LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — From a loveable hugger to a “role model” with a killer intuition, WWE famous person Bayley has been one of many performers guiding the corporate’s new period. Because the street to WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas kicks off at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with the Royal Rumble, she mentioned it is one of the crucial thrilling occasions on WWE’s calendar.
“It seems like WrestleMania comes around quicker every single year,” Bayley mentioned. “This is going to be my 12th year with WWE, and it feels so fast, but it’s exciting. It’s like the holidays for WWE — stressful, but the best time of the year.”
Certainly, the “holidays” of sports activities leisure, lovingly dubbed the “Road to WrestleMania” by followers and WWE officers alike, begin on Feb. 1 in Indianapolis. Bayley mentioned the joy surrounding the occasions resulting in the “granddaddy of them all,” WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, is palpable not solely among the many WWE Superstars but in addition the followers, who play a serious position in making the occasions particular.
“The fans are getting more excited every year,” Bayley mentioned. “I might be a little biased, but we [in the women’s division] steal the show most of the time.”
Bayley, a pioneer within the girls’s division of WWE, had one in every of her most defining moments in Las Vegas in 2019 at T-Cell Enviornment when she shed her fan-friendly hugger persona in alternate for that of a extra devious “role model.” She clipped her trademark ponytail and bodily slashed her wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube males, the “Bayley’s Buddies” that accompanied her introduction. Bayley admitted it was a pivotal level in her WWE profession.
“When I became a bad guy, I felt like I lost a genuine connection with the fans,” Bayley mentioned. “It was a genuine disconnection. But I knew I needed to make a change to extend my career. I always wanted to do everything — be a bad guy, a good guy, have crazy storylines.”
She credited the WWE for permitting her to take that leap, including that it has been an important a part of her progress as each a personality and a performer. “That was something I needed for my career,” she mentioned. “I don’t regret it at all.”
The Royal Rumble is a match the place 30 performers enter at intervals, and the final individual standing, that’s to say, not eradicated by being tossed excessive rope with each ft hitting the ground, will get to face a champion of their selecting at WrestleMania, skilled wrestling’s largest occasion.
Bayley, the 2024 Royal Rumble winner, hopes to assert her second victory, a activity that nobody within the girls’s division has but achieved. Bayley mentioned that the countdown to a brand new famous person getting into the Rumble, a staple in WWE fandom, is an expertise that may’t be replicated.
“There’s nothing like standing up with 60,000 people counting down 10 seconds 60 different times,” she said, referencing the 30 competitors entering both the men’s and women’s Rumble. “It never gets old.”
Tickets to the Royal Rumble in Indianapolis can be found now through Ticketmaster. The primary cease on the Street to WrestleMania at Allegiant Stadium is at Lucas Oil Stadium on Feb. 1.
