The Sasha Banks Situation
Introduction
Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet was to first to report that Sasha Banks is not only unhappy in her current position with WWE, but specifically expressed vocal displeasure over her loss at Wrestlemania 35 which lead to a backstage incident.
There are many unknowns here, which doesn’t allow us to tell a complete story and only make assumptions. Instead, I wanted to highlight hints leading up to this rumoured situation.
In the end, you will be able to formulate your own opinion on whether her rumoured unhappiness is justified or if this is just merely a case of blowing a situation out of proportion.
Forbes.com did an excellent job of putting together a definitive timeline, but I wanted mine to be focused more on the up’s and the down’s throughout matches, moments and championship reigns. I do reference the Forbes article timeline towards the conclusion.
This timeline is going to begin post Wrestlemania 32 where the Raw Women’s Championship was officially introduced.
Championship Gold
Sasha Banks was officially drafted to Raw in the summer of 2016 and managed to capture the Raw Women’s Championship on the July 25th edition of the show.
She held the championship for a total of 27 days before dropping it back to Charlotte Flair at SummerSlam
Fast forward to the October 3rd edition of Raw, Sasha Banks won her second Raw Women’s Championship defeating Charlotte Flair in the main event. Once again, her reign only lasted 27 days after dropping it back her rival, Charlotte Flair at Hell In A Cell. This loss transpired in her hometown in Boston
Less than a month later, Sasha Banks defeated Charlotte in a Falls Count Anywhere match on the November 28th edition of Raw for a third time. Tying the record. This time, Sasha’s victory occurred in Charlotte’s hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. Famously known as Flair Country.
As per the trend you quickly starting to see, Sasha Banks once again dropped the Raw Women’s Championship back to Charlotte in a 30 minute Iron Woman at Roadblock: End of the Line taking place on December 18th. Her reign, only lasted 20 days this time around.
The proverbial game of hot potato came to an end. Sasha Banks had won the Raw Women’s Championship 3-times in a matter of roughly 4 months, but her reign only lasted a combined 74 days.
At this point, one has to wonder if the company simply did not have enough confidence in Sasha to be their flag barrier or if they just simply preferred Charlotte Flair to assume that role.
Either way, this period proves to be a pivotal point in Sasha’s unwillingness to trust the company with their evident lack of faith in her.
On August 20th 2017, Sasha Banks forced Alexa Bliss to tap-out at SummerSlam, thus making her a 4-time Women’s Champion. This also marked the final time she has held this championship to date.
Merely 8 days later, Sasha Banks was forced to drop the Raw Women’s Championship to Alexa Bliss on Raw.
A 4-time Raw Women’s Champion in just over a year with a combined reign of 82 days.
Given how seriously Sasha respects the lineage and prestige of championships, one can imagine how these unmemorable reigns affected her trust with the company.
We jump ahead to September 1, 2017—Sasha Banks appeared on "The Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast," where she fully admitted to preferring the structure of NXT.
“I think that's what's different about NXT too. We kind of always knew where we were going, so it helped me prepare and think of ahead of time, like, 'how can I make this better?'. But when I go to RAW, it's legit, like, 'I have no clue what I'm doing.' I don't even know what to prepare for. I'm just, like, handed something or told something. And I was like, 'okay, I have one hour to get ready. Oh, okay. Alright. Let's just do it!”
Weeks later, Sasha Banks also repeated a similar statement on a different podcast where she stated that NXT was her real home.
She also alluded to this during an Edge and Christian podcast in January of 2019. We will get to that momentarily.
The Boss n Hug Connection
During the final portion of 2017, Bayley and Sasha started to team together.
The two competed in the inaugural Women's’ Royal Rumble with Sasha Banks lasting an astounding 54:46 seconds.
In February, the two also competed in the first ever Women’s Elimination Chamber that saw Sasha betray Bayley by allowing her to fall off the pod. Bliss ultimately won the match.
In March, tensions would quickly rise with Bayley walking away from their tag-matches, which lead to backstage brawls, overly scripted therapy sessions and a continued tease of the inevitable Sasha Banks heel turn. This feud had the potential to rekindle their magic from NXT, but instead, it fell completely flat and rather than extend it, the two put differences aside and teamed together.
