{"id":97304,"date":"2021-07-30T21:05:22","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T01:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=97304"},"modified":"2021-07-30T21:05:22","modified_gmt":"2021-07-31T01:05:22","slug":"sasha-banks-returns-friday-night-smackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/07\/30\/sasha-banks-returns-friday-night-smackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Sasha Banks Returns to Friday Night SmackDown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we speculated in our weekly <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/07\/30\/preview-wwe-smackdown-bianca-belair\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>SmackDown<\/strong> preview<\/a>, <strong>Sasha Banks<\/strong> has tonight returned home to the blue brand. SmackDown Women&#8217;s Champion, <strong>Bianca Belair<\/strong> &#8211; who won the title from Banks at this year&#8217;s <em><strong>WrestleMania<\/strong><\/em> &#8211; has been in desperate need of a rival ever since <strong>Bayley<\/strong> got injured last month. With &#8220;The Role Model&#8221; on the shelf for the rest of the year, Banks&#8217;s return is much welcomed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8<\/p>\n<p>IT&#39;S BOSS TIME!!!! IT&#39;S BOSS TIME!!!<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SmackDown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SmackDown<\/a> @SashaBanksWWE <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dFyvxiRh4Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dFyvxiRh4Q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE (@WWE) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWE\/status\/1421270538782117897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 31, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>A Potential SummerSlam Mega Match for Sasha Banks<\/h3>\n<p>The main event match Banks and Belair had at Night 1 of<strong><em> WrestleMania<\/em><\/strong>, quite simply, stole the show. Rivaled only by a match between <strong>Cesaro<\/strong> and<strong> Seth Rollins<\/strong>, it showcased both women and transformed Belair from a star-in-waiting to a certified star. Last week, she continued in this vein; defeating<strong> Carmella<\/strong> at the <em>Rolling Loud<\/em> hip hop festival. With Banks returning and fully motivated to reclaim her title, Belair&#8217;s reign is under threat like never before. Both women have tremendous amounts of chemistry and should they be given a prominent spot at<em><strong> SummerSlam<\/strong><\/em>, expect them to steal the show one more time. The return of Sasha Banks to SmackDown is a welcome dose of energy into a division desperately needing it and the prospect of her future match with Belair, and the recently debuted<strong> Toni Storm<\/strong>, makes this return rather exciting. Welcome back, Boss!<\/p>\n<h3>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\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>As we speculated in our weekly SmackDown preview, Sasha Banks has tonight returned home to the blue brand. SmackDown Women&#8217;s Champion, Bianca Belair &#8211; who won the title from Banks at this year&#8217;s WrestleMania &#8211; has been in desperate need of a rival ever since Bayley got injured last month. With &#8220;The Role Model&#8221; on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2482,"featured_media":97336,"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":[12,2192,26,4,3,320],"tags":[160,1445,159,598],"class_list":["post-97304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wrestling","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-bayley","tag-bianca-belair","tag-sasha-banks","tag-toni-storm"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97304","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\/2482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}