Bayley has wanted Paramore in her corner at WrestleMania for the better part of a decade. This week, the band’s frontwoman gave her a much more literal way in. A clip started making the rounds of Hayley Williams messing around in a boxing ring with friends in Dublin, running the ropes, throwing a clothesline, and getting briefly hoisted up for a chokeslam. It’s the kind of thing that goes viral on its own, since Williams remains one of the most recognizable voices in music. But it especially caught the eye of one very online WWE Superstar.
Bayley, a longtime Paramore fan, wasn’t going to let the footage pass without comment.
“Hayley Williams hit me up,” she wrote, tagging it with a wrestling emoji. It reads like a joke, but Bayley has the résumé to back it up. She’s run her own Lodestone training camps and has a reputation as one of the more hands-on coaches on the roster, so the offer is more genuine invitation than punchline.
This Has Been a Long Time Coming
Bayley’s Paramore fandom is not a new development. Back in 2020, she hopped on an Instagram Live with Williams and asked, point blank, if she could use “Simmer” for a future WrestleMania entrance. Williams didn’t hesitate. “You have our permission,” she said, visibly thrilled at the idea. That entrance never materialized, but Bayley kept pushing. She got the closest anyone’s come at WrestleMania 40, where Paramore couldn’t make the trip to perform her live but still ended up soundtracking the video package for her feud with IYO SKY. Close, but not quite the moment she’s been chasing.
A viral gym clip isn’t a WWE contract, and Hayley Williams becoming a trained wrestler is still a long way from a done deal. But it’s the most direct opening this Paramore/WWE crossover has ever gotten, straight from Williams herself, in a wrestling ring, running the ropes. If Bayley’s persistence is any indication, she’s not letting this one go either.
