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WWE star Bayley got the opportunity to challenge AJ Lee for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship earlier this week when she won a challenge match on “Monday Night Raw.”
The match, which will take place on Monday, has been almost 13 years in the making. The last time the two professional wrestlers faced each other was on August 21, 2013, for the Divas Championship. Lee, a veteran at that point, got the better of Bayley, who was still a newcomer.
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Bayley celebrates her victory with Lyra Valkyria after the Woman’s Gauntlet Match on Monday Night RAW at Climate Pledge Arena on March 9, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. (Meg Oliphant/WWE via Getty Images)
A lot has changed since then. Lee left the company in 2015 while Bayley became a four-time women’s champion and a two-time women’s tag team champion. Bayley helped shape WWE’s women’s division into what it is today. The Women’s Intercontinental Championship wasn’t even a gleam in anyone’s eye five years ago, let alone 13 years ago.
Lee returned to WWE in September, potentially putting the two wrestling greats on a collision course at one point. With Lee winning the title against Becky Lynch, Bayley was able to solidify her path to a chance at championship gold.
“Man, it’s so weird. So weird to think about, it’s like the universe works in mysterious ways,” Bayley told PK Press Club Digital in a recent interview. “I remember 13 years ago getting this message saying I was going to wrestle AJ Lee for the Divas Title and I had just started my character stuff on NXT. I remember it being like, ‘What do you mean? What am I? Why? What? This can’t be possible.’ And that’s kind of how I feel now, just because no one thought AJ was going to come back, let alone that there would be a Women’s Intercontinental Championship, let alone that she would be champion or ever.”
“It just seems like one of those things where she would come back just as a dream match type thing,” she continued. “And even when she came back, and I told her that, I was just happy to have her around. We’ve stayed in touch for the last 10 years and been real friends outside of the business and just thinking that now I get to be in the ring with her, I wasn’t like, ‘I need to have a match with you,’ because I had my match. I just wanted to have my friend around and the fact that we have to do it now, it seems right. Now, I’m like, “Of course we’re supposed to do this match together.”
Bayley with an elbow drop to Ivy Nile during the Womans Gauntlet Match on Monday Night RAW at Climate Pledge Arena on March 9, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. (Meg Oliphant/WWE via Getty Images)
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“I would love, I would love, I would love to win this championship because I have to finish my role in the Grand Slam. I have to have this one. I have to go to the US one and I have to go to WrestleMania. So, I have a lot of feelings about it and I have to kind of put aside the feeling of nostalgia.”
Lee’s return came as a shock to the WWE Universe when she teamed with her real-life husband, CM Punk, to take on Lynch and Seth Rollins. Yet for many WWE fans, Lee’s return still seems unreal.
She returned on an episode of “Friday Night SmackDown,” which was taking place in Chicago at the time. Bayley told PK Press Club Digital that she was in town to film something and heard rumors that Lee might be back.
Even as a best friend, Bayley said Lee never reached out to her.
“She didn’t tell me anything,” she said. “I had heard rumors. I’m a big believer and I’m very hopeful for a lot of things that I really feel and I happened to be in Chicago filming something that day for SmackDown and I was like, I’m just going to stick around. I don’t need to go back to my hotel. I’m just going to stick around and yeah, I was right. And I’m so glad I followed my heart but she was very quiet about it.”
AJ Lee returns to SmackDown at Allstate Arena on September 5, 2025 in Rosemont, Illinois. (Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)
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Soon the two will meet in a dream match of sorts.
Bayley and Lee will face off with the Women’s Intercontinental Championship on the line Monday night on RAW. It can be seen on Netflix, starting at 8 p.m. ET.
