What's Happened To Sasha Banks?

[Jack-Hammer]

I've found myself wondering if something has happened that's gotten Sasha Banks heat backstage as her career is in a completely different place now than it was a year ago. Sasha and Charlotte were basically THE Women's Division for much of the second half of 2016 and while we may not have always liked some of the decisions made for them, it was a great feud and Sasha has gone from feud of the year with Charlotte to feuding with Alicia Fox. Alicia's win over Sasha on Raw a few weeks ago is the first time I can remember Alicia winning a match, I know it's not her first win but it's been so long since she's gotten one that I can't remember when it was or who it was against. To make matters worse, Sasha has been added to a mixed tag team match for Extreme Rules in which she teams with Rich Swann to face Alicia Fox and Noam Dar.

There were various reports last year going about stating that Vince wasn't all that high on Sasha and, if true, I'm wondering if he decided that he'd had enough of her being one of the top female names in the company. Maybe all this means nothing and is just to give Sasha something to do for a while before moving her back up the card, it's just been a while since I can recall seeing someone pushed so much having fallen so far from less than a year ago.

 

[GOOZEKING]

Well I'll tell you what happened. ROADBLOCK: END OF THE LINE. We have an iron women match which was pretty good with Sasha winning. Then there is 3 seconds left on the clock, the crowd is chanting down and she taps, Then proceeds to lose the match. At that time, I had just lost all faith in women's division on raw. Another reason could be the fact that she had 4 title reigns and doesn't even have 30 days of being champ. Another reason could be she was injured twice last year although had been healthy for the past 6 months so that can't be it. It could also be her match with Nia Jax at fast lane which was atrocious, or they could just be trying to build up a talent such as Alicia Fox who has been on the roster in 10 years and hasn't gotten over yet.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

what happenned with sasha is pretty simple, WWE never really saw anything in her. When you look back at her feud last year with charlotte. what we has fans saw was 2 women on equal footing trying to determine who was the best, what WWE saw is, who can help us put Charlotte over. She in the role of the other girl in this situation. Then they we're building her up for some kind of heel turn against bayley but then the roster shakeup happened and they decided that since charlotte was going to smackdown, why not bring alexa to raw and be the number 1 heel on the Raw divas roster, so again Sasha get push to the side until her time comes and i wouldn't be surprise if she get that spot against Alexa Bliss after extreme rules. Either that or you'll get the heel turn against bayley either at extreme rules or after.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

Wrestlers bob in and out of the big picture from time to time. It seems very par for the course to me. Banks and Charlotte were Raw's Women's Division for almost a full year. Eventually I see her coming back to it after programming has had its share of Bliss and Bayley. It seems like the usual writing, one major storyline with the women, and maybe one or two minor things for the rest of the girls to do. Swap some names around. Repeat. Maybe I'm optimistic about Banks, because last year or so we were wondering if WWE forgot about Bayley and we know how that went.

 

[Papa Pillman]

I believe that all of the women's programs happening currently in the two main brands are simply hold-over programs until we get deep in the Summer. I think the promotion knew from the moment that they executed the "shake-up" that the plan was Sasha versus Bayley, and Charlotte versus Becky at SummerSlam. I'm completely sure that is still the direction, creative is just really bad at stalling.

 

[The Perfect Max]

When you consider how much Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks dominated the women's scene on Raw, it is quite refreshing to see other faces on screen and doing things. Having said that, there's no excuse for how far she has fallen. Virtually every program she has been in since December has been meaningless and led nowhere. Her feud with Nia seemed only to exist because Charlotte had only Bayley to feud with as a face. Similarly, I feel Sasha has a program with Alicia Fox because otherwise, what would she be doing? Something more interesting most likely.

Perhaps we are looking at it wrong though, and WWE are trying to legitimise Alicia Fox with someone they know connects well with the crowd. The problem is, I don't think the fans have interpreted it that way, and that's probably because of how WWE dealt with the feud with Charlotte. It was exhausting, though the matches were brilliant, but ultimately we always knew how the end would come. In the end I actually think her feud with Charlotte did less for Sasha and more for the overall women's scene in WWE.

If Vince dislikes Sasha though, that's his loss. I remember her NXT days and they were damn good. To be fair to her, when she first won the Raw Women's Championship, the pop was massive. So it's not like she can't connect with the crowd or perform in a way that gets people excited. Ultimately, this is surely just a placeholder for a bigger summer feud. Bayley and Alexa will surely not last through to SummerSlam and so Sasha can be used accordingly there.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

There are quite a few things that could be going on with Sasha:

1. She's taking a "break" - Sasha helped Charlotte carry the Raw women's division last year. Remember all the complaining about the never ending title matches? Fans got down on Sasha despite he and Charlotte putting on some of the best matches of the year.

