Former WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley has suffered an injury while training, the company announced on Friday. She’s expected to miss nine months of in-ring action.
WWE shared the news in a post on its Twitter page. The company also stated that it will announce a replacement opponent for WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Bianca Belair Friday night on SmackDown.
BREAKING NEWS: @itsBayleyWWE has suffered an injury while training and will be out approximately nine months.
A replacement for her match against @BiancaBelairWWE at #MITB will be announced tonight on #SmackDown.https://t.co/qLsf8KTHNp
— WWE (@WWE) July 9, 2021
Bayley was scheduled to challenge Belair in an “I Quit” match for the title at the WWE Money in the Bank pay-per-view on Sunday. “The Role Model” is the first WWE Women’s Grand Slam Champion, as she has won every title in the company’s women’s division.
WrestleZone will provide more details as they become available.
Update: Mike Johnson of PWInsider reports that it’s believed that Bayley tore her ACL while she was training at the WWE Performance Center.
Additionally, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com reports that the injury occurred at a mandated “return to the road” training session. It was called a “freak accident”, as Bayley was simply doing some chan wrestling during the training session.
We're told the Bayley injury happened during the mandatory "return to road" training session at the WWE Performance Center while doing chain wrestling with another Superstar. It was referred to as a freak accident.
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) July 9, 2021
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