Why Sasha Banks Vs Bayley Means So Much To So Many

At August 2015's TakeOver: Brooklyn, Sasha Banks lost her NXT Women's Championship to Bayley in possibly the most important match of WWE's entire decade.

The 2010s were defined by a prevailing sense of rot and decay until 2014, and not because Daniel Bryan got his WrestleMania moment. With yet more casuals tuning out right around the time the company were asking hardcores to plug in to their brand new streaming service, the mainstream attention paid to the revived NXT initially undulated with the schizophrenia of a Sycho Sid promo. Only following Network curtain-raiser (and TakeOver soft-launch) Arrival just weeks before 'YesleMania" did there appear to be actual hope for the future beyond Bryan's big night.

As if to re-educate audiences as to why wins and losses matter before AEW did it on a much larger scale years later, NXT beat Bayley a lot before she could beat Sasha once. It was part of some truly tremendous booking of the Four Horsewomen as it became obvious just how integral they all were to the new beginning of women’s wrestling on the black-and-gold brand. Bayley had been turned on at various points by Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch, with Sasha at the bullying heart of it all. Flair’s dominance saw her win the Championship, but Banks levelled up in match featuring all three. This was both triumph and flex for ‘The Boss’, and it didn’t hurt that the match was yet another “best Women’s match ever” in a sequence of them during that era for the TakeOver brand.

This wasn't grading on a curve anymore, but even if it had been, Banks and Bayley were about to wreck it beyond recognition.

CONT'D...