Daily DDT Mailbag #5: Sasha Banks’ WWE return and best female athletes

In this week’s Mailbag, we address Sasha Banks’ big WWE return, we name we think are the five best in-ring female athletes, and more.

This is the fifth edition of our Daily DDT Mailbag, where our editors – Joe Anthony Myrick, Brett Grega, and Patches Chance – address your questions regarding WWE, AEW, Impact Wrestling, and any other wrestling in between.

Before we get started, one thing must be address. While all of the Mailbags up until this point have been weekly, we will now be transitioning into making every Mailbag once a month instead. Specifically, we will start rallying up questions the night after a WWE PPV and our Mailbag will emerge some days later.

Now that that’s all taken care of, let’s get started.

JAM: If I could pick anybody, Sadie Gibbs. I might be biased as a big fan, but Gibbs is crazy athletic and an absolute beast in the ring. If she went far enough in the tournament, I think she’d be a lot of fun and impress tons of people.

BG: I know it would likely be considered a long shot right now, but Courtney Rush (aka Rosemary from Impact Wrestling) immediately comes to mind. She’s one of my favorite wrestlers outside of WWE, and also an amazing storyteller in every aspect of wrestling. It would be awesome to see her get a major run in a future MYC.

PC: Starlight Kid would be amazing! It’s really hard for me to make a single choice. Basically everyone in Stardom would be amazing. Rosemary aka Courtney Rush is a great pick from Brett, as she’s really fantastic and would fit well in WWE. However, to pick just one for the Mae Young Classic, my choice is Kagetsu. Getting to see her tango with some of the industry’s best outside of Stardom could give us some instant classics.

JAM: First one that came to mind is the Cesaro/Sheamus Best of Seven storyline. I remember not being excited at all by the prospect of seeing seven matches between two dudes who had already had a handful of matches at this point. I didn’t think it would be compelling, but we got a bunch of surprisingly fun, short matches, then a killer PPV match at Clash of Champions. Then, it led to these two becoming one of WWE’s best tag teams with some incredible tag team matches.

BG: I can think of a few instances of this, but recently the Shane McMahon storyline sticks out. It did wonders for The Miz, until WWE seemingly decided to totally ditch his push, and led to some of the best performances we’ve seen from Kevin Owens in years.

In other words, while I still don’t “love” Shane McMahon in any sense of the word, I kind of love the story because of what it’s done for some of my favorite stars.

PC: One that comes to mind was LAX vs The OGz in Impact Wrestling. The new duo of LAX, Santana and Ortiz, had really been proving themselves as the successors who effectively carried the mantle of LAX into the current landscape.

I was very worried when The OGz targeted them, especially with Eddie Kingston feeling shoehorned into things at first, that Homicide and Hernandez would look like shells of their former selves and the whole thing would fall flat. I was so happy to be wrong, because we got some amazing segments and violent matches from them I’d happily watch again.

JAM: Why just stop at answering questions? Take my whole job, Josiah.

BG: I should have these things be like “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” where I can phone a friend whenever I get a question I don’t know how to answer. I’ll just have Josiah available to pop in, and do some detailed NJPW analysis then whenever I need it.

PC: *danielbryanNO.gif*

JAM: All time lists are tough, but I’ll give it a shot. This is me just spitballing off the top right now so list is subject to change if you ask me again, like, tomorrow.

1. Tessa Blanchard
2. Charlotte Flair
3. Naomi
4. Kelly Klein
5. Jazz

BG: This is one of those lists where I’m almost bound to leave someone out, and end up beating myself up over it later. Nevertheless, here it goes:

1. Kacy Catanzaro
2. Bianca Belair
3. Chyna
4. Charlotte Flair
5. Sasha Banks

As you might have guessed based on my list, I took your qualifications quite literally. I don’t think anyone can top a freaking American Ninja Warrior for most athletic. Belair and Chyna have to be two of the strongest women in wrestling history too. Finally, I don’t think you could ever leave Banks or Flair off of a list like this.

I also want to give a shout-out to Naomi too, as it pains me to leave her off of the top 5. I just think Banks edges her out slightly for the last spot though.

PC: Like they’ve said, this is a difficult list to narrow down. I think a lot of it comes down to preference, because we’ve had few situations where we’d actually get to quantify their athletic skills in comparison to each other. That said, I’m just gonna go for it with my top five and let the chips fall where they may.

1. Naomi
2. Bianca Belair
3. Jordynne Grace
4. Charlotte Flair
5. Tessa Blanchard