Jim Ross says he would welcome Bayley in AEW if she ever became available, and that what she would bring is not only what she does in the ring.
Ross was asked the hypothetical on Grilling JR and did not hedge on the answer.
“Oh hell yeah, yeah, really, I do. She could add to the ever-growing women’s division in AEW,” Ross said. “Tony Khan’s done a great job of paying attention to the women. I don’t mean that as a wise-ass remark, but he’s hired some really good talent, and the division continues to strengthen as we move forward.”
What he kept returning to was her value away from the matches.
“Bayley could help a veteran. She could answer questions that some of these young ladies might not have the answers to. She could be a leader, which is what I’m trying to say, which is very important,” he said.
Ross then made a point about what she has achieved without fitting the template the business used to hire on, going back to an instruction he was given running talent relations for WWE.
“I remember when McMahon said, JR, I want you to go out and hire me some athletic tens. And if you look at the definition of athletic ten, then you see Trish Stratus, and I hired her, and that set the bar,” Ross said. “Well, Bayley has had a great career, has had great success, not looking like that, because she’s got talent and she can work. She can wrestle.”
His conclusion was straightforward.
“She would be a great addition to AEW. I would celebrate her arrival if it were to occur,” Ross said. “And I’m sure Tony Khan, who has a great eye for talent, would be interested in her.”
Whether the question is live at all is contested. Bayley has been off WWE television since July 18, when she lost to Lyra Valkyria at Saturday Night’s Main Event at Madison Square Garden. Valkyria attacked her afterwards and drove her into the steel steps, which gave WWE a storyline reason to write her off. Her only match since was at a live event in Bakersfield on July 26. She returned to Raw this week. Nobody reporting on the contract agrees on when it runs out. Bayley told Chris Van Vliet in April 2025 that she had a year and a half left, which points to October 2026. Fightful Select has it lapsing by the end of 2026 while noting no expiration date has ever been confirmed. Bryan Alvarez has said he heard January 2027 and stressed he could not verify it. Underneath all of that is the multi-year extension she signed in late 2023, which is where the October arithmetic came from in the first place.
What everyone agreed on through August was that she had not signed anything new. Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Observer Radio that the only thing he had been told was that Bayley has a decision to make and has not signed a contract, and that she would be back on television once she did. He also noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE had kept mentioning her name on Raw, and read that as a sign the company expected her back rather than the opposite.
After her return, Meltzer said she had signed a new deal. Mike Johnson of PWInsider disputed that directly, reporting that multiple WWE sources indicated there had been no conversations about a new contract and that she has considerable time left on her current one. Neither Bayley nor WWE has announced anything.
The speculation about AEW has largely been driven by Bayley’s friendship with Mercedes Mone, and by a training video Bayley posted that featured wrestlers from outside WWE, including Mone, ran over a track called All In and carried the caption all or nothing. Both phrases are AEW pay-per-view names. Fightful Select reported the video did not go down well with everyone backstage.
None of it has produced anything on the record. Bayley is a Grand Slam champion who has won the Royal Rumble and Money in the Bank, and she is under contract to WWE for as long as any of the four timelines above hold. Ross was answering a hypothetical and said so.
