WrestleMania 41 has come and gone. Multiple titles have changed hands and the biggest angles have reached a conclusion. There’s a lot to review from the show, but one of the biggest stories is Bayley’s removal from the card and the blowback from the decision. Regardless of your stance on Bayley or Becky Lynch, the former did not have to be removed from the card for the latter to have a big moment.
WWE removed Bayley via the lazy “mystery attacker backstage” angle. The same type of story frame that was used to write off Jade Cargill for a while when she was dealing with an injury. What’s different here is that Bayley was not hurt in any fashion, this was simply a creative tool to re-introduce Becky Lynch into the equation, team her with Lyra Valkyria, and put the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship around their waists.
There was space on the show for Bayley, Becky Lynch and more women
Let’s fully unpack the situation here. Of course, WWE wanted to have Becky Lynch on the biggest show of the year. She’s one of the company’s most important superstars and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. However, it didn’t need to happen this way.
Lynch re-signed with WWE months back, yet she was kept off television. If her arc was to involve Valkyria, there’s a story to tell in which Lynch wants to defeat Valkyria to take the Intercontinental Championship. Valkyria took the NXT Women’s Championship from Lynch, a title she was proud to finally hold. The story between the two was there to tell, playing off their time against each other back in 2023. Becky Lynch versus Lyra Valkyria was certainly a women’s match that could have delivered on the WrestleMania card.
Plus, Valkyria should not be in the tag team title picture when she has a belt of her own to defend.
Then there’s Bayley. She was lined up for a feud against Roxanne Perez, but that was suddenly pushed off television. Perez was sent back to NXT, and Bayley put in this position just to get pulled out of the picture at its high point. This feud should have continued with Perez defeating Bayley at WrestleMania. That would have built some momentum behind Perez, making her a top contender for either of the women’s titles on SmackDown.
But what about Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez? They also had an important role to play, but it should not have been in this match. Instead, WWE could have put them up against the winners of the women’s tag team match from Stand & Deliver. Gigi Dolin and Tatum Paxley aren’t the biggest names, but this was another opportunity to get viewers to see an interesting pair of names in the women’s division – perhaps creating new fans for them along the way.
Those simple steps would have increased the overall number of women on the show from four to eight, shining more light on the entire division. However, WWE went back to its tired way of storytelling that only elevates a few names while throwing water on the others. Fans were right to be upset with the decision, and it is one that was unnecessary when looking at the final outcome.