a huge indication from the WWE to the WWE Universe to remind them that they haven’t forgotten about Bayley. If Bayley is up for good, it is going to be exciting to see how she fits in WWE going into WWE Summerslam .
[Image via WWE]