History YMMV / SashaBanks

** Sasha's face turn in 2016 begins with her attacking Becky Lynch following her loss against Charlotte, before attacking the Flair. Before this, Sasha was an AlphaBitch who is NotSoDifferent to Charlotte who treated everyone around her like shit and was allied with fellow heels, Naomi and Tamina. In addition, she retained her AlphaBitch tendencies and is not above using Eddie Guerrero's tactics against even Face opponents.

* ArcFatigue: The 2016 ''Raw'' brand chapter of her feud with Charlotte. The feud started in late June before finally ending in December. It was a feud many fans had long grown exhausted of and waited for it to simply end and for both women to move on from each other. The feud had been continued by means of rematch clause after rematch clause because the two kept on trading the WWE Raw Women's Championship between each other like it's a hot potato with Sasha winning on ''Raw'' episodes and pay-per-views being treated like some odd unbreakable form of home field advantage for Charlotte. As of the 'end of the line' at Roadblock, the two traded the title six times. This means that Sasha was a three-time champion and Charlotte a four-time champ, just over a year after both debuted on the main roster, before the belt itself was even a year old.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: A downplayed example; while Sasha was still generally liked by the wrestling community, a lot of people criticized her main roster run as being highly underwhelming (specifically her run on the ''Raw'' brand from 2016 to early 2019); most complaints have gone to her promos (as a face) and her ring-work, the latter which had been so reckless that her first reign as champion ended early so that she could rest up and heal up a few injuries. Fans are also split on whether her HeelFaceTurn is a good idea — as The Boss character is essentially a heel and gets watered down as a face. Others argue that it would be impossible to book Sasha as a heel, which WWE tried to do at first but fans just cheered her anyway. Despite detractors, she is still beloved by the majority of fans for what she's done for women's wrestling in WWE (not to mention that a lot of criticism was mostly attributed her booking during her 2016 feud with Charlotte, so much so that it took ''years'' to get her character back on track).

** After a disappointing 2018 in which her face character had largely become irrelevant and uninteresting, it's largely agreed that Sasha's run on the main roster '''finally''' kicked into gear after definitively returning to her heel character in August 2019. Then for those who felt as though she was being treated as Bayley's sidekick, Sasha recovered from Bayley's treacherous attack in September 2020, took the [=SmackDown=] Women's Championship, and established herself as a distinctive tweener atop the women's division.

* DorkAge: Her 2016 feud with Charlotte Flair killed a lot of the goodwill she'd built up with the IWC - and it's there that her detractors began to emerge. Despite still delivering good matches, the booking of her repeatedly losing and reclaiming the title mixed with some annoying segments like her fake retirement and numerous promos referencing Eddie Guerrero caused many to cry BadassDecay. As noted under CharacterRerailment, she did regain some goodwill in 2017 but it wasn't until her 2019 heel turn that her character finally began to regain momentum.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: A downplayed example; while Sasha was still generally liked by the wrestling community, a lot of people criticized her main roster run as being highly underwhelming (specifically her run on the ''Raw'' brand from 2016 to early 2019); most complaints have gone to her promos (as a face) and her ring-work, the latter which had been so reckless that her first reign as champion ended early so that she could rest up and heal up a few injuries. Fans are also split on whether her HeelFaceTurn is a good idea — as The Boss character is essentially a heel and gets watered down as a face. Others argue that it would be impossible to book Sasha as a heel, which WWE tried to do at first but fans just cheered her anyway. Despite detractors, she is still beloved by the majority of fans for what she's done for women's wrestling in WWE (not to mention that a lot of criticism went to the way she was poorly booked during her 2016 feud with Charlotte, so much so that it took ''years'' to get her character back on track).

** After a disappointing 2018 in which her face character had largely become irrelevant and uninteresting, it's largely agreed that Sasha's run on the main roster '''finally''' got into gear after definitively returning to her heel character in August 2019. Then for those who felt as though she was being treated as Bayley's sidekick, Sasha recovered from Bayley's treacherous attack in September 2020, took the [=SmackDown=] Women's Championship, and established herself as a distinctive tweener atop the women's division.

* DorkAge: Her 2016 feud with Charlotte Flair killed a lot of the goodwill she'd built up with the IWC - and it's there that her detractors began to emerge. Despite delivering good matches, the booking of her repeatedly losing and reclaiming the title mixed with some annoying segments like her fake retirement and numerous promos referencing Eddie Guerrero caused many to cry BadassDecay. As noted under CharacterRerailment, she did regain some goodwill as of 2017 but it wasn't enough to completely erase the bad time from memory.

** '''EVERYTHING''' about her 2018 storyline with Bayley. With the conflict between the two having been drawn out from the spring of 2017 to the summer of 2018, fans were ''not'' happy to say the least due to it never escalating into a full-blown feud.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Her HeelFaceTurn in 2020 when Bayley attacked her following their failed attempt to reclaim the Women's Tag Team Championship. For the next several weeks, Sasha would speak often of how Bayley destroyed their friendship after everything they had been through together while Bayley continued to attack her. The issue was that Sasha has [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder a long history of betraying her friends]], often in [[KickTheDog rather cruel ways]], ''and'' that [[CreateYourOwnVillain she had a direct hand in corrupting Bayley]]; the beatdowns, while harrowing, still largely looked like [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty a rod Sasha made for her own back and was finally being punished for]]. It didn't help that Sasha kept her AlphaBitch heel personality and [[NeverMyFault showed no remorse or even hinted that she felt any guilt for making Bayley into a heel]].

* BaseBreakingCharacter: While still widely liked by the wrestling community, a lot have criticized her main roster run as being highly underwhelming, with most complaints going to her promo skills (as a face) and her ring-work, the latter which has been reckless enough that she had to actually give up the belt for a