New reports from within WWE note that there is little to no sympathy for WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Naomi and Sasha Banks after they walked out of Monday’s RAW.
As we’ve noted, there was a situation that saw Banks and Naomi leave Monday’s RAW, reportedly not happy with creative plans for the main event to determine the new #1 contender to RAW Women’s Champion Bianca Belair. Naomi was reportedly planned to win the Six-Pack Challenge, but it was changed to Asuka vs. Becky Lynch when Banks and Naomi walked out following Banks’ meeting with WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon. WWE issued a statement to the media on the walk-out, but also posted the statement to their website as they would with any storyline news, which is unusual as WWE usually stays quiet on legitimate backstage issues.
In an update, Wade Keller of PWTorch noted how people in WWE indicated that Banks and Naomi were working together for the RAW walk-out, but that it was a little more of a situation where Banks was the leader, while they both worked each other up, but Banks led the way into making the decision to leave.
It was also noted by Keller that people in WWE, the locker room and management, are puzzled by the reaction and actions of Banks and Naomi. There’s a feeling that Banks was overreacting to a normal day at work, and that she may have been kind of worked up going into RAW, over some things that might not be all that worth getting worked up over.
The report from Keller also said that there’s not a ton of “instant sympathy” for Banks and Naomi within WWE, or a feeling of “finally they took a stand” over some kind of injustice that was going on. It was more a feeling of, “What, where did that come from and how did they get themselves so worked up over this?”
A follow-up report from Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live confirmed some of what Keller said. Alvarez also said there’s zero sympathy for Banks.
Alvarez said, “You would think that if you have a company full of folks that are presented with bad creative all the time and get frustrated with the creative, well you would think that if Sasha and Naomi were handed bad creative and they finally took a stand and they just said ‘no I ain’t doing this, I’m out of here’ and they walked out. Well, you would think that all of the other wrestlers would be on their side and would back them. [They would] say ‘finally, somebody stood up for themselves.’ Because I see a lot of fans [showing support]. Well, you would think that the wrestlers dealing with this every day would say the same thing. … I am literally aware of two people that have publicly said anything positive about Sasha. The funny thing is, this is all on Sasha. I haven’t heard anything about Naomi. No one has even mentioned Naomi, it’s all Sasha.”
A previous report noted how there was a feeling among some that Banks and Naomi may have been “marks for themselves” in the situation. Alvarez backed this up and continued talking about the internal reactions.
He continued, “Internally, [I’m sure] Jimmy Uso is sticking up for Naomi and everything like that. Sure, somebody internally is gonna do whatever. But, I have not heard from one person. Not one that is sticking up for Sasha and Naomi and Naomi. And not only are they not sticking up for Sasha and Naomi but boy have I heard a lot of terms thrown around. Most of them are some derivative of the word ‘Mark.’ Mark, F’N Mark, a Mark to a degree that is unfathomable. I have heard zero support for Sasha Banks in this situation. So, quite frankly if you want you can get mad at me if you want…I’ve been a lot nicer on this show than anything I’ve heard from people in WWE over the last 24 hours. Hey, if you want to come after me then go for it…Zero support, I’m talking zero. It’s funny [because] I haven’t heard anyone say anything about Naomi and she walked out too. It’s all about Sasha. I’ve heard it all – Mark, Diva, the list goes on and on. There is zero support for Sasha Banks walking out of WWE over all of this. People are furious. They think it’s ridiculous. They think that she’s whatever. So, that’s the story. Where this goes, I don’t know but literally, every single bit of support that I’ve seen for Sasha Banks coming out of this has either been from people in another company that weren’t there last night and that’s it…or fans. Her actual co-workers have zero sympathy for what happened here. I think that should probably tell you something. Again, we largely have the official WWE side of the story but I also heard from a lot of people obviously off the record in WWE and they are not sympathetic to this at all. These are people who have been presented with really stupid ideas and they’ve had to do them. They are not sympathetic on this one. I think that kind of tells you that she didn’t like some creative but the other wrestlers probably looked at that creative and thought ‘dude what are you complaining about? Both of you are gonna be headlining a pay-per-view in singles championship matches. This is your job…’”
As noted before, despite WWE publishing their statement on the official WWE website and social media as they do with storyline news updates, multiple sources report that this is not a work. Banks and Naomi remain on WWE’s internal active roster and the public roster, but there’s still no word on what is next for them, or what is planned for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles.
Stay tuned for more.
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