Sasha Banks Is Working An Angle, But We Don’t Know Whose Angle

WWE

There are a limited number of things that might be happening here. Here’s what we know for sure: Sasha Banks hasn’t been on WWE TV, and neither she nor WWE have made a direct statement about her status with the company, since WrestleMania. After she and Bayley dropped their Tag Team Championship to the IIconics, she disappeared for a few days, and then word got out that she’d attempted to quit at Mania, not only because of the title change, but because she and Bayley were going to be split up. More recently she apparently did some work for the WWE 2K20 video game, and had a meeting with Vince McMahon that reports said went well. She’s also been posting cryptic photos and messages on her social media this whole time, many of which seem to imply a narrative of escape or reclaiming her identity.

https://twitter.com/SashaBanksWWE/status/1135693311056986115

— $asha Banks (@SashaBanksWWE) June 9, 2019

So basically, she’s a telling a story to fans, which is meant to be interpreted beyond the words she’s using. What we don’t know is what that story leads to. It’s entirely possible that she really did have a successful meeting with Vince, and is deliberately setting up for a return to WWE, probably with an “I deserve better than this” storyline of the kind we’ve seen Becky Lynch do well and Dolph Ziggler do badly. Many fans have noted the NXT ring in her latest post, and wondered if she might return to that brand, like Tyler Breeze before her. That’s possible too, especially since NXT seems to be reluctant to let any of their current stars take the Women’s Championship from Shayna Baszler.

On the other hand, it’s possible the meeting didn’t resolve anything (or didn’t happen at all — all backstage news comes with a grain of salt), and she really is telling a story about how she wants to get out of WWE and be Mercedes again. She’d presumably have to wait until her contract is up for that to happen, but she’s clearly a smart person — after two months of this, she’d definitely have figured out exactly what her rights are. The frustrating thing is that the rest of us won’t know where this story is going until it gets there. One thing we can hope is that it leads to Sasha Banks in some wrestling ring somewhere, whatever name she’s using.