WWE Star Details Insane Last-Minute Journey To Make Surprise SummerSlam 2023 Appearance

WWE

A WWE star has revealed the frantic circumstances that proceeded her surprise appearance at SummerSlam 2023 in Detroit.

Dakota Kai, who has been sidelined from WWE with a torn ACL injury since May this year, made her surprise return to TV to celebrate alongside Bayley and new WWE Women’s Champion IYO SKY after the latter cashed in her Money in the Bank briefcase on Bianca Belair.

This made for a heartwarming moment for the trio, who debuted at SummerSlam 2022 a year prior, however, as detailed by Dakota on a Twitch stream afterwards, she woke up on that Saturday August 5 morning without any inkling she would be making the trip to Ford Field.

Dakota explained that after spending an afternoon in bed with her phone on do not disturb, she would later discover a heap of missed calls and texts from WWE and Bayley asking her to make the trip to SummerSlam.

Dakota explained the entire ordeal in detail:

“I literally found out that they wanted me to be there (at SummerSlam) but this was all shenanigans, right? 1pm on that day (she laughed). I was still chilling. I was like, oh, it’s Saturday. It’s my sleep in day, I’m gonna chill, not even gonna set my alarm, my phone was on Do Not Disturb.

“I always have my phone on Do Not Disturb when I’m not needed and I was like, cool, I’m just gonna sleep in. I wake up, my phone is blowing up. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ My anxiety was just through the roof. I just saw all these missed calls, all these texts and they are just like, you know, Bayley is texting me or trying to call me. She’s like, ‘We need you here!’ And I’m like, ‘Do you guys know what day it is? And what time it is? And where I am? And where SummerSlam is?’ The math ain’t math-ing right now…

“So, from that point on, for the rest of the day, my anxiety was at a 10. It was at a freaking 10. It was no time to be not anxious so, me, I’m not just ready, you know what I mean? I gotta get my hair done. That’s a whole thing. I gotta make sure the dog’s taken care of… That was fine but everything else, I’m like, ‘Guys, are there even any flights out that will get me there in time?’

“There was a flight that they wanted me to get on and I think it was around 5:15 PM and I could not make it, I could not. I was like, ‘Guys, I can’t make it.’ First of all, I live like 30 minutes-ish away from the airport… ‘I’m sorry guys. I can’t make it. Is there another flight?’ There was literally only one flight left and this just shows you how desperate I was to get there because it was for Spirit (Airlines) and I’m like, oh my God. I’ve never flown Spirit before. Please don’t let anything happen. Please don’t let anything happen and this flight was set for like 6pm.

“So I get my hair done, my hair lady comes over, she hooks me up. I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Thank you so much’ and then I get an Uber to the airport at like, what was it? 4-ish, 4:15. It was more hectic than last year… So I’m like, you’re kidding me. The only flight available is Spirit? Ugh, because the other one after that is Delta but that… I wanna say it was 8:39pm. I may as well not had even gone.

“So I get an Uber to the airport to catch this 6pm Spirit flight and we’re not boarding at the time we’re boarding which is like 5:25 or something like that. We’re just standing there and I’m getting real anxious. I’m just internalizing everything right now. I’m like, is there even any point to me getting on this flight? Am I even gonna make it? Am I gonna get on this flight and it’s gonna get there and the show is over and I just turn around and come back?

“What a way to freaking go so I’m just standing there, boarding time passes. It’s like 6pm, we’re still standing around and I’m just standing… So everyone’s just standing there and I’m just like… We get on the plane, sit down. It’s getting closer to 7 and I’m just like, dude, SummerSlam starts in an hour. In what world am I gonna make this? This is crazy. Also, the airplane, the flight attendant staff is saying that there were maintenance issues which is why we were delayed taking off.

“We were all seated on the plane and they’re just waiting for the papers. These Goddamn papers. I don’t know if you guys have ever had to wait for maintenance papers but it’s a whole thing. I’m like, how in today’s technology do you have to physically wait for a piece of paper? We have technology. Just text them, be like, ‘Yeah, good. We’re good…’ We literally wait for a stack of papers. It’s like 7pm at this point and we’re still sitting there.

“We haven’t even pulled away from the gate and then, this family gets up and they start wandering on the plane because it’s a family of, I wanna say eight, eight or nine and they’re all, I think, sitting separately on the plane. Maybe they got the tickets last minute. So they must’ve thought that was a good time to start seeing if they could switch seats with other people so they could sit together. So we get the maintenance papers and next thing, we’re waiting for the family to sit down and I’m just like, it’s 7pm, it’s after 7. I was like, everything that went wrong, could. Bro, so eventually they sit down.

“We take off at 7:15 – 7:15 you guys. That’s like a two-and-a-half-hour flight right there to Detroit. I forgot what city we were even going to because I was that frantic but yeah, so we go and when I’m landing, I think it’s at the middle of the show. I wanna say it was after Shayna (Baszler) and Ronda (Rousey). What was the match after that match? (GUNTHER vs. Drew McIntyre) Whatever match that was, we were landing… Whatever match was after Shayna and Ronda’s, we landed and thank goodness they sent car service to come and get me and then they also had a makeup lady in the car.

“We were literally at that point so, I run to baggage claim. Car service is there to come get me. We rush to the car, SUV and the lady who does my makeup is already set up in the car… 20-minute drive from the airport to the venue. So I’m getting my makeup done, we’re zooming through the streets. We’re playing freaking Tetris with the makeup brush on my face (as we’re trying to get to Ford Field).

“Yes, lucky that match was semi-main because I definitely wouldn’t have made it I don’t think… So we’re trying to do that in the car. We finally get to the venue. They rush and sit me in makeup to get me ready and then I got dressed in the locker room and then it was straight to be loaded for where I was meant to be. I didn’t even get to say hi to everyone really. It was a quick, ‘Hi! I’m here’ and then they yoinked me away…

“They have to take me through a part where there’s fans. So, yeah, they take me through but I’m sweating because I’m covered in clothes. I was already wearing pants guys and I was like, ‘Do I have to put these X-Out track pants on? Because my pants are already black’ and they’re like, ‘Hmm, they might see the shoes.’ So I put pants on top of my pants… There was no time to even think about the stress. I don’t even know if that makes sense because I was stressed, the whole time, but there was no time to even comprehend what was happening.

“I was like, I’m wearing Chuck Taylors. No one’s gonna be like, oh! Only one person wears Chuck Taylors. Like the most popular shoe brand in the world (she laughed)… Then they took me through the bit in the crowd and then it was like an area where they had me which was like kind of where the tech guys were sitting and stuff. I did not have time to breathe.”

Kai would of course thankfully make it in time despite the insanity of the events preceding it, even taking a seat alongside IYO at the SummerSlam post-show press conference after her victory.

Despite fans hoping that the appearance could equate to Dakota being ahead of schedule on a return, the 35-year-old would reveal that her in-ring return was still a ways off, with a 2024 comeback the aim.

Transcript courtesy of POST Wrestling

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• Dakota Kai
• SummerSlam
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