Bayley Has First Televised WWE Match In Front Of Live Fans In 900 Days

The pandemic, injury conspired to keep the Role Model away from fans for way too long.

by Scott Carlson
Bayley WWE
WWE.com

Bayley's return to WWE programming at SummerSlam sent shockwaves throughout the company, but that 13-month absence paled compared to another gap that closed on Monday night.

The Role Model competed on Raw in her first televised match in 14 months, defeating Aliyah. But what's really notable is that she wrestled in front of live fans in a televised bout for the first time in 900 days. That might be hard to believe, but Bayley's last TV match in front of fans took place on the March 6, 2020 episode of SmackDown.

After that, WWE entered into the empty arena era, with shows at the Performance Center and then the ThunderDome (which was housed in three separate arenas), where Bayley excelled and was one of the rare bright spots alongside Sasha Banks. And while fans were present at WrestleMania 37 in 2021, Bayley was not on the card, taking part instead in a back-and-forth banter segment with the Bella Twins, Hulk Hogan and Titus O'Neil.

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She continued wrestling but sustained an injury in July 2021, just weeks before WWE returned to arena shows with live fans again. That made Monday's match her first televised contest with fans in nearly 30 months. That's an insane "record" that hopefully no one ever breaks.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.