As has been reported over the last few weeks, Nikki Bella has been dealing with an ankle injury. Michael Cole has noted she’s been rehabbing in hopes of being ready for WrestleMania 42 and the big Bella Twins comeback, but a report from Mike Johnson on Friday seems to suggest Bella has not been cleared. This is a huge blow as this would have marked the first PLE match for the sisters in over a decade. However, all may not be lost as it seems Brie Bella will still compete as planned, just with a different, yet very familiar face, beside her, as Paige is set to make her WWE return.
Report: Nikki Bella Injury Leading to Paige’s WWE Return
In recent memory, WrestleMania has been the stage for some massive comebacks. The Hardy Boys, despite protestations to the contrary, made a massive splash when they were announced as the final team in the tag team ladder match at WrestleMania 33 in 2017. Another surprise, albeit more of a worst-kept secret, was when Cody Rhodes made his triumphant return to WWE to be Seth Rollins’ mystery opponent at WrestleMania 38 in 2022. And that brings us to this year, where another mystery opponent seems to be on her way back to the company.
As was reported by Johnson and PWInsider, Saraya, known in WWE as Paige, is set to make her return to WWE for the first time since she was declared medically unable to compete in 2018. Of course, medical science has come a long way, as wrestlers like Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson) and Edge (Cope) were also once considered to be in forced retirement before both returned to WWE briefly and are currently employed by AEW. Paige took a different route back to the company as she made her AEW debut in 2022, four years after her career had seemingly ended.
Paige Returns to WWE Ring for First Time in Nearly a Decade
At 33, Paige is already a 20-year veteran of the wrestling industry, having debuted at 13 in her family’s company in England. When she came of age, Paige signed with WWE’s developmental program, ushering in a new era of women’s wrestling for the company. Paige brought with her a seismic shift as WWE began to transition its developmental territory to a full-fledged wrestling brand. Moreso, she joined the roster at a time when NXT’s women’s division was being elevated in a way the main roster’s was not. Female wrestlers in NXT benefited from better storylines, rivalries built on personal animosities, and title matches fitting of the new caliber of athlete WWE was recruiting. Paige helped lead what was essentially a rebrand of the main roster when she came up, representing a new era of ‘diva.’ After winning the first-ever NXT Women’s Championship, Paige came to the main roster as a Raw after WrestleMania 30 call-up, where she defeated AJ Lee to win the Divas Championship. She was the first and, thus far, only woman to hold both belts simultaneously.
Paige was one of WWE’s top female stars for years. She was fresh, edgy, and incredibly talented. Unfortunately, injuries and tumult in both her personal and professional life derailed her promising career. She won her final title in WWE in 2014, remaining on the periphery of the top for the next several years. A neck injury in 2018 left Paige medically unable to compete, and while she remained with WWE in a non-wrestling role, she ultimately decided to leave the company four years later when her deal expired. That same year, Paige joined AEW, returning to the ring as a medically cleared wrestler. She won the AEW Women’s Championship in 2023 before leaving the company two years later.
The Bellas and Paige, along with her ride-or-die AJ Lee, enjoyed a fantastic rivalry nearly 12 years ago, and now, all four women are back in WWE with a chance to do it all again. But first, Paige will get a chance to do what Becky Lynch, one of her proteges in Team PCB (Paige, Charlotte, Becky), did last year – step in for an injured wrestler and win the women’s tag team titles.
