Sasha Banks Q&A: Legit Boss on Turning Heel, Ronda Rousey, WWE2K Rating and More

Sasha Banks is jetlagged.

To be perfectly honest, Sasha Banks is usually jetlagged. When we spoke over the phone this week, she was on the tail end of a hectic week of travel. She bounced from Anaheim for WWE Monday Night Raw on September 11, then caught a flight to Australia, and now she's back in California—San Jose this time—for Raw, which is followed a few days later by No Mercy on Sunday, September 24, from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

For better or worse, wrestlers are always moving, which suits Banks just fine.

The 25-year-old superstar is a four-time WWE Women's Champion, with a massive social media presence. On Twitter alone, she has 1.26 million followers. That fanbase makes her one of the most prodigious movers of merchandise in WWE. There are Sasha Banks T-shirts, lunch boxes, backpacks beer mugs, baby bibs, and Halloween costumes. There's even an officially licensed Sasha Banks fidget spinner, for those that have a hard time concentrating but also want to rep their favorite wrestler.

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That sort of success was unthinkable when she was a young WWE fan growing up in Boston. With that comes headlining pay-per-views like last year's Hell in a Cell and the opportunity to potentially work big-money matches against Ronda Rousey and her Four Horsewomen of MMA.

What also comes with that is a less pleasant side effect: constant attention, often times unwanted, which Banks spoke out against on the Sam Roberts Podcast. It was a sentiment that some, including former wrestler Shane Douglas, couldn't understand. After all, attention is part of why wrestlers put in the grueling hours and endure the non-stop travel.

But what's clear when talking to Banks is that it's a pure love of the sport that drives her, not the merchandise sales or the fame. There's a private side of her that she intends to keep private, even as she hopes to walk out with her fifth women's title at No Mercy in a five-way match that includes Bayley, Nia Jax, Emma and her biggest rival of the summer (in and out of the ring), Alexa Bliss.

By the way, she won't know if she's winning that match until the day of the show, an uncertainty that she's less frustrated with than you might think.

[This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

Do you ever feel like "God, I wish I had a week off. I could just be at home and watch Netflix"?

Honestly, sometimes. Like, a week like this. We just got back from Australia yesterday, and every single day, we had a flight. There's the time difference, and then you come back here, and you're like "what day is it?" Plus, I haven't been home since the hurricane. So, I'm just like, "I want the week off! I miss my house. I need to catch up on time and sleep."

But every time I step into the ring, it makes everything worth it and makes all those feelings go away of stress and anxiety.

Let's talk about the pay-per-view coming up. For the last couple months, you've had a fairly intense storyline with Alexa Bliss. There's a lot of online chatter about whether or not you get along in real life. In general, how do you like working with her on a purely professional basis, and what are the things about her work that you do appreciate when you're in the ring with her?

Just like anybody I wrestle, I just try to prove I'm the best and I can work with anybody, any type, any strategy they have. They can have a ground game like Becky [Lynch]. Or like Alexa, she can run away, but I'll catch her. Anyone I wrestle is a challenge to me, which I love—to go from wrestling her to Nia Jax to Charlotte. I love the challenge of it all.

That's what I love about wrestling. You can take different people and just make magic out of it. There's some people you really click with and there's people like Bayley, where we can go out there and not say a word and just know what we're gonna do. Or there's people like Charlotte, where you go all out or nothing at all. Or even Nia Jax, it's such a different type of person that I'd never wrestled before. I'd never had that big girl/little girl story. It's been a lot of fun.

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The ragdolling you do with Nia Jax is pretty impressive. She just kinda throws you around. Is there something about you and Alexa's characters where there's a lot of opportunity, storytelling-wise? Both of your characters are very confident. When you're playing heel, you're super confident, and maybe the fans find that to be obnoxious, so there's that similarity. How do you find, in the ring or cutting a promo, that difference between you and her?

Well, there's a big difference between Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss. You can see that every week on Monday Night Raw. There's so many different characters in WWE, which is what makes us us. That's what draws people to you, telling those stories and being able to take them on a roller coaster. Whether I'm heel or babyface, that's what I want to do. I just want to leave them talking. When I'm a babyface, I want them to care for me. When I'm a heel, I want them to hate me. I know a lot of people like to say, "Oh, when is Sasha gonna turn heel again," but all in due time.

I think it was the Sam Roberts Podcast where you said something about not knowing a lot ahead of time when you come to the arena to do TV. Do you wish it was different? It seems like something that could be difficult to deal with as a performer. You're not sure if you're keeping the belt or losing the belt or who you're working with.