2. Emma got hurt - I'm guessing that Fox's spot would have been Emma's if she stayed healthy. That is a much different and important feud for Sasha. Sasha and Fox is kind of a throwaway to just keep Sasha on the card.

3. Alexa showed up - Alexa feuding with Bayley writes itself. Alexa is talented enough to carry the work outside of the ring. It wasn't doing anyone any good having Sasha involved. It made Bayley look worse and less sympathetic by having Sasha stand up for her.

4. We're just killing time - Sasha is likely to be in something bigger come Summerslam. Whether it is a feud with Alexa for the title or a feud with Bayley, we are just killing time right in May.

She is fine. She just isn't Charlotte (who is kind of getting a "break" of her own), they want to establish Alexa on Raw, and they still really want to see how much they can monetize Bayley.

 

[Aeon Mathix]

Really? No one has pointed out the fact that there about 6 women per "division" on each show? Charlotte vs Sasha was the ONLY women's match on Raw for about 5 months! Sure there was some Dana and Nia shit thrown in there but that's literally the only match that mattered. Sasha is completely fine, shes taking a backseat due to winning the title what 4 times during the fall?

This brand split drives me crazy because we get the same exact matches for months on end because there isn't enough talent on either show to shuffle around. We saw it with Ambrose vs Styles and Owens/Jericho vs Reigns/Rollins all throughout the fall. It makes for quite boring television. Charlotte vs Sasha didn't go on from Summer to the end of the year because it was an epic feud, it went that long because there was literally NO other match that could happen because there was like 3 women on the Raw roster.

 

[Wildcat66]

Nothing. Top stars are allowed to break from the limelight and do some filler feuds every now and then.

Though, admittedly in the future; I can't expect Sasha to be as red hot as she was before. It has been rumored that she was injury-prone, and that's been known to kill a few wrestling careers. (Case in point: Wade Barrett)

 

[ISkye]

She works better than everyone, but one female person on the main roster and that one person went to Smackdown. They don't want to over saturate her, and they never really saw her in the light that they saw others. Not saying it's because of her race or anything, but it wouldn't surprise me. Naomi is already token black champ on Smackdown, and with people liking Disney channel Alexa Bliss insults about kissing boys the demand for Sasha seems even more lost. She also has a history of speaking up against people publicly and not being shy to be vocal. Her tumblr had some pretty... interesting pieces on it a while ago.

William Regal on who in NXT he is most proud about signing: "I don’t really like singling anyone out, but Sasha Banks. I’ve known her since she was 18, and the previous people that were doing what I’m doing now wouldn’t even give her the time of day."

"When I was asked by Triple H to be part of that team, of which there is nobody still here who was in the team at the time, I kept asking to bring her in, to which people replied ‘oh no, there is nothing in her, she’s useless.’ Sasha was the first person I went to bat for, and her development is a great thing to see."

Then she left NXT, and went to a place where the lovely creators of sports entertainment have free range over her. The chairman of WWE didn't think people found Asian women attractive. There was no women's revolution, and as many leaps WWE has made to catch up to the actual real world it's still in delusion and out of touch. There are plenty examples to see why they wouldn't see anything in Sasha banks and it's not just women.

 

[ShinChan]

Almost same happened last year after Wrestlemania 32. Sasha Banks couldn't win the title at Wrestlemania and then she took a break until June, I think.

I also agree with GSB that Alicia Fox's spot was originally Emma's before the latter got injured. I even think that it could be Emma instead of Alexa Bliss challenging Bayley.

There are numerous reports which have said that Vince doesn't like Sasha much. So I won't mind getting Heel Sasha against Bayley but I won't be expecting it either since WWE has already botched Bayley hard.

 

[Da Prophet]

Alexa Bliss.

That's what happened to every woman on the WWE roster. This breakout star has taken the spotlight from all four NXT women and has never looked back. She gets bigger crowd reactions than all four of them. Alexa can work the crowd better than all of them. Her facial expressions are wonderful for a heel. Her promo skills are great and she has exposed Bayley as being unable to handle 20k crowds. I mean, if I have to her Bayley stumble through another promo I'll continue to laugh at how bad she is these days.

Sasha Banks was injured a lot. Big storylines and matches were given to her and she got hurt whenever they pulled the trigger. I don't care how many flips you can do, if you can't stay healthy than you're not that good a wrestler.

Vince likes blondes and he happened to find one who has exploded onto the scene unlike any since Trish Stratus. Alexa is your star for the next decade or however long she wants to be in WWE. She has everything Vince McMahon wants and is the same type as the last mega star female in WWE; Trish Stratus. Sasha got passed over for a better talent and one who fits what the boss has always been attracted to.

