Bayley Suffers Injury, Will Miss Multiple Months of Action

Bayley will not be seen on Friday Night SmackDown or any WWE TV show for a while. On Friday, WWE announced Bayley suffered an injury while training and will miss around nine months of action. She was set to face Bianca Belair at Money in the Bank for the SmackDown Women's Championship next Sunday, July 18. WWE will announce Bayley's replacement on Fox tonight.

Bayley will be missed as she's one of the top Superstars on the roster. She made her main roster debut in 2016 and became the first women's grand slam champion in WWE history. Bayley also holds the record for longest title reign for the SmackDown Women's Championship, carrying the belt for 380 days. Bayley is also known for going through a major change in her character. She went from a happy babyface to one of the most obnoxious heels in WWE.

"When I first realized I was going to be doing this, I was so happy," Bayley said in an interview with Sporting News in April 2020. "I was like, 'This is a challenge I've always wanted to do.; I always felt like I'd be good at (it), and I could maybe do even better than the other character. I was really excited. Once I started going on it, I was like, "Oh, dude, this is so hard. This is not what I expected it to be. I have to learn even more, and I have to just go about it a totally different way. (I have to) go about my matches a different way."

Bayley also talked about having more fun than what she was doing a year ago. She said: "A year ago, I was at that point doing the same thing for six or seven years. So it kind of just became natural, and it became the same old thing. I knew it was going to get a reaction. I knew how I wanted to react to my opponent. Now I'm at a point where everything's so new to me, and I'm learning what works."

With Bayley gone for the rest of the year, WWE will have to make an interesting decision when it comes to who takes her place. It's possible Becky Lynch could make her return sooner than expected after being off TV for over a year due to her pregnancy. Sasha Banks is also an option who has taken time off TV since losing to Belair at WrestleMania 37.