Bayley Talks WWE Dropping The Term ‘Diva’, NXT’s Touring Future, Which WWE Talents She’d Like To Work With

NXT star Bayley recent spoke with Female First ahead of the upcoming NXT UK tour next month. Bayley talks about working on the NXT brand, what she thinks is next for NXT as a touring brand, a highlight of her title run, talents she’d like to work with, and more. You can read some highlights below: 

Bayley comments on wrestling at Download Festival: 

I think that’s what I’m most excited for and it’s really cool that we’re going to be able to start it out like that because, we’ve done festivals here in the US but this is the first time NXT is going to the UK to do something like this. I can only imagine a mixture of music and wrestling and how insane the fans are gonna be. They’ve been really successful, the ones that we’ve done here in the US, so I’m just so excited to get over there and be able to experience something that is just gonna be 10 times bigger and better, I feel.

Bayley comments on what she thinks the next logical step with NXT touring could be:

Man, I kinda wanna go everywhere! I would really like to go to Mexico. I’d one day like to go to Japan, one day go to Australia, but I think I really wanna go to Mexico. I kinda started watching wrestling through Lucha Libre because my grandmother was always watching Lucha Libre. I think it’d be so cool to bring NXT over there, I know how crazy and passionate those fans are. I don’t know if that’s ever been in the talks but I think that’d be really cool.

And, just to have as a whole monthly pay-per-views and be able to take our pay-per-views like we did to London and like we just did to Dallas. I think it would be cool to be able to expand our pay-per-views and be able to do more stuff like we did in London, but everywhere.

Does Bayley think the NXT women paved the way for WWE dropping the term ‘Diva’? 

I think maybe NXT had a huge part in it. I know a lot of the girls in the WWE always wanted to go down that path, but it wasn’t really until Stephanie McMahon introduced Becky, Sasha and Charlotte that people started noticing the movement and noticing that these girls want to be not just Divas, they want to take the division to a different level. I don’t think the fans really knew how bad everybody else wanted it backstage like Paige and the Bellas, and Nattie especially. They all wanted that for so long so for us to be able to kinda help and for Sasha, Becky and Charlotte to be the ones to kind of push it and for Stephanie to introduce them in such a big way. It’s been such a good year and it’s really cool to see that NXT kinda had a little help to do with that!

What does Bayley think a highlight of her NXT Women’s Championship run was? 

The matches were incredible. The Ironman match with Sasha and everything was really cool, but I think just the fact I was able to carry the title and visit places for the first time being champion, like going to the UK for example, being champion. Not only with NXT but I also got to travel with WWE and, to be the NXT Women’s Champion and be on the WWE shows representing the company and the division in such a huge way was really cool for me. Going to places like Chicago and New York as the champion is what was really special for me. It was just being able to be the champion of such a great division and going to these places for the first time ever – it’s a huge honour.

Which WWE talents would she like to work with? 

Nattie is one of them. I’ve had plenty of matches with her but I’ve only been able to team with her, I’ve never been able to have a match one-on-one against her. That’s one of the matches I’ve always wanted and she’s kind of been saying the same thing for a while since she was in NXT for a little bit. I remember watching one of her matches from the independents when she was like, an ECCW Canadian SuperGirls Champion against Ivory. One day I wanna have at least one match against her.

Nikki Bella as well, when she comes back from her surgery and everything. She’s the longest reigning Divas Champion, so I feel like she’s someone I can learn from. I know we would have a lot of fun in a match together.