Cassie Lee (Peyton Royce) Pitched NXT Return For Herself Before The IIconics Were Released

The IInspiration talk missed opportunities in WWE.

Peyton Royce and Billie Kay were briefly a major part of WWE’s women’s division. Having captured the Women’s Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 35, becoming, at the time, the youngest women to ever win gold at WrestleMania, they experienced the bright lights of WWE and the roller coaster ride that time on the main roster can become when there is suddenly nothing creatively in the plans for your character.

In 2020, Peyton and Billie were split up in order to try their hand at singles competition before both were released shortly after WrestleMania 37 in 2021. Now looking to get started as The IInspiration, Cassie Lee and Jessie McKay are reflecting on their time and WWE and some of the missed opportunities that never came their way.

In the case of the former Peyton Royce, she revealed, in a new interview with Cageside Seats’ Shakiel Mahjouri, that she had pitched a potential return to NXT for her character. Ultimately, nothing ever came of the pitch.

“I actually asked to go back and it was kind of, you know, it ‘was being looked into,’ is what I was told and then I got released,” said Lee.

Furthermore, both women opened up about their WWE careers and ideas that never got off the ground. For Cassie, she would have liked to see The IIconics as babyfaces and notes that their run in 2020 was her favorite of their time together.

“Yeah, I mean, we would have loved to explore what it would be like to be the good guys. But on top of that, like when, when we kind of came back, we had a little bit of a hiatus, and we came back early 2020 and we were kind of in the championship story. I wish we got to stay in that a bit longer because that was my favorite era of us. I think it was our best combination of who we are as people and as characters and then the fact that we could still go in championship matches, as well. I would have liked to have taken more time with that.”

Jessie McKay added, “Yeah, I would have loved to I mean, and this, people know now that you know, there were talks of us feuding with the Bellas when we won the championships. I would have loved to do that. I think that would have put us on a whole different level, being able to work with them both of those extraordinary women. So that’s always something that is bittersweet that it never happened. Yeah, but just the thought that that was a possibility is still really cool.”

Now, The IInspiration is ready to begin touring again and they have announced tour dates for October 2021, none of which include actually getting in the ring and wrestling. Learn more here.

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