“She remembered who she was, and the game changed.”
–Ancient American Proverb (actually, it was Lelah Dehlia)
There’s a light in all of us – a gift that we need to unwrap and unleash upon the world. It’s a statement that we have something to offer, and it is that fire that is born like a phoenix from ashes in corners founded upon our passions and desires.
Mercedes Varnado, formerly Sasha Banks, encompasses that notion.
Recently, I began to wonder who had been at the center of some of WWE’s biggest moments and matches as of late. There’s so much to choose from! There’s her Hell in a Cell matches against fellow WWE Four Horsewomen in Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Bayley. But what about the NXT classics with Bayley, where these women looked as though they were ready to kill each other? That emotional, tear-soaked WrestleMania event against Bianca Belair?
Sasha Banks is a woman of grit and tenacity behind the guise of glitz and glamor. These matches prove that – that she’s got the heat to go on. Sure, she could be the sly little cheat that she could be to win and make little girls cry, but she will also fight for her right to have her name etched in the annals of professional wrestling, even as a sports entertainer. She could be anywhere else with her star power, yet time and time again, she chooses wrestling. She lives and breathes the squared circle at the end of the day. The world is just her side hustle.
An instance that comes to mind that forever convinced me who Sasha Banks was to her core, was the 2018 Women’s Royal Rumble Match, the inaugural match for the WWE women’s roster. Entering at number one was the blueprint herself, Sasha. She maintained her position in the match, surviving long and giving an ironwoman performance. She had the refusal to give up, but it went deeper than that. Not only was she sticking it out for herself, but over and over she saved other women from being eliminated. That performance spoke to how she wanted to prolong the presence of as many women as humanly possible in the historical match, so they could survive to have their own moment in the spotlight on the stage, under the eyes of many. Not often was that opportunity given in the WWE before.
That’s who Sasha Banks was,, and that’s who Mercedes Varnado is.
If you don’t believe me, look at her extra-curricular activities and interests outside of main roster WWE. The pride she’d show for up-and-comers in NXT and the outpouring of passion she felt for outsiders on the indies, in Japan, and even in All Elite Wrestling. She loves seeing people thrive and she loves seeing women thrive.
It’s easy to speak in such heavy tones about someone you don’t even know, and assuredly I do not know Mercedes an iota beyond what she shows us, but beyond her “it” factor, she has that love for wrestling that’s been there since her idol in Eddie Guerrero ran the ropes, as the flames of Latino Heat burn eternal.
Little did she know she would have that power that he himself had, a fact I’m sure he would be proud of. His emotional proclamation of how he’s addicted to the feeling of professional wrestling is echoed in moments of the future like that moment that a fervid Bianca Belair gazed upon an equally tearful Sasha Banks as she nodded as if to say, this is their moment, and it is her moment. His dastardly side too is met with his betrayal of Rey Mysterio being reflected in the night that Sasha hugged Natalya before laying her out and revealing the cobalt hair underneath the magenta she had shed following her post-Wrestlemania 35 hiatus.
Like Eddie, Sasha consistently has the wrestling world talking with but an utterance from her lips, the gear she wears, and the strike of her limbs. In recent months, she hasn’t even had to do that; the wrestling world has been ablaze since her and former tag teammate Trinity Fatu left the arena on that Monday night as they left their WWE Tag Team Championship belts on that desk.
If you give her dirt, she will turn it to gold the best way she can, and make it look effortless. It is by these intangibles that she becomes the measuring stick, the blueprint so to speak.
And she yearns to breathe and be free, not to be someone that others want her to be. If she wanted to eschew the hair and personality and jump over to train with the joshi wrestlers in Japan’s independent Sendai Girls promotion, she will, if she wants to be a character in Star Wars, she will. If she wants to do an interview while eating hot wings, she will (and I’ll be jealous, because hot wings are the best).
I do not know what goes through her mind going forward as the flame of gossip and rumor spreads about her leading up to New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 and the January 11 episode of AEW Dynamite, but if she does ever look back at the winding road she drives on, she will know she’s done so, so much. It’s not a matter of having nothing left to prove, it’s what you want to do when you’ve moved past yourself.
You may not like her, you may not approve of her actions, but to say she was in the wrong is a flat-out lie. To say she isn’t a draw is asinine misinformation spread by those with palms firmly clasped to their ears in the refusal to listen. Mercedes Varnado is a star that is over with the best of them.
Who else can say they were at the forefront of great moments in women’s wrestling? Who else can join the ranks of John Cena, Dave Bautista, and Dwayne Johnson in transcending the medium while also evoking the essence of a wrestler like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Eddie Guerrero, CM Punk, and Roman Reigns? And who else could have joined Bayley in being the force that drove WWE through uncertain times when the company was relegated to a small warehouse and made it feel bigger than it was?
The answer lies in the blueprint she was printed from. The most dangerous thing about her is that she knows what to do with it, and who she is and isn’t willing to build it with. So, to any promotion or any place that gains her talents, I ask you this…
What would you build from her blueprint?
