Sasha Banks has been pulled from the SummerSlam pay-per-view, according to a new report from Wrestling Inc.'s Raj Giri. There were concerns over the status of the SmackDown Women's Championship match last weekend when both Banks and Bianca Belair were pulled from a pair of live events due to "unforeseen circumstances." PWInsider's Mike Johnson then reported that there was concern over the match's status as of Monday, but then came back two days later reporting that both had been cleared.
But while Belair was able to appear on this week's SmackDown, Banks was absent from the show. WWE continued to advertise the match all the way up through the kickoff show, but Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp reported the match's status was still up in the air on Sunday morning. WWE has yet to officially comment on Banks' status.
Exclusive! I can confirm that Sasha Banks is off #SummerSlam tonight @WrestlingINC
-- Raj Giri (@RajGiri_303) August 22, 2021
As of this afternoon, I was told there were still major question marks about the Smackdown Women's Title match to many backstage. @RajGiri_303 has reported Sasha Banks is off tonight's show
-- Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) August 22, 2021
Banks and Belair first met in the main event of WrestleMania 37's first night, marking the first time women of color had main evented WWE's biggest annual show. Both have since talked about the importance of that match in various interviews.
"It was, that whole month was such an exciting thing for me," Banks said on the Just Women Sports podcast in June. "We had no idea who was going to main event WrestleMania. The year before I was telling my best friend, Bayley, like 'I'm going to main event WrestleMania 37.' It was always my dream to main event a WrestleMania. So I was just putting it out there in the universe and really just striving and working towards it. So the month before WrestleMania, I really thought, I heard rumblings that it was going to be the guys. And I was like 'okay, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? All I can do is be me and just keep doing my work as best I can and show Vince that if I'm not the main event, I don't know what main event you're going to have.'
"It was legit the Wednesday before WrestleMania I found out that we were the main event," she continued. "And I was again so nervous because I was asking around 'did you get the card? Did anyone tell you?' And they're like 'you're not the main event.' And I'm like 'nobody told me that!' I'm like 'okay, I still have time because Vince hasn't said anything. I'm going to go to rehearsals and if I find out, all I can do is maybe ask Vince and that's all I can do.' I went to rehearsals and TJ Wilson, who's our producer, he told me that I was the main event. And I just instantly started crying and was just like 'wow. No way!' Like I knew it, it's something that I wanted. Just to finally to hear the words that 'you're the main event.' It was so overwhelming, it's bringing back tears. It's crazy, it's crazy, because it's the biggest thing you can ever do in wrestling. My heroes haven't gotten to do what I've done. So not only that, and just being a woman and being an African American woman. We're checking off so many things. But the biggest thing that I got to check off was my biggest dream in my heart. Fully accomplishing that last checkmark on my list of everything I had written down since I was a kid. That was just last month and I am on vacation right now still soaking that in. I'm just ready for what's next."
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