Sasha Banks On Refusing To Smile After Her NXT Title Win

RAW Superstar Sasha Banks was a recent guest on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness and opened up on a myriad of professional wrestling related topics, including how she created her ‘Boss’ character, feelings after her NXT Women’s Championship win and more. Highlights appear below.

On Emulating Eddie Guerrero:

Of course, all I wanted to do [was frog splashes] until in training I did a frog splash and I went over the crash pad. I landed straight on my face, busted it, bleeding everywhere and then I was terrified to do a frog splash until I got to the main roster. I was like, ‘I have to do it for WrestleMania,’ but I was terrified ever since that to do a frog splash.

Sasha Reveals How She Came Up With The Boss Character:

When I first got started, I was just more thankful and happy that I got signed by the WWE. I felt like I was too nervous to even try to stand out. I was just trying to be myself, just this happy go lucky girl, just like living her dreams, until I figure out that you need a character to stand out here too. At the time, I wasn’t really being used, but I was being used more as a good hand, so to speak. I looked at what they didn’t have down at NXT at the time, which were heels. I talked to Tyler Breeze, at the time, who was trying to find his voice and his character and he told me to write ten different character pitches with different names and different backgrounds and the first one I wrote was The Boss because, being around Snoop Dogg, all the people around him called him The Boss. At the time, Floyd Mayweather was out there, Nikki Minaj, and all these larger than life characters that were cocky, flashy, and flamboyant and that’s who I wanted to be because I strive myself to be the best wrestler that I can and I feel like I was the best, but I just didn’t have that character to let people know that I was the best. I was talking to Dream [Dusty Rhodes] and Dream helped me so much trying to find the voice of this Legit Boss character and now I’m here today.

Banks Describes When Things ‘Clicked’ For Her:

Being part of the group BFF, with Summer Rae and Charlotte, at the time Summer Rae was on the main roster and coming back down for tapings and just little things of her telling me how to look at the camera or when the camera guys had five fingers up you have five seconds and then they’re gonna cut away from you. It’s little things like that where I just kind of understood the camera work of everything and wrestling kind of came easier with me and understanding your character, but once you understand your character, you don’t have to think about your moves anymore. You just embody this character where the moves almost become second nature and everything flows together where you’re thinking, ‘My character will do this here or my character will be here or sell this way.’ It wasn’t really until I got into the BFF group and then I kind of branched off on my own, where it kind of really clicked for me.

On Winning The NXT Women’s Championship & Refusing To Smile:

Once I was next in line for an NXT Championship run, that’s when my character really came out showing the world that I can say it, but also prove it in the ring that I am truly the best, so that happened and we had this Fatal 4-Way Match with myself, Bayley, Becky [Lynch] and Charlotte and that’s when I won the NXT Women’s Title and for me, that was such an insane moment because I was being called up on the road just to do live events, but still down at NXT, so I wasn’t around those girls for while they were trying to plan it and thinking about how to put this match together, but I remember winning that match and in the ref’s ear, they’re like, ‘You need to smile. Be happy that you won.’ I’m like, ‘No, this is my character. I’m pissed off that you didn’t believe in me,’ and I remember that I came to the back and I started crying my eyes out that I just won this Title and Triple H was like, ‘Why didn’t you do that out there?’ I was like, ‘Because that’s how I felt.’

I know how I would feel out there, but when I come back through the curtains, I’m not Sasha Banks anymore. I’m just Mercedes that got to live this dream of winning this title that you strive to have since you were a child. It’s all you dream about is being a champion and holding it up in front of all these fans. That’s when it started to click knowing that this is who my character was. I was very angry that I was being overlooked and underused and here I am winning this title, so I’m not gonna smile & cry tears of joy. I’m gonna show the world that this is exactly what I wanted and exactly what I deserve, so I’m gonna be pissed off and holding up the title being like, ‘Screw you guys. I did it by myself.’

(Transcription credit to Michael McClead for Wrestlezone.com)

Readers may listen to Edge & Christian’s interview with Sasha Banks in its entirety below: