The All Elite Wrestling women’s division just added another superstar. Saraya made her AEW debut shortly following the AEW Women’s Championship four-way match on AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam, coming to the aid of Toni Storm and Athena. Formerly known as Paige in WWE, this is Saraya’s first appearance inside a wrestling ring in nearly three years. After retiring from in-ring competition due to injury in April 2018, Saraya held various on-screen roles in WWE for the remainder of her contract. She worked as an authority figure, a manager, and a correspondent for the short-lived WWE Backstage studio show on FS1. Her leap to AEW marks the first time Saraya is working outside of WWE in nearly a decade, and the first-ever NXT Women’s Champion appears to be all smiles.
“F–king WOW! Absolutely blown away by the pop in the stadium and the reception outside of it,” Saraya wrote on Twitter this morning. “Been a long journey. Couldn’t be happier to be in AEW. Thank you to everyone!and thank you to my babe Ronnie Radke for letting me use his song Zombified! LFG!!”
Videos by ComicBook.com
Saraya also shared a photo of her incognito attire outside Arthur Ashe Stadium ahead of her big return to wrestling.
While it has yet to be officially confirmed, Saraya appears to be signed to AEW as an active competitor. As of this writing, she is listed on AEW’s roster page with a win-loss column next to her name. That said, managers like William Regal and Stokely Hathaway also have their names listed with the win-loss column, so it’s not necessarily a guarantee that Saraya will be wrestling.
Regardless of the lack of confirmation, Saraya appears to have her sights set on Britt Baker. The two may be blossoming rivals on screen, but there’s plenty of love between the two behind the scenes.
“I’m a huge fan of Paige. I love her. I love her mom. I’ve wrestled her mom before actually,” Baker said over the summer. “She’s such an inspirational female. That girl has gone through it all and she’s still, pardon my swearing, but she’s such a bad b—h and she has that everything roll off your back energy. You can’t get to her. You know what I’m saying? She holds her head high and her in a wrestling ring again, if I’m not in the match, I want to be ringside watching it because she was one of my favorites to watch. Her energy. I mean she would come out and do the sideways skip up the ramp. It made me so excited. I used to play her entrance music in my car. So, I’m a big fan.”
Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for updates on Saraya’s future with AEW.
