Despite being a story a year and a half in the making, Bayley and IYO SKY’s WrestleMania feud has been hot and cold in its booking. When this feud is poorly booked, it’s very poorly booked — there have been vocal concerns regarding SKY and her lack of promos in the feud, Bayley’s mistreatment and erasure despite winning the 2024 Royal Rumble, the overall inconsistent schedule of their segments, and more. At this point, Bayley and SKY’s build-up to WrestleMania has been held together by nothing but the two women’s impeccable skill and a few hopes and dreams.

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When this feud is cold, it’s cold. When this feud is allowed to be hot, though — when the fire is allowed to fester and burn in the open air — this feud becomes white hot.

Friday’s edition of “WWE SmackDown” fanned the flames of the whimpering, forgotten ember this story had become. SKY took to an interview segment to hash out her thoughts on Bayley, and SKY was allowed to speak for herself! She cut a devastating promo that had me second-guessing the logic behind Bayley’s motives in this feud, because SKY used the time allotted to her to make some very good points. Her accusations of Bayley as a hypocrite who only formed Damage CTRL because of her own selfish desires are not only reasonable, given what we knew about Bayley before her recent face turn, but also echo sentiments made by Bianca Belair, Becky Lynch, and other top babyfaces. SKY delivered her lines with ice-cold apathy that sent chills down my spine — she is not just the “bad guy,” she is an uncaring person who has expressed how little she thinks of Bayley, and it’s downright scary. When SKY is given the opportunity to showcase just how much of a cold-hearted heel she can be, she absolutely knocks it out of the park.

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And now, we have to talk about how Bayley absolutely sent SKY over that steel chair. Besides being absolutely hilarious — SKY sold that shove beautifully — this was the first time Bayley and IYO have gotten a chance to really go at each other alone, without any Damage CTRL interference. It feels nice to have the two women who are going to fight at WrestleMania clash before their big match. It feels like such a small thing — we’re going to watch Bayley and SKY go at it on the grandest stage of them all in just a week’s time — but to see just how Bayley and SKY loathe each other, even outside the influence of the other members of Damage CTRL, makes the feud more interesting to watch.

Bayley and SKY were given the time tonight to shine, and they absolutely came through. I genuinely wish that they had been given more of this sort of time in the midst of ‘Mania season, but the past has already happened. If they can keep putting the pedal to the metal on this feud going into WrestleMania — if they can keep heightening the stakes —then imagine how much better their ultimate clash will be.

Written by Angeline Phu