{"id":95861,"date":"2021-07-11T14:38:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T18:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=95861"},"modified":"2021-07-11T14:38:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T18:38:20","slug":"sasha-banks-bianca-belair-win-espy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/07\/11\/sasha-banks-bianca-belair-win-espy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair Win Espy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Sasha Banks <\/strong>and <strong>Bianca Belair<\/strong> made <em>World Wrestling Entertainment,<\/em> and <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2021\/04\/11\/us\/wrestlemania-bianca-belair-sasha-banks-trnd\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sports entertainment history<\/a> at <em>WrestleMania 37.<\/em> The \u201cEST\u201d and the \u201cBoss\u201d were the first African-Americans to jointly headline a main event WrestleMania match. Their game-changing match was awarded an Espy on July 10 for Best WWE Moment.<\/p>\n<p>Banks celebrated the joint win, and teased her upcoming return to action at WWE with a tweet, saying, \u201cWe did it!!!! Let\u2019s make some more magic, @wwe\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We did it!!!! Let\u2019s make more magic <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@wwe<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WczHhwDHnK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/WczHhwDHnK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mercedes Mon\u00e9 Varnado (@MercedesVarnado) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MercedesVarnado\/status\/1414054520569663492?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 11, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Banks and Belair\u2019s WrestleMania bout came after a build-up which saw the accomplished Banks and the newcomer Belair go through several phases in their relationship, from initial intrigue, tentative partnership, and a falling out when their nascent tag team was hampered by interference from lovesick sommelier <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/06\/01\/the-negative-impact-of-reginald\/\" target=\"_self\">Reginald<\/a>. <\/strong>When Belair won the <em>Royal Rumble, <\/em>she challenged then SmackDown women\u2019s champion Banks for her belt. By the end of their seventeen-minute WrestleMania match, the title was Belair\u2019s, and history was made.<\/p>\n<p>Banks is no stranger to changing the game and making history for women, people of color, and women of color in sports entertainment. After growing up idolizing both female pro wrestlers of color like <strong>Jazz <\/strong>and WWE\u2019s sole African American female Hall of Famer <strong>Jacqueline, <\/strong>as well as male performers like <strong>Eddie Guerrero, <\/strong>Banks went on to be a pioneer of WWE\u2019s 2016 and beyond women\u2019s evolution. She and <strong>Charlotte Flair <\/strong>were the first women to have a <em>Hell in a Cell <\/em>match, and she and former tag team partner <strong>Bayley <\/strong>were the first WWE women to have an Iron Man match. Not for nothing is Banks called the \u201cBlueprint\u201d, and she blazed yet another trail for future female Superstars to follow.<\/p>\n<p>As for Bianca Belair, the Espy win and her WrestleMania moment capped off a brisk period of rapid rise for her.\u00a0 From the <em>NXT<\/em> to <em>Monday Night Raw to<\/em>\u00a0SmackDown rosters in such a short span of time, capturing the SmackDown title from Banks, sharing their historic marquee match, and also making history on her own as the first African-American woman to win the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/01\/31\/bianca-belair-2021-womens-royal-rumble\/\" target=\"_self\">women\u2019s <\/a><em>Royal Rumble. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Banks and Belair didn\u2019t just score the Espy. Like <strong>Alicia Fox<\/strong>, the first African-American WWE Divas Champion, and <strong>Naomi<\/strong>, the first African-American to win the SmackDown women\u2019s title that Belair now holds, Belair and Banks have scored a win for diversity in sports entertainment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured Image<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"0DFpNiVkQaVHswVTcLkJvQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ie\/detail\/1328052357\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'0DFpNiVkQaVHswVTcLkJvQ',sig:'ztg0vNVjvQDKOR-LeD6V8ChZbPKm-usureOHYMAyg_o=',w:'594px',h:'467px',items:'1328052357',caption: true ,tld:'ie',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">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. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/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>Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair made World Wrestling Entertainment, and sports entertainment history at WrestleMania 37. The \u201cEST\u201d and the \u201cBoss\u201d were the first African-Americans to jointly headline a main event WrestleMania match. Their game-changing match was awarded an Espy on July 10 for Best WWE Moment. Banks celebrated the joint win, and teased her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":95885,"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":[26,317,4,3,320],"tags":[918,160,1445,403,774,4368,3429,406,7574,159],"class_list":["post-95861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-women","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-alicia-fox","tag-bayley","tag-bianca-belair","tag-charlotte-flair","tag-eddie-guerrero","tag-jacqueline","tag-jazz","tag-naomi","tag-reginald","tag-sasha-banks"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95861","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=95861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}