World Wrestling Entertainment is in the midst of a red-hot two-year run. The business has boomed and boomed again for the preeminent pro wrestling company, which is a few weeks away from hosting its annual SummerSlam event in Cleveland, Ohio. But ahead of the “Biggest Event of the Summer,” a hot topic of discussion has once again emerged, thanks to current WWE Women’s Champion Bayley.
The 2024 Royal Rumble winner joined Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes on his new podcast, What Do You Wanna Talk About?, which launched on Thursday. Bayley was the inaugural guest. Rhodes and Bayley discussed various topics, including her thoughts on the state of women’s wrestling in 2024. Rhodes also asked WWE’s first Grand Slam Women’s Champion a question that comes up every now and then:
Does Bayley want to see Evolution 2? Well, yes, of course she does. “Yes. Why not?” asked the Women’s Champion.
In October 2018, WWE produced Evolution, which still stands as the company’s only all women’s Premium Live Event in history. Rising tides in their own dojo pushed the company in a direction it likely never anticipated. After several years of hard work done down in NXT, coupled with taking a bath in it from July 2015 onward on the main roster, WWE presented the Evolution event at the historic Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, New York.
The show went off without a hitch that night. All of WWE’s top women’s stars were involved in it. Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair had a memorable Last Woman Standing bout at a time when Lynch’s popularity skyrocketed through the Milky Way. Some future stars also received a showcase, as future champions Iyo Sky and Toni Storm (now of All Elite Wrestling fame) also appeared on the show.
It was a critically acclaimed show at the time, and despite questions over ticket sales (the show did pretty well), the good vastly outweighed the “bad.” There’s been a persistent demand among WWE fans, especially online, for a sequel to the show. Bayley addressed the fact that, nowadays, they could do it again and stand on their own two feet.
“So the thing about the first one was we had so many girls in NXT, which they got to showcase on a bigger stage. But they had so many women from the past,” Bayley said. “It’s like the first few Rumbles because we didn’t have enough women to fill these matches. But now we do.”
More from Bayley, who sold the fact that times have changed even more now:
“I think it would be so cool to give everybody on Raw and SmackDown a part on that show--Evolution 2. You can bring girls in from NXT. You can bring girls in–we just saw Jordynne Grace in NXT. So, TNA girls, whatever the connection is there. We can bring different girls in,” Bayley explained. “You can bring someone in from the past if they’re up for it to do a little something. But we have such a stacked roster right now, where it’s like, we can hold a show down on our own. Another PLE on our own. And it’s been so many years where it’s not like it’s something we have to do every year. Where we’re kind of like, ‘All right… we’ve seen it enough times.’ But I think it’s time because it is a different era compared to back then.”
Bayley is correct that times have changed. Over the last ten years, much work has been done to make women’s wrestling relevant and compelling. Stars have emerged from that work, and discussion has become rampant. On Wednesday alone, wrestler Stephanie Vaquer’s free-agent status became the hottest topic of the day. We’ve arguably already reached heights that some might think we’re still far away from.
But this, all in all, is a no-brainer. WWE absolutely should “push the button” so to speak on a sequel to Evolution. They have a strong group of women’s stars that not only have passionate fanbases but move merchandise, net great TV ratings, and, most of all, can hold their own. That doesn’t even get into how deep the talent pipeline has become down in NXT, where all the work started ten years ago.
You also don’t need to look far to see how much the world has changed regarding women’s… anything, let alone sports or wrestling. The fact that Bayley and Rhodes addressed the topic on a company-branded podcast is probably no small thing, either. If, and hopefully, when the second Evolution event occurs, it will be a victorious moment for many.
