WWE Clash of Champions 2020: 5 potential challengers for Bayley

WWE Clash of Champions 2020 is just under four weeks away, and Bayley’s reign as SmackDown Women’s Champion is still going strong. Who could challenge her?

At WWE SummerSlam 2020, Bayley had to defend her SmackDown Women’s Championship against Asuka. While “The Empress of Tomorrow” had two title matches that night, her first and the one she went into fresh was against Bayley. With a slight assist from Sasha Banks at ringside, the champion retained and her record-shattering reign continues.

However, things didn’t go quite as well for Sasha Banks, and both of The Golden Role Models came up short at WWE Payback. Now, we’ve gone from four titles between them to Bayley’s SmackDown Women’s Title being their only bit of gold.

Tensions between The Golden Role Models have been rising, but it’s not time to cash in on that just yet. WWE could certainly turn their attention to a rivalry between Sasha Banks and Bayley, but doing that on a lesser stage like WWE Clash of Champions 2020 or even Hell in a Cell on November 1 would be a mistake.

Instead, things need to continue to simmer between these two so that the subtle seeds they’ve been planting are given the payoff they deserve. With that inevitable collision on hold, who should be next in line to challenge Bayley for the SmackDown Women’s Championship?

Ember Moon

The first possibility depends on whether she’s ready to return from injury, but there’s a good chance Ember Moon could be due back any day now. Moon has been out of action since September of 2019 with an Achilles injury, though it was revealed back in July that things were more severe than initially feared.

Considering the average recovery time of an Achilles injury being nine months to a year, and the knowledge that about a decade ago we saw Edge make a miraculous recovery after only six months, we may be nearing the moment when Ember Moon is finally medically cleared to compete. We actually saw Moon challenge Bayley for the SmackDown Women’s Championship back at SummerSlam 2019, but that was before this current reign and before Bayley turned heel, making this potential matchup very different.