WWE WrestleMania 36: 2 Pros And 2 Cons To Sasha Banks Vs. Bayley

CON: Wouldn’t SummerSlam Be More Ideal?

In 2015, Sasha Banks and Bayley changed the game forever over SummerSlam weekend, tearing down the house down at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in a match that has been watched and cried over in the years since it took place

SummerSlam weekend has always been special for both these competitors. Even beyond NXT, Banks won her first Pay Per View match at SummerSlam 2017 against Alexa Bliss.

This year’s SummerSlam will take place in Boston, which is Sasha’s hometown. And the hometowns have always been important to Bayley and Banks. Bayley won her first SmackDown Women’s Title in 2019 in San Jose at Money in the Bank, coming full circle after losing to Alexa Bliss at Payback in San Jose two years earlier. (Edit: Money in the Bank 2019 was in Hartford, Connecticut.)

Meanwhile, Banks hasn’t had her redemptive moment in Boston, as she suffered a heartbreaking loss to the then-undefeatable-on-PPV Charlotte Flair in the main event of Hell in a Cell.

Defeating Bayley in the main event of SummerSlam to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship at the TD Garden and set off her first actual, lengthy reign as champ would be quite the special moment. Maybe it’s wistful thinking and editorializing to predict a main event victory and a subsequently lengthy reign, but let’s put all the chips on the table!

WrestleMania is the spectacle, but the classics usually happen at SummerSlam. It usually has less matches on the card, and the biggest title matches generally allow more time for wrestlers to go all out. And an all out match at the Biggest Party of the Summer between Banks and Bayley would be incredible, especially when you factor in their history five years earlier. It won’t be in the same building this year, but the fact that it’ll be in Boston would more than make up for it.

Beyond that, Banks and Bayley would have the whole summer to build to their match. They wouldn’t have to start feuding after WrestleMania, allowing the landscape to reset after the Shakeup and awkwardness settles before getting into the meat of an all-time feud.