Opinion

Rob: What’s Up With Sasha Banks?

Published

6 years ago

April 13, 2019

With all the craziness surrounding Sasha Banks since WrestleMania, Rob checks in with his perspective on the situation.

The Thursday and Friday after WrestleMania 35 may well become known as Sasha Banks NEWZZZZ Days just from all the rumors that came to light. Now to be fair we have no idea if any of this stuff is true but that hasn’t stopped us from getting these takes off on Twitter about it all. Supposedly Sasha got super pissed about losing the Women’s Tag Team Titles to the Iconics at Mania, and talked about quitting because she felt the rug was pulled out from under she and Bayley’s run with the titles before it got going good. Now again this is all allegedly, and even though the more reputable guys out there are saying that they’ve corroborated it it’s very possible as with all of these things that their sources might be full of crap and have an agenda.

And we’re running with all of this largely because of confirmation bias; this sure seems like something she would do so there’s probably some truth to it. Which in the grand scheme of things means maybe you don’t dismiss it outright but we probably shouldn’t be out here treating it as if it’s on tape, either. One thing I think is pretty safe to assume is that even if she wanted out, she wouldn’t get her wish. She just re-signed last year and I doubt they just let her out of that because she’s mad about losing a match. Now based on how absurd the whole thing has gotten, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 90 percent of what we’re getting here is probably false or exaggerated. Upset about losing? Sure. The rest of it I think you can charge to the clickbait wrestling media unless she actually does leave and turn up somewhere else.

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Banks is one of the more polarizing names on wrestling Twitter; there are people who genuinely dislike her because of all the ‘reports’ about her attitude, some of whom take that and project it onto criticisms of her ring work and she has some really rabid fans out there who defend her against all negative comments and go to the mat daily over how she’s been booked. So as you can guess these reports, rumors, whatever you want to call them have been fanning the flames on both sides. People who already didn’t like her are using these reports as evidence of what they’ve been saying all along, that she’s a petulant brat with a bad attitude who pouts and cries wen she can’t get her way and is flat out unprofessional.

She should be happy she’s gotten what she’s gotten and shut up already, or go on and get the hell out. And if Bayley feels the same way she can go, too. Meanwhile people at the opposite end of the spectrum have been using the same reports, particularly the insinuation that the were told the day of the show that they were losing, as another piece of evidence in the case that Sasha has been royally screwed and mistreated since she got called up from NXT, and that she has every right to pack up and leave and go somewhere that she is appreciated. Uhh……yeah, I don’t think there’s going to be a whole lot of movement in either of those camps.

Is there a legit beef about her booking? Let’s take wins and losses seriously for a bit. Here’s her won loss record since joining WWE; as you can see she’s won over half of her matches (53.70%). That’s a little behind Charlotte (57.27%) and Becky Lynch (58.8%), is way ahead of Alexa Bliss (34.57%) and Nia Jax (34.97%), and way behind Bayley (74%) and Asuka (91.1%). So she’s fifth out of the seven women who have been most consistently featured since 2015. But maybe it’s not the numbers but the timing. Her penchant for being booked to lose titles very quickly after she’s won them has been a thorn in the side of her biggest fans, and for good reason. She hasn’t hit even 30 days in any of her 4 RAW Women’s Title reigns which totaled 82 days while Alexa has a 223 and a 112 day reign in the books, and Charlotte has a 113 day reign on record.

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And while you can make some sense of her first three reigns being short since she and Charlotte were trading the belt month to month then, 8 days between beating Alexa and losing it back to her is just dumb and doesn’t even make sense when you look at how things were booked with the title the rest of the year. I will co sign any and all grievances with that because it was just a dumb idea that didn’t really add anything to the bigger picture.

But what else? Does the rest of the picture suggest she’s been booked at a lower level than she should be? Yes and no. She’s been in a lot of the ‘First Ever’ women’s division stuff – NXT Takeover Main Event, main roster PPV main event, Hell in a Cell match, Royal Rumble, Iron Woman matches in both NXT and the main roster, singles Elimination Chamber match, and tag team Elimination Chamber match. She was the anchor in the first Women’s Royal Rumble.

