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Sasha Banks and Naomi's walkout on Monday Night Raw last week has rocked the wrestling world.
The WWE Women's Tag Team Champions were apparently unhappy with their creative differences and the reports were validated by an official statement from the global juggernaut, which suggested that Naomi and Banks handed in their titles and promptly left.
Since the breaking news, a number of WWE Superstars and AEW wrestlers have come out on social media to stand in solidarity with the Boss N Glow Connection. The likes of CM Punk, Dax Harwood and Swerve Strickland have tweeted out their support for the pair.
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While Sasha is one of the most popular wrestlers in WWE, she has had a history of walking out of the company before. This could be the last straw and it seems that management could punish her for this latest debacle, having stripped her of the title and suspended her afterwards.
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If the 30-year-old were to ultimately leave the company, AEW would definitely welcome The Boss with open arms to their promotion. Their women's roster has added a number of ex-WWE Superstars recently, but Sasha Banks could easily be the biggest defection of all. There are a number of first-time opponents The Blueprint can have excellent matches with. Here are 5 dream matches for The Boss in AEW.
#5. Sasha Banks vs. TBS Champion Jade Cargill
TBS Champion Jade Cargill is still undefeated in AEW and is one of the fastest rising stars in the company, despite being a relative novice in wrestling. Sasha Banks, on the other hand, is one of the most decorated WWE Superstars of the modern era, having won the NXT, RAW, SmackDown, and WWE Women's Tag Team Championships.
Her popularity has even allowed her to cross over to Hollywood and appear in the Star Wars series, The Mandalorian.
With Banks making inroads into the big screen, Cargill would want to emulate the career path that The Boss has set for women's wrestlers everywhere and that could even play into a potential storyline between the two stars.
While Cargill is still fairly green, pairing her up with a wrestler as consistently great as Sasha Banks would be a great way to put her over. As one of the best sellers in all of wrestling, Banks would be able to highlight Cargill's strength and power. It would be a money dream match between the present and future.
#4. Sasha Banks vs. Hikaru Shida
Sasha Banks is a huge fan of joshi wrestling. During her break from WWE in 2019, she would travel to Japan to train with current NXT UK wrestler Meiko Satomura. The former RAW Women's Champion has expressed her love for Japanese wrestling publicly and grew up watching and learning from it on the internet.
In an appearance on Stone Cold Steve Austin's Broken Skull Sessions, Banks discussed her conversation with Japanese wrestling legend Meiko Satomura. The Boss revealed why she went to Japan and trained with her:
"Before WWE, my biggest dream was to be in Japan, but WWE called me first. So when I took my little break, I was like, I am gonna do everything that makes me happy, and I missed wrestling so much. I was like, I'm gonna go to Japan. I sent a little DM to [Meiko] Satomura, I'm like 'Can I train with you?' and she goes 'Yeah, when?', I go 'Maybe next week', 'Yeah Sure', I go 'Okay!'. I'm like I just gotta go just for my own soul and just be brave 'cause I wasn't even sure what WWE was gonna say about it. But I was just like, it was for me, I had to do it for me."
If Banks were to join AEW, there would be a number of Japanese stars that she could battle with. The biggest one among the Joshi wrestlers would certainly be Hikaru Shida. The former AEW Women's Champion is an established name within the company and is coming off a brutal rivalry with Serena Deeb.
A match between Shida and Banks would be a mat classic filled with great athleticism and even a hint of classic strong style. Indeed, it would be a high-profile match that could main event any given Dynamite and bring legitimacy to the Women's division.
#3. Sasha Banks vs. Ruby Soho
Sasha Banks and Ruby Soho have been huge rivals from their time in WWE. They have been involved in countless battles as part of the Riott Squad vs. Boss N Hug Connection.
Speaking with Steve Fall on NBC Sports Boston’s Ten Count podcast, Banks even name dropped her former adversary as a potential wrestler she'd love to have back in the company:
"I would love to see Ruby Riott [Soho] back in the WWE Universe, yes, yes absolutely. That’s one of them."
However, it seems like the next time they do battle, it could be in an AEW ring instead. When Ruby Soho debuted for AEW last September, she brought a lot of high hopes with her.
As a former WWE Superstar, she had completely re-packaged herself, and it looked like her jump to AEW was what was going to finally elevate her in ways that WWE would never have even attempted to.
But so far, The Runaway has come up empty in her pursuit of championship gold. Her time with the promotion hasn't lived up to her initial debut. But a match with a newly-added Sasha Banks could do wonders for her momentum. The pair could finally showcase their wrestling talents without the constraints of WWE's booking.
#2. Sasha Banks vs. AEW Women's Champion Thunder Rosa
The safe bet is that AEW will push Sasha Banks as a top star as soon as she arrives in the company. What better way to push her to the moon than to have her go up against the current Women's Champion Thunder Rosa.
La Mera Mera is the top female wrestler in the company right now and has expressed her desire to be the standard bearer for the division. She would face no bigger test than The Boss.
Two excelllent performers in the prime of their careers with much-lauded mat skills. It could easily be a Match of the Year candidate. Rosa is well loved by the AEW fans which makes a heel Banks beating up on the Latina star an enticing prospect. Imagine the heat that would give.
#1. Sasha Banks vs. Britt Baker
While Thunder Rosa might be the current champion, the person that she won the title from Britt Baker remains the biggest homegrown female star AEW has to offer.
The Doctor was the longest-running women's champion, holding the belt for nearly a year before dropping it to La Mera Mera. However, D.M.D has managed to regain her momentum by entering the Owen Hart Cup tournament and she is a strong candidate to go all the way.
Despite the occasional banter, Baker is a huge fan of Banks. She's made statements in the past that she looks up to the Boss as one of her role models, alongside Bayley.
At Steel City Comic Con earlier this year, Baker admitted that she is a fan of the former WWE Tag Team Champion:
"Probably Bayley or Sasha Banks, it'd have to be one of them. Those are two of my role models that I watched when I was first training to be a wrestler. That was five years ago. When I was training, they were main eventing NXT TakeOver. That was when the tides were turning and they kind of paved the way for my generation of wrestling. Even though they are still in my generation, they came before me." (h/t: Fightful Select)
The Boss vs The Doctor could potentially be the biggest modern women's match of this era if built up correctly. Given their skills, charisma and popularity, it certainly would be a match that could even headline an AEW PPV.
