Nikki Bella gives WWE return update
It sounds like Nikki Bella is very close to making her return from injury.
An ankle injury Bella suffered before WrestleMania 42 has kept her out of action for nearly four months, but — on a new edition of The Nikki & Brie Show — Bella revealed that she’s been working hard to get cleared and has already visited the WWE Performance Center during that process. She was put through some drills at the Performance Center and did a practice match.
“I’m excited to come back. I’ve been working hard,” Bella said. “It’s been three months since surgery. I was squatting at two. The bones were so broken and they’re like, ‘You’re fine.’ I’m like, ‘All right.’ They’re like, ‘Just go up and down.’ I’m like, ‘All right, up and down…’
“When I went to the PC to get cleared, they’re like, ‘You look like a Nike commercial.’ Because everything, like, if they wanted me to sprint, it was 110 percent sprinting and just doing all the things because I wanted to prove how good I was. Like, jumping high. But then it was funny because they go, ‘Okay, now go to the top turnbuckle and just like jump in the middle.’ Because they wanted to see how much — that messed me up a little bit. Like I got up there and I’m like, no, I’m going to break my ankle again. I’m like, if I re-break my ankle — [but] I was good. I was good.”
Bella said she was able to get through the practice match, which was structured around putting her ankle in different situations.
Brie Bella & Paige lose WWE Women’s Tag Team titles —
This episode of The Nikki & Brie Show was recorded at Fanatics Fest over the weekend, shortly after Brie Bella & Paige dropped the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles to Fatal Influence’s Fallon Henley & Lainey Reid at Saturday Night’s Main Event. Brie & Paige had been champions since WrestleMania, where Paige returned to WWE as a replacement for Nikki after her injury.
When Nikki does return, she’ll presumably go after the Women’s Tag Team titles with Brie. Winning the belts is a goal The Bellas have before retirement.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.