There are so many wrestling fans who want to see Sasha Banks and Bayley have a dream match at WWE WrestleMania 36, but, in this case, there are multiple angles in conflict.
Despite her detractors, Bayley has been a revelation as a heel and the SmackDown Women’s Champion. Pending the events of this week’s episode of SmackDown on FOX, which will determine her opponent(s) at the Elimination Chamber Pay Per View, The Role Model will head into WWE WrestleMania 36 as champion.
And it’s anyone’s guess as to who she will face.
Bayley has had matches with Lacey Evans, Carmella, and Naomi in 2020, with her SmackDown match against Mella being a particular highlight. However, the opponent many fans have earmarked for The Role Model at the Show of Shows is a familiar foe whom Bayley hasn’t faced in quite some time.
The ideal match at WrestleMania is, for many, Sasha Banks vs. Bayley. After all, they are two of the best wrestlers on this planet and have defined an era in WWE, dating all the way back to their incredible battles on NXT TakeOver specials.
So it’s no wonder why countless fans want to see Banks and Bayley finally battle in a title match on PPV – and at WrestleMania no less.
That said, there are others – and I’m talking about reasonable people who respect the hell out of Bayley and Banks – who don’t want the match to take place just yet. Let’s take a look at all sides of the issue to develop a better appreciation on the discussion by listing the three pros and cons to Sasha vs. Bayley at WWE WrestleMania 36.
PRO: This Is The Biggest Title Match Possible
WrestleMania is all about putting together the biggest possible matches that will move the meter. Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship is as big as it gets. Drew McIntyre is headed for a star-making, potential main event against Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship. Roman Reigns and Goldberg are two of the biggest names in the industry clashing for the Universal Title. Edge vs. Randy Orton sells itself. Bray Wyatt vs. John Cena is a WrestleMania rematch that could be one for the ages. AJ Styles vs. The Undertaker is a dream come true for many wrestling fans. Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley is one of the most important matches in NXT history.
The SmackDown Women’s Championship needs to have a match on par with all of these bouts, and it could. Sasha Banks and Bayley have put on two matches that are better than what we’ve seen any of those wrestlers put together head-to-head, though, in fairness, we’ve never seen, for example, Baszler vs. Becky or Lesnar vs. McIntyre in singles competition.
Still, Banks and Bayley are proven. They are world-class wrestlers who have the best chemistry between two competitors in the entire company. A match between them for the SmackDown Women’s Championship would easily be bigger in terms of name recognition, general interest, and quality than any other conceivable match for that title.
That alone is a compelling argument for booking The Hugger vs. The Boss at the Show of Shows.
CON: There’s A Way To Make This Match Even Bigger
The problem with the above argument is that you could make it for any subsequent WrestleMania. In years past, Sasha Banks vs. Bayley would have been bigger than several of the other title matches on the show, but that doesn’t mean the match *should* happen.
Bayley and Banks put together two all-time classics in NXT, which means their first Raw or SmackDown title match should surpass those classics. If you aren’t going to top what you did in the past, you might not as well go back to it. Sequels are rarely better than the original, but the keyword there is “rarely”. Wrestlers as driven and talented as Sasha and Bayley are more than capable of surpassing what they did earlier in their careers, but because it’s such a hard feat to accomplish, ultimate care must be taken when making the approach.
Over the past couple of months, Bayley and Banks have been interacting with each other on Friday Night SmackDown as best friends and equals. In order to have a match at WrestleMania, one of them needs to turn on the other. A couple of years ago, we saw WWE tease this approach for a possible WrestleMania or SummerSlam match, and the segments were incredible, regularly reaching in the millions of views.
Wouldn’t you rather see that extended over the course of months? A title match at WrestleMania – of all places – can define careers, especially those as intertwined as these two superstars. Doing the match FULL justice is important.
PRO: But They Only Need A Month
Sure, Sasha Banks and Bayley could have an even better rivalry if their WrestleMania match was the culmination of months of back-and-forth promos and segments, but couldn’t you say that about any rivalry?
Like, yeah, everyone wants to have months to build to their ideal program, but nothing operates in an ideal world in WWE. Look no further than this year’s Royal Rumble, which Sasha Banks had to miss due to an injury. You never know what’s going to happen, and you can’t take anything for granted.
Moreover, which of the current WrestleMania matchups have had months of build? Drew McIntyre only started catching lightening in a bottle in January, and he wasn’t tabbed as the guy to dethrone Brock Lesnar until the literal Royal Rumble match. AJ Styles vs. The Undertaker didn’t become “a thing” on WWE television until March. Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns and John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt didn’t become matches until the last SmackDown in February. Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley and Randy Orton vs. Edge also began their builds at the Rumble, and Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch began post-Rumble.
While many of these matches, specifically ones that started at the Rumble, have had longer to build, one month isn’t THAT much time. Plus, only Edge vs. Orton has the level of history that Banks vs. Bayley does, and, unlike Banks vs. Bayley, it’s not recent history.
Sasha and Bayley have been sharing the screen and the spotlight on SmackDown for months. They’ve known each other for years. We know what their rivalry is about and what they are about as competitors. They only need a month to turn things up to an “11” and create a killer WrestleMania feud. Going any longer than that risks WWE overdoing things or, worse yet, falling into the “stop-and-start” trap that hurt them in 2018.
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.