Nikki Bella goes into her first singles match since breaking her ankle against the woman who took her WrestleMania spot, and she is not being sentimental about it.
Bella faces Paige on SmackDown in Mexico City, and she spent this week’s Nikki and Brie Show celebrating the result in advance.
“We celebrate the wins before they happen, because you know your girl’s gonna win,” she said.
Her sister, who has spent this year teaming with Paige, told her to take it easy on her partner. Bella’s response was to tell Brie not to go there with her.
The match has added weight for both twins. Bella pointed out that the last time WWE ran a televised show in Mexico City, the company’s first there, she and Brie were both on it.
“Isn’t it crazy to think the last time we, as a company, WWE did a televised event in Mexico City, which was their first time ever, you and I were on it,” she said. She put it at 15 years ago.
The family is travelling for it. Bella said her father and his side are all coming out, along with their sister Alexia and brother Ezekiel, and that they will be recording the podcast from Mexico City.
On the promo the two women traded on the previous SmackDown, Bella made no apologies for how personal it got.
“I’m all for what entertains a crowd, what helps make a crowd react, and I’ve always loved bringing something personal into it,” she said.
She said none of it was planned in a vacuum.
“It all came up from what they were chanting in Canada. If they never chanted that, none of the stuff in the promo would have ever happened,” Bella said. “So it’s just kind of falling into place that way.”
She said the live setting made the difference.
“The crowd just being there, because we shot that live, it was amazing to hear the reactions, and even the stuff I brought before,” she said. “And it is funny to see the reactions online. Very torn.”
Her view is that the split reaction is the point.
“That’s, you know me, I’ll always feel that way,” Bella said. “It’s gonna make it really fun for what we’re gonna do tomorrow night.”
Bella fractured, tore, and sprained her ankle on the March 27 episode of SmackDown in a tag match against Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, rolling it in an exchange with Flair. It was first reported as a sprain, and an MRI found the rest of it. She needed surgery two weeks before WrestleMania 42. She and Brie had been booked for the Women’s Tag Team Championship four-way against the champions, Nia Jax and Lash Legend, Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, and Bayley and Lyra Valkyria. Paige returned to take her place and won the titles with Brie, a team that held them for 91 days before losing them to Lainey Reid and Fallon Henley at Saturday Night’s Main Event at Madison Square Garden.
The two of them met for the first time in the middle of it. Bella said afterwards that she had gone to Birmingham for the surgery and Paige happened to be in Birmingham too, and that there was nobody she would rather have had take her place. Paige’s own last WWE match before that had been in December 2017, before the neck injury that ended her first run, so the spot Bella lost was the one that brought Paige back after more than eight years.
Bella returned on the July 24 SmackDown, breaking up a Fatal Influence attack on Brie and Paige and setting up a six-woman tag at SummerSlam. This is her first singles match since the injury, and only her second since 2018. The first was against Chelsea Green on Raw last year, in the run that followed her surprise return at the 2025 Royal Rumble and ran through a programme with Becky Lynch over the Women’s Intercontinental Championship.
