WWE legend Paige made a triumphant return at WrestleMania 42, and the writing was on the wall.
The Norfolk-born star left the company in 2022 and jumped to rivals All Elite Wrestling to restart her in-ring career four years after a devastating injury forced her into retirement.
I’ve been on the ground in Las Vegas for the last few days, and there have been rumblings she had inked a new deal.
Up in the press box at Allegiant Stadium, the whisperings got louder when it became clear Brie Bella and her injured twin Nikki were coming out after Women’s Tag Team Champs Nia Jax and Lash Legend.
The reason was quickly confirmed as Nikki stepped out on crutches, and confirmed an old friend was stepping in.
The crowd immediately roared before Paige’s music hit, and one of the UK’s most successful and beloved wrestlers stepped out on the grandest stage.
After an entertaining match, it proved to be a very successful comeback as Paige and Brie became the new tag team champions.
It was a special moment, and one that has been coming for a long time.
Back in 2023, I interviewed Paige, then going by her real name Saraya, during her time with AEW.
Her love for WWE creative chief Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque shone through, and reading between the lines it was clear the decision for her contract not to be renewed the previous year wasn’t his call.
‘‘Man, I do love Hunter, he’s so fantastic. He was like, “Wait what happened?!” I was like, “I dunno, they haven’t renewed my contract,”‘ she exclusively told Metro.
‘He was like, “Oh my gosh! Well I didn’t know that, so I’m sorry!” He was really fantastic.
‘He did give me the opportunity to potentially be a GM again, and give me the opportunity to be like, “If you ever potentially want to wrestle again, I’ll give you that opportunity too”. He was very open about any ideas that I had.’
The conversations took place between her WWE exit and AEW debut, and Paige had a tough decision to make.
She admitted that the freedom to take outside opportunities was ‘the thing that maybe tipped the scale’, while she was ‘scared’ of finding herself on the hamster wheel in WWE, ‘sitting on [her] arse’ for years without being able to pursue other options.
‘I know Triple H is fantastic, and he’s an awesome boss and I know that because I worked with him in NXT. He’s still half the boss, and the other half is the Nick [Khan] guy right, who I haven’t met yet,’ she said.
‘I don’t know if I would end up sitting on my arse for another five years, and that terrified me. And then not being able to do other projects terrified me. I can’t sit on my butt again and do nothing!’
Later in 2023, another conversation with Paige was another hint her time in AEW wasn’t forever.
‘I always wanted to be a heel, even before [AEW] knew I was gonna be wrestling again. I always wanted to be a bad guy,’ she told me in the September of that year.
‘Because I already knew it wasn’t going to be long until they turned on me. I knew that. I said that – having conversations before I came to AEW, I was speaking to Jon Moxley, I was speaking to [Chris] Jericho, I was speaking to Tony Khan.’
Fast forward less than three years, and she’s made her homecoming, ready to leave her mark in a very different WWE.
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