It makes it what's exciting about coming to work sometimes. I'd rather know what I'm doing and be prepared. When you're not, it just makes things so much more hectic, and it makes you want to do the best that you can with the time you're given. Like, tonight I have no idea what I'm doing, but when I find out, I just want to make it the best that I can.

That's what I didn't miss about NXT. Those are taped shows. Here on Monday Night Raw, it's live and anything can happen. Anybody can get hurt and someone needs to come in and do something. You never know what's going to happen. In NXT, we do four tapings in a month and you kinda know where you're going to go, because you get to watch those tapings. There's an excitement to coming to work every week and not knowing what you're doing and just making the best of it all.

Speaking of taped shows, the Mae Young Classic is now done and it seems like it was a huge success. Because you're working your schedule, you weren't able to be there for the tapings.

I know, it killed me. The tapings and the finals. I didn't get to go.

The other Horsewomen were there and there was a little face-to-face with the MMA Horsewomen. Were you disappointed that you couldn't be a part of that specifically? And if you could have been, would that confrontation have ended differently?

I wasn't disappointed in that situation at all. I was more disappointed that I didn't get to come out and support these women who've had a dream like I had. I felt like I was part of something so special, making this happen with a bunch of women who came before me. To have an all-women classic, it just gave me goosebumps. I cried when I found out I couldn't be a part of it. I was over in Australia doing a PR tour. I had Bayley Facetiming and I felt this missing hole. I had to be there. Then finding out I couldn't go to Las Vegas, because I had to go to Australia for the actual tour, I'm like "what's going on in this universe?"

I got to see the picture of our Horsewomen versus the phoney Four Horsewomen. They're fans of us. That's why they're called the Four Horsewomen. Honestly, I do not care. They couldn't hang in our ring and that's it.

Do you think there will come a time where you or Charlotte or Becky is wrestling Shayna Baszler or Ronda Rousey?

I'll just say you never know what's going to happen in WWE. If it did, just bring it. I'll take on anybody.

NBA players in the last few weeks have been complaining about how they're rated in their video games. Do you have any input into how strong your character is in WWE video games or do you get upset if 2K says "You're an 84 and Nia Jax is a 97"? Do you call somebody and say "Hey, man. I'm a 99."

No, I have no input at all. Even with my costumes [in WWE 2k18]. Why did you guys choose that one? I don't know if it's a picture they took or it's scanned that way. I saw the pictures of this year, and I love it. I love the jacket. I love the gear. I'm happy with it.

OK, so no complaints about your superstar rating.

I have no idea what my rating is this year.

I'll do some research. With the passing of Bobby Heenan, lots of journalists, fans and wrestlers are thinking about him. Do you have any Bobby Heenan memories? As a big fan yourself, I imagine you watched a lot of Heenan growing up.

So much. It's so funny. I just had an autograph signing today and a fan gave me a Bobby Heenan DVD. I thought "that's just so sweet." I was a huge fan of his growing up. He is legit the best of all time. If I had to choose one person to manage me, it'd be him. My best friend Mark Sherman loves him, so he's always quoting him during training. I think that's what sticks with me, how he could connect with everybody. He was the best in the world and he's sadly missed. Those are the hardest things about wrestling, when you hear about your favorites dying.

If WWE said they wanted to give you a manager, would you take a manager?

Oh, absolutely. It'd have to be good, though.

It does seem like there's not a lot of them these days.

There's only Paul Heyman right now. I wouldn't consider [James] Ellsworth a manager. He sucks.

I was just going to ask, do we count James Ellsworth, but probably not, right?

No way. No, thank you.

Not when he's on that weird chain. Did you see that? That he's wearing like, a dog collar on SmackDown?

I did! I saw a picture of it and I thought "oh my gosh, that's cute."

Yeah, it's an interesting accessory. You've been pretty upfront about your frustrations with a certain segment of the fanbase and how maybe they take it a step too far. Where they take it a step too far when they like you or take it a step too far when they don't like you. Do you think that's part of wrestling or do you think it's out of control?

For me, it's just, at the airport and at the hotel. That's what gets to me. If you come to the arena, I'll be so happy to take a picture with you. That's when I'm tweeting out where I'm going to be at. But I don't tweet out what terminal I'm going to be at at the airport or my hotel address. That's the only problem I have with it.

I have the best fans in the world. My fans don't do that. It's the crazy fans in general. They're always going to be there and they're always going to do that, but they can't get mad me if I don't want to take a picture with them at a hotel that I'm at.

I hope people get the message.

They won't, but it comes with the territory and I'm a strong girl. I can fight. I'll fight anybody [laughs]. Just kidding. I'm lucky. I have such an amazing fanbase and I'm happy that they support me. We're in this together.

Dave Schilling is a writer-at-large for Bleacher Report and B/R Mag. Follow him on Twitter: @dave_schilling.