The April 24 episode of SmackDown ran a women’s tag team title match between Brie Bella and Paige against Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss. Before it concluded, Jacy Jayne came over the barricade. Fallon Henley and Lainey Reid followed. The referee called for the bell. Fatal Influence had arrived on the main roster.

The faction then delivered a second attack the same night on Rhea Ripley, the newly crowned WWE Women’s Champion. Two coordinated assaults in one evening is the kind of booking that signals creative actually has a plan. Fatal Influence spent years on NXT accumulating championships and heat — Jayne held both the NXT Women’s Championship and the TNA Knockouts World Championship simultaneously at one point, a first in the industry. Reid, the group’s newest member after Jazmyn Nyx’s departure, has been wrestling for roughly three years. Jayne has said she is ahead of her time.