Sasha Banks Beats Carmella, Retains SmackDown Women's Title at WWE TLC 2020

Sasha Banks defeated Carmella at WWE TLC on Sunday to retain the SmackDown Women's Championship.

Carmella's frustration got the better of her after she was unable to put the champion away with a superkick and another short kick on the outside.

Banks countered out of the Mella Buster and locked in a crossface for the victory.

The heated rivalry between the pair began after Banks' successful title defense against Bayley on the November 6 edition of SmackDown.

Following that win, The Boss was attacked by Carmella, who hadn't been seen on WWE programming in months aside from the vignettes hyping up her return.

Carmella attacked Banks a couple more times in subsequent weeks until The Boss finally got her revenge by posing as her rival's sommelier so she could attack her backstage.

That led to a war of words between the two Superstars, with the two women sitting in separate locations for an interview segment. Both had plenty to say and it was clear they harbored a great deal of disdain for each other.

Just over one week before TLC, Banks and Carmella were scheduled for a contract signing on SmackDown, but the challenger did not show up in the ring and opted to ink the deal in a backstage location instead.

Carmella's unwillingness to face her in person infuriated The Boss and prompted her to challenge The Princess of Staten Island to a title match that night.

The Boss lost by disqualification when she ignored the referee's count and continued to attack Carmella in the corner, but she still retained the title.

After the match, Carmella got the upper hand and put an exclamation point on her beatdown of Banks by breaking a champagne bottle over her back.

While Carmella entered TLC with some momentum by virtue of getting the better of Banks in most of their interactions, the titleholder was riding high as well.

In addition to beating Bayley for the SmackDown women's title at Hell in a Cell in October and defeating her in the rematch, Banks beat Raw women's champion Asuka at Survivor Series last month.

Banks has struggled to build lengthy title reigns during her career, but by retaining against Carmella at TLC in her first pay-per-view defense of this reign, she seems poised to buck that trend.

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