Sasha Banks has publicly stated on multiple podcasts including Edge and Christian’s that she much prefers to play the heel character that put her on the map. Truthfully, it’s much more aligned with her character anyway.
Sasha and Bayley went on to team through the majority of 2018 with even competing on the WWE’s First Ever PPV, Evolution.
In January of this year, Sasha unsuccessfully challenged for Ronda’s Raw Women’s Championship.
Behind the scenes, it has been noted that both Sasha and Bayley would obsessively suggest to Vince and upper management the possibility or bringing back the Women’s Tag-Titles.
Eventually, their relentlessness paid off as the Women’s Tag-Titles were officially introduced at the Elimination Chamber on February 17th, of 2019.
Sasha and Bayley managed to capture the championship after defeated the team of Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose.
During their short reign, Sasha and Bayley appeared on Raw, Smackdown and even NXT along with an NXT house show to promote the concept of being defending champions anytime, anywhere on any brand.
Sadly, the concept never really took off as Sasha and Bayley lost their Women’s Tag-Titles to the IIconics at Wrestlemania 35 in a Fatal-4-Way match. Their reign lasted a total of 49 days.
Speculation
This is where the speculation begins
On Monday, April 8th Sasha Banks no-showed an appearance on the Wendy Williams show at the 11th hour citing personal reasons as the hurdle.
“Due to personal reasons, I had to pull out of my appearance today on @WendyWilliams . Sorry to everyone who was looking forward to it. Hopefully the opportunity will be there again later. #IfYouOnlyKnew”
Sasha Banks has always been known for her cryptic tweets, but fans and journalists were particularly intrigued by the true meaning behind this one.
Later than evening, she posted a length and far more cryptic message on Twitter.
Sasha Banks did not appear on Raw, but her tag-partner Bayley lost to Alexa Bliss in roughly 3 minutes. In fact, Sasha and Alexa had an odd Twitter exchange after it was discover Banks muted Bliss and the favour was returned by Alexa blocking Sasha. Yes, very petty.
On Friday, April 12th, Ryan Satin or Pro Wrestling Sheet was the first to report that Sasha Banks and Bayley were laying on the floor of the locker room at Wrestlemania, and back at the hotel in front of one of their rooms, loudly making it known they were unhappy about losing the tag titles.”
Apparently, this was reported individually by 4 sources.
The scene was reportedly in protest of losing the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships to the IIconics at WrestleMania 35. Again, this is unconfirmed.
Additional reports even alluded to a violent episode featuring Sasha Banks. Also unconfirmed.
On the same day,—Marc Middleton of Wrestling Inc noted Sasha Bank stopped following WWE's official Twitter account and Vince McMahon. Petty, but perhaps very telling.
To further add to the heap of speculation, it was reported by Dave Meltzer that Sasha Banks asked for her release, was denied and that WWE wanted her to take a few weeks off to consider her decision.
In the meantime, Sasha Banks posted a photo of herself and Bayley with the IIconics on Twitter which shows there is very likely no hard feelings between both teams. She’s also been vacationing with her husband along with good friend Kalisto.
Bayley was also drafted to Smackdown which officially split up the Boss n Hug Connection.
Her future remains uncertain.
The Future
So you can look at both sides of the spectrum here.
As presented Sasha Banks been granted multiple title reigns, the ability to perform on the World’s biggest wrestling platform, achieve many firsts, become a household name and win or loss, be positioned as a fixture in the Women’s Division.
On the flip side, each of her title reigns have remained shockingly short and underwhelming, she has been very misused on the main roster and anytime momentum is gained, it is seemingly lost weeks later. The WWE also split up her tag-team with Bayley.
One could make the argument that she takes pro-wrestling too seriously, but I would argue that many don’t take it seriously enough. In terms of her acting out on social media and reportedly backstage, if true, I don’t consider that to be professional conduct and perhaps having a serious discussion with management about her future or actually leaving would much more be ideal.
But who are we to judge or to really know what is fact or fiction? Time will tell.