But she only won one of those matches, the tag team Chamber match, making her a whopping 1-5 there. Someone with her popularity and talent should fare better than that, right? Bayley is 2-2 in her milestone matches, Charlotte and Becky are 2-4, Alexa is 1-0, Nia is 0-2, and Asuka is 2-0. Again, a mixed bag that doesn’t really give a definitive answer either way other than that she’s been in a lot of those matches. Which makes it hard to feel really bad for her on that front given that the three women she is most compared to aren’t running away with a lot of wins in those matches either. There are a lot of women on the roster that would love to be in enough First Ever matches to have a 1-5 record. But is there anything else? Let’s see….

The RAW women’s division in particular has been pretty top heavy since WrestleMania 34 in that the Ronda Rousey-centered title picture has been treated with the most importance and the rest of the division has been left to basically fight each other. Now were there stretches where that made sense? Sure. But I’m guessing that wasn’t a joy to any of the ladies who had to deal with it, let alone one who was now getting relegated to the pack after being one of the featured top players for a couple of years.

Then there was what looked was going to be a feud with Bayley that got shelved inexplicably, followed by missing some time with post concussion syndrome and what was reported as a back injury. Then she had a shoulder injury shortly before the chamber match in February. She and Bayley won that, and we’re to believe that they thought they were promised a longer run with the titles but were told at the last minute they were losing them at WrestleMania. So there’s a good chance that she wasn’t exactly in the best place altogether to start with between the injuries and the previous years’ booking. Who knows? There’s a lot there, but we’re being led to believe that being told she was going to lose one match at the last minute was enough to set her off. I don’t know, man. The amount of stuff that we have to trust the previously untrustworthy on is way too much to be off running with any particular take from where I’m sitting.

I do know that there is a larger issue with which women get promoted as the faces of the women’s division and which ones don’t. The ‘Vince loves the Blondes’ rap has gotten some validation lately when you look at who’s been getting pushed to the front – Charlotte and Alexa are always there but over the past few months Mandy Rose got a quick push to a title program that flopped pretty hard and now Lacey Evans gets put right into a program with Becky. Meanwhile a lot of the other women literally have gotten shoved aside at the drop of a hat. Sasha definitely has the in ring talent and popularity to never be out of the title picture (she did get a shot at Rousey at the Rumble of course, but that was a foregone conclusion going in) but what appears to be an invisible hard cap on which tier she gets to be on is pretty symbolic for how a lot of people perceive the booking there.

And that she’s been crapped on so hard for complaining by the same people who applauded the Revival for doing the same kind of thing is pretty symbolic of how some parts of the fanbase see a woman there who don’t fit a certain mold either (just take a look and see who gets the nastiest comments on social media). After all let’s not believe that a preference for certain kinds of women is just a Vince McMahon thing, ok?

Wrapping things up looks like the best conclusion is…….beats the hell outta me. There’s stuff you can point to and say ‘yeah they should have booked that differently’ and there’s stuff you can look at and say ‘she’s got it really good there’. As far as all the stories and reports about her attitude, I’m leaving them alone. It’s gotten to the point where people who already don’t like her are willing to believe and run with whatever the worst possible version of events are rumored and even if that version is true you still gotta question the motives behind whoever leaked it to the reporters. I don’t think she’s totally without blame, though. She’s notorious for pretty much giving away if she’s winning or losing that night by the look on her face when she walks out to the ring so no I’m not totally dismissive of stories that she takes losing a match too hard.

Also read:
Becky Lynch & Kofi Kingston: WWE Fans Enjoy The Moment But Expect The Worst

And her kinda passive aggressive shots at what she considers inadequate forms of women’s wresting and it’s practitioners aren’t a good look, either (nor are when the known target of some of those shots, Alexa Bliss, gets just as petty and passive aggressive in return). From where I’m siting she’s not totally wrong but she isn’t totally right either. We can walk and chew gum at the same time here, people. You can acknowledge when she has a point AND when she needs to get over it. We can do both, everyone!! As far as what we should think about that how she allegedly takes losing, well…….don’t give her any more grief than you do any of your favorites who did the same kind of thing be it Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, CM Punk, The Road Warriors, etc. Being a little too upset about losing but going out there and doing the job as expected isn’t quite the same as say….stepping in the ring with an opponent and saying she’s not doing the finish tonight or walking out to find her smile rather than do a job. A little nuance people, ok?

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Opinion

AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams

AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.

Published

3 months ago

August 2, 2024

Adam Balaz

It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.

At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!

#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)

Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?

First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.

Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.

That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.

#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)

This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.

Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.

The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.

As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.

So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.

#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)

Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.

I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.

Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…

Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.

Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?