{"id":84538,"date":"2021-02-07T14:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T19:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=84538"},"modified":"2021-02-07T10:46:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T15:46:06","slug":"sasha-banks-bianca-belair-wrestlemania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/02\/07\/sasha-banks-bianca-belair-wrestlemania\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Bianca Belair Battle Sasha Banks at WrestleMania 37?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the February 5 broadcast of <em>SmackDown<\/em>, <strong>Bianca Belair <\/strong>entered the ring to make what she called the most important decision of her life: who would be her <em>WrestleMania 37<\/em> opponent? As the winner of the 2021 women\u2019s <em>Royal Rumble<\/em>, she has her choice of champions, and two names were on her mind. Belair named <em>RAW<\/em> women\u2019s champion <strong>Asuka, <\/strong>but seemed more eager for a shot at <em>SmackDown<\/em> champ <strong>Sasha Banks. <\/strong>Sasha\u2019s ears must have been burning as she was quickly out on the ramp and pitching her bid to be Bianca\u2019s opponent. The two clearly have their eyes on each other, and if they do face off at Wrestlemania 37 all eyes in sports entertainment will be on them.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bianca Belair\u2019s attempt to name her WrestleMania opponent goes south: SmackDown, Feb. 5, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wZ2xn1kSXxs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bianca\u2019s achievements across brands in WWE are impressive. She set a record in the 2020 women\u2019s <em>Royal Rumble <\/em>for longest duration in such a match, 33 minutes. Not only did she beat her own record in 2021, lasting 37 minutes, but Belair took the day and won her first Rumble, just months after being drafted to <em>SmackDown. <\/em>Her humor, beauty, positive and uplifting attitude, superhuman athleticism, and strength make her the total package with star power that will surely, as her career goes on, translate across various outlets of entertainment media. She is also a sure shot to be women\u2019s <em>SmackDown<\/em> champion, sooner rather than later. However, she\u2019ll have to fight a future Hall Of Famer, in the person of Sasha Banks, to get the gold.<\/p>\n<p>Not idly does Banks call herself the Blueprint. She is a Grand Slam winner, and current WWE SmackDown women\u2019s champion. Sasha Banks is an inextricable thread in the fabric of the current WWE women\u2019s division, and its ongoing evolution. She is an undeniable key player of the transition from the Diva\u2019s division to the modern women\u2019s lineup, with its dynamic personalities and barrier-breaking athleticism.\u00a0 Banks was named <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em>\u2019s Wrestler of the Year in 2020, and topped Righteous Reg\u2019s Blackwrecellence 500 list of influential Black wrestlers. She\u2019s made WWE women\u2019s history wrestling in the company\u2019s first Iron Woman, women\u2019s Hell in a Cell match, and was one of the first women to headline a WWE pay-per-view. She is a five-time <em>RAW <\/em>women\u2019s champion, and she and <strong>Bayley<\/strong> won the inaugural WWE women\u2019s tag team match to become champions in that field, as well.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-38661\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/02\/069_ELIM_02172019cm_1695-36d7ba3f7cca0d80d9d69c765d91060a-e1550514106441.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>As a champion in her own right and as one of the pioneering Four Horsewomen, Banks helped build the foundation for the future of women in sports entertainment sum total, let alone the WWE. Thanks to the contributions of herself and various other dedicated female athletes, Superstars like Bianca Belair have a greater showcase for their athleticism and more championship opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>The optics of the match would be compelling. Bianca\u2019s key strengths are her incredible lifting ability, speed, agility, and endurance. Sasha, on the other hand, can be a brutal competitor. She excels at punishing submission holds like her signature finisher the Banks Statement, and also takes the air regularly for a crashing meteora double knee strike. She\u2019s a cutthroat and versatile brawler, used to facing off against the best of the best of the women\u2019s division, like <strong>Asuka, Bayley, Charlotte Flair, <\/strong>and <strong>Becky Lynch<\/strong>. Fighting Sasha would undoubtedly push Bianca to new levels of aggression, and utilizing new skills, all of which she will need to develop staying power.<\/p>\n<p>Banks and Belair have partnered each other in tag matches, and on the February 5 SmackDown Sasha might have crashed Bianca\u2019s moment at the mic, but expressed healthy respect for her achievements and seemed enthusiastic to face her at Wrestlemania. It need hardly be said what a huge vote of confidence it would be for Banks to put her belt on the line against Bianca, nor what a crowning achievement it would be for Belair to become SmackDown women\u2019s champion after defeating the Boss.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. WWE fan? You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the February 5 broadcast of SmackDown, Bianca Belair entered the ring to make what she called the most important decision of her life: who would be her WrestleMania 37 opponent? As the winner of the 2021 women\u2019s Royal Rumble, she has her choice of champions, and two names were on her mind. Belair named [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":84548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,4,3],"tags":[1445,7424,159,7439,7294],"class_list":["post-84538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-bianca-belair","tag-road-to-wrestlemania","tag-sasha-banks","tag-wrestlemania-37","tag-wwe-analysis"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}