Sasha Banks Deserved Better from WWE

WWE has had quite a week, which my colleague Ray Flook addressed well in an op/ed a few days ago. I have literally nothing to add to that, except perhaps to point out that Prince Albert is a tattletale, and that Triple H once had sex with a corpse on live television. But Ray’s article came before the latest news broke that the money Sasha Banks was asking for from WWE wasn’t some outrageous Brock Lesnar deal, but rather money similar to what WWE pays her fellow horsewomen, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE didn’t see Sasha Banks as a star on that level, as someone who would be “on top” for the next five years.

That’s total bullshit, of course. Of the Four Horsewomen (Banks, Lynch, Flair, and Bayley), who are all inarguably great wrestlers, Sasha has always been arguably the most popular, which is what really counts in wrestling. When Trish Stratus returned in the first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble, people weren’t clamoring for a match between her and Charlotte Flair, though that’s what they got. They wanted Trish vs. Sasha Banks, because that’s who fans viewed as the top female star in the company at that time. The problem is, WWE has never really felt that way.

While Charlotte Flair was clearly booked a cut above the others by WWE from her arrival on the main roster, Banks was lucky to get a title run that lasted more than a week. Becky Lynch was also overlooked at the time, though a bloody nose from a stiff Nia Jax punch provided the freak opportunity for Lynch to catapult herself to megastardom by sheer force of will, forcing WWE (after a failed attempt to cool her off and give her gimmick to Flair) to begrudgingly allow Lynch into their plans for a Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair WrestleMania main event. But the whole time, Sasha Banks was right there, driving up ratings whenever she appeared on TV. But WWE never seemed to see it that way. From playing second fiddle to Charlotte Flair to WWE losing interest in her tag team title reigns multiple times, Banks was never treated like the star she is.

Now, Sasha Banks has the opportunity to prove that WWE was wrong about her. Banks is a game-changer for any wrestling company she ends up in, especially if that company is AEW, assuming Tony Khan could overcome his own issues, get out of the way, and let her run with the ball, which isn’t a sure thing by any means after Khan has botched quite a few sure things in the past. But after being shown repeatedly that WWE doesn’t recognize her value, it’s no surprise Banks would go elsewhere.

If nothing else, Banks’s departure may represent yet another turning point in the perception of WWE, marking the end of the honeymoon period for Triple H as head of creative. Though WWE has received tremendous goodwill since Vince McMahon was forced to retire, a string of questionable rehires including Braun Strowman and Karrion Kross, epic mishandling of the Sasha Banks and Mandy Rose situations, and the flagrant attempt to whitewash Ric Flair’s image, the new WWE is looking a lot like the old WWE again. In truth, it never stopped being that company that’s too big, and too corporate, for its own good.

Most of all, it’s still a company that doesn’t see eye-to-eye with its own fanbase on the value of its performers, and for a company that requires those fans to pretend to believe those performers engaging in obviously staged fighting are battling for real, that’s the one sin that can’t be overlooked, no matter how many NXT storylines Triple H rehashes on the main roster.