New Details On Sasha Banks Missing WWE SummerSlam 2021
An update on Sasha Banks, who was supposed to wrestle Bianca Belair at SummerSlam 2021.
Sasha Banks missed WWE SummerSlam 2021 this past weekend, with the company announcing that the would-be SmackDown Women's Title challenger hadn't been cleared to compete as her opponent, Bianca Belair, was standing in the ring.
It turns out that this was an accurate reflection of the real-life situation. Fightful Select report that Banks wasn't cleared, though WWE hope that she'll be back in action before long.
Elsewhere, PWInsider's Mike Johnson has been told that this isn't an injury situation. There's currently no word on why, exactly, Banks missed the pay-per-view.
Carmella showed up to take Sasha's spot in Banks' absence, though she was quickly flattened by the returning Becky Lynch, who challenged Belair on her first night back in WWE since May 2020. Lynch then squashed Bianca, defeating the SmackDown Women's Champion to take the belt in under 30 seconds.
Banks' absence was speculated prior to the pay-per-view itself. The former champion was pulled from two house shows due to "unforeseen circumstances" the weekend before SummerSlam. Belair was in the same boat, but returned to SmackDown on 20 August, while Banks did not.
While WWE knew that Sasha wouldn't be on the PPV eight days in advance, they chose to advertise the Belair match up until bell-time regardless.