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

Nothing really happened, she is just not into spotlight now. And with lack of talent depth there is no real feud for her right now except waiting for her turn on taking Bliss or turning her against Bayley. You can say the same thing with Charlotte that went from being great heel and maybe taking title from Naomi to face and teaming up with Naomi to lose from "jobbers committee". And both should be just fine because both are great in ring and have great characters that are over. Which is something most roster(except for maybe Bliss) doesnt have.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

There were various reports last year going about stating that Vince wasn't all that high on Sasha and, if true, I'm wondering if he decided that he'd had enough of her being one of the top female names in the company. Maybe all this means nothing and is just to give Sasha something to do for a while before moving her back up the card, it's just been a while since I can recall seeing someone pushed so much having fallen so far from less than a year ago.

That kind of happens when you are booked to lose 4 PPV title matches in the last 4 months of the year. Sasha is probably the best female talent in the company but, no matter how good you are, in this stage in her career she shouldn't have lost that many PPV title matches against Charlotte.

To make matters worse Charlotte finally lost a title match on PPV but in a B-PPV vs Bayley (in her 2nd chance vs Charlotte). Which makes Charlotte's streak utterly pointless but also makes Sasha look worse doing it in a B PPV means anyone could have beaten Charlotte on PPV.

 

[LBGetBack]

Alexa Bliss.

That's what happened to every woman on the WWE roster. This breakout star has taken the spotlight from all four NXT women and has never looked back. She gets bigger crowd reactions than all four of them. Alexa can work the crowd better than all of them. Her facial expressions are wonderful for a heel. Her promo skills are great and she has exposed Bayley as being unable to handle 20k crowds. I mean, if I have to her Bayley stumble through another promo I'll continue to laugh at how bad she is these days.

Sasha Banks was injured a lot. Big storylines and matches were given to her and she got hurt whenever they pulled the trigger. I don't care how many flips you can do, if you can't stay healthy than you're not that good a wrestler.

Vince likes blondes and he happened to find one who has exploded onto the scene unlike any since Trish Stratus. Alexa is your star for the next decade or however long she wants to be in WWE. She has everything Vince McMahon wants and is the same type as the last mega star female in WWE; Trish Stratus. Sasha got passed over for a better talent and one who fits what the boss has always been attracted to.

Alexa has been phenomenal. It's unfortunate for Sasha that she hasn't gotten the chance to be a solo heel champ yet though. Alexa kinda took over that lane that Sasha would also shine in(based on her heel NXT title run).

But as others said, I think this is just a little delay for Sasha. Eventually she'll get the major push again. She's too talented, and that Sasha-Bayley feud is money if they handle it right.

 

[ShinChan]

Alexa has been phenomenal. It's unfortunate for Sasha that she hasn't gotten the chance to be a solo heel champ yet though. Alexa kinda took over that lane that Sasha would also shine in(based on her heel NXT title run).

But as others said, I think this is just a little delay for Sasha. Eventually she'll get the major push again. She's too talented, and that Sasha-Bayley feud is money if they handle it right.

The feud between Sasha Banks and Bayley was awesome in NXT. A classic feud, even better than the one between Sasha and Charlotte. But considering how Bayley has been used on main roster, I really doubt if it can actually be done in the right way. Her booking has been totally different from what actually made her a female John Cena in NXT.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Sasha feuded with Charlotte for around 6 months or more on Raw in the main feud, so maybe they're trying to push new people?

Problem is those people (or person, Alicia Fox) just isn't that good.

Paige or Emma would be much better options, but neither is available at the moment.

Also Mickie vs Sasha would be a great feud, but Mickie's not doing anything for some reason.

Either way, Sasha is fine. She's going to turn on Bayley and have their big match for the title at SummerSlam.

 

[Messiah]

Nothing has happened to her. She got one minor push last year and that was to only get Charlotte over as a better heel. She was a transitional champion.. There's nothing they can do with her. She seems like an immature mark if you listen to her in interviews, maybe that rubs people the wrong way.. She rarely has good matches, she can only work with Bayley it seems, unless it's a multi-women match, she can't cut a good promo. She looks very weird.. In my opinion, she's exactly where she belongs, at the bottom of the card.

All this is irrelevant anyways, because she says she's having fun and loves her spot right now, so none of us should really care.

 

[LBGetBack]

Nothing has happened to her. She got one minor push last year and that was to only get Charlotte over as a better heel. She was a transitional champion.. There's nothing they can do with her. She seems like an immature mark if you listen to her in interviews, maybe that rubs people the wrong way.. She rarely has good matches, she can only work with Bayley it seems, unless it's a multi-women match, she can't cut a good promo. She looks very weird.. In my opinion, she's exactly where she belongs, at the bottom of the card.

All this is irrelevant anyways, because she says she's having fun and loves her spot right now, so none of us should really care.

