thelesterlee
The internet wrestling community is a black hole of hate and tribalism full of losers fighting WWE vs. AEW battles no one cares about and that includes the wrestlers in both promotions who only have glowing things to say about one another.
The toxic community gets even nastier when the discourse surrounds a woman. Make it a black woman and you might have to start muting some words and manually altering your algorithms to avoid the nonsense.
So in May of last year when Sasha Banks and Naomi walked out on a live taping of Monday Night Raw, it has been impossible to avoid seeing her name pop up without floods of ghouls rushing to demonize her or downplay her accomplishments.
If you want to understand how great Sasha Banks is, we have to go back to NXT Takeover where she and Bayley had arguably one of the greatest matches in women’s history. Certainly one of the best in WWE history.
Since this match, let’s look at what Sasha has accomplished:
- Smackdown Women’s Champion
- Raw Women’s Champion (5 times)
- NXT Women’s Champion
- Grand Slam Champion
- Women’s Tag Team Champion (3 times)
And most importantly for her legacy, Sasha Banks—alongside Bianca Belair—was the first black woman to ever main event Wrestlemania.
I feel like so many wrestling fans ignore the element of race and it’s probably due to WWE also historically always ignoring race but this is an industry dominated by straight white men from the beginning and black performers have consistently been forced to eat shit in order to put over their white coworkers regardless of their talent or skill in the ring.
There have been only TWELVE black world champions in WWE history. Ric Flair has been champion 16 times in his career. Sasha Banks was given a small opportunity and turned herself into a superstar as she’s currently the biggest free agent in the game right now.
Her place in history should never be questioned yet here we are. The week she debuts in New Japan Wrestling and the entire conversation surrounding her appearance is how she botched a move or how she isn’t Stone Cold Steve Austin on the mic and blah blah.
Mercedes Monè (FKA Sasha Banks) officially makes her NJPW debut & comes face to face with KAIRI! 🚨🚨🚨
Mercedes looks incredible.
This. Is. Happening. #WK17 #NJPW
— Wrestle Ops (@WrestleOps) January 4, 2023
What a fucking star.
She walked away from WWE after not being treated like the star she truly is from both a booking standpoint and a financial one but again, the Internet wrestling community is tribal so she gets clowned now because she turned her back on a company built on the back of exploiting workers literally to death.
There is no ‘Women’s Revolution’ without Sasha Banks. But Sasha isn’t Ric Flair’s daughter so she doesn’t get to have a bajillion title matches. Charlotte disappears every six months to get her breasts re-aligned or whatever and the second she returns, she’s handed yet another title match. Charlotte also comes back with a slightly new face every time but that’s a conversation for another time.
If Nia Jax didn’t bust Becky Lynch’s nose open and create one of the most iconic moments in WWE history of Becky proudly standing above every woman with allllll of the blood dripping down her nose then perhaps Sasha would’ve been in Becky’s position instead of having to occupy a tag team title in a division where there literally weren’t enough wrestlers to compete against.
And now she gets the chance to prove to the world how important she is—and always has been—to the wrestling business. Much like Cody Rhodes traveling to Japan and TNA and Ring of Honor only to come back and be treated like a king, Sasha Banks gets to travel the world having 5-star matches left and right and proving to everyone she is the greatest in the world.
January 2024 we might witness one of the loudest pops in WWE history if/when Sasha Banks’s music hits during the women’s Royal Rumble and she comes home to take over a company that pretended as if she wasn’t already one of the biggest stars in the world.
Let’s give Sasha Banks her flowers before it’s too late.
What are your thoughts on the moves Sasha Banks are making? Is she overhyped? Is she changing the face of women’s wrestling,? reach out. Leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee. What does everything think about Mercedes Mone?