You turn so bitter when Sasha is the subject. "Nothing they can do with her"....lol. Then just make up a bunch of reasons like they're facts. She can cut a good promo. She can put on good matches, and has many times. Nobody cares that you're not attracted to her, and lol at "she sounds like a mark in interviews".

You're a piece of work.

 

[stingray11214]

When the boss is not that enthralled with you, you need to give a reason to change his mind. Getting hurt more than once does not help the cause. Relationships help in this business as well. Granted, she is but a cousin of Snoop Dogg. However, Charlotte is the daughter of the Nature Boy WOOOOOOOOO! Add to that fact that Alexa Bliss is part wrestler, part bimbo, and you can see why Sasha Banks was put to the back burner.

In the end, Sasha is a tweener. And, WWE Creative has not evolved to the point where females can be booked as tweeners. Sasha has a shitload of fans, so you really cannot make her a heel. You make her a face, and you bury her behind Bayley Now, they have her on 205Live to manage Swann. Does that tell you something?

 

[Slash-LN]

The Vince thing is that he supposedly doesn't want to invest in her much because he feels like she's like Daniel Bryan. She wrestles a risky style that causes her to hurt herself and she refuses to change it. If that's really his line of thinking I can somewhat understand.

It's a no win situation though because if she was featured all the time and was risking injury people would be complaining that she's being pushed too hard.

The other thing that comes into play is how fickle the crowd is.

Paige was supposed to be this great star then the other NXT women came up. Paige got overshadowed because people were so high on Sasha.

Then Bayley came up and people flocked to her. And then Alexa. I think it was in that order.

It seems like women wrestlers have a harder time holding people's interest.

Soon someone else is going to come up and people aren't going to care as much about Bayley. Although I think that's already happened with Alexa.

 

[Snugglebites]

Maybe she's just not as good as you think.

 

[enviousdominous]

Isn't it obvious?

Sasha had a dream that she didn't make it. So she joined 205 Live, and now there's nothing dragging her down. She'll proceed to push Alicia Fox out of her way. With all that being considered, she's destined to break back into RAW eventually in that she would have found her way. At that point; nobody is going to be able to take her fame away from her, as they'll likely remember when she pushed Alicia Fox out of the way as an example.

I figure at that point she'll have another dream, this time involving being in the spotlight where she rightfully belongs. She'll thankfully wake up from this dream, so that she can work her butt off to realize it in real life.

 

[The Life Of Pablo Ren]

I never believed that story about Vince not liking her style and being afraid to invest in her. The same could be said for Charlotte who will take any risk she can, and they clearly haven't lost any faith in her.

It's probably a combination of a few things, most notably being that RAW can't seem to understand that a Women's division is more than just two people fighting over a belt for months. The main reason Sasha is in the place she's in now is because she's not Alexa Bliss or Bayley, and there's literally nothing she can do about that.

Another reason and this sorta ties in to my first one is that, whatever plans they did have for her seem to have been at most cancelled, and at the very least pushed back. All throughout the Winter and early Spring all we heard was "Sasha Banks is turning heel and is gonna feud with Bayley". Well here we are now in June, Sasha isn't a heel and she isn't feuding with Bayley. They brought Alexa Bliss over from Smackdown essentially in exchange for Charlotte and they probably wanted to push the fresh face into the title picture instead of wasting her. Not to mention, despite how the actual results have been, Alexa's bitchiness and Bayley's Bayleyness on paper sounds like a great dynamic.

I don't think it has to do with there being heat on her or anything of the sort.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

I don't believe the 'injury prone' label at all - Sasha had two short term injuries back to back (which usually means you came back too soon from the first); it's not like she falls into the same category as Emma or Wade Barrett. Furthermore, if Vince was reluctant to push people that were repeatedly injured, explain how Randy Orton is a 13 time world champion?

The reason that Sasha is currently in a lull is the same thing I have said since the brand split was announced last year: there just aren't enough women to fill two separate rosters. All the wrestling women should have been on one roster chasing one women's title. Look at it now: Raw has 8 women on its books, Smackdown has 7 (this doesn't include Brie Bella or Summer Rae, who I don't believe were drafted duee to their respective absences); of Raw's 8, two are injured: Paige and Emma. That leaves six wrestlers for the storylines and feuds to be shared around. It means there will undoubtably be times when certain wrestlers are out of the limelight, and this is Sasha's turn. If she were really in the doldrums, she wouldn't be featured at all, yet she is booked to appear in a match at Extreme Rules, so she can't be in the bad books. (as for Smackdown, their roster is so weak that they are regularly thrown together in multi-women matches to hide the deficiencies of the lesser wrestlers, but it just means they can't develop at their own pace as there is usually only one match/segment per show)

Sasha Banks is a fantastic wrestler - very much the reason I got to start appreciating women wrestling more (alongside Bailey), and her time will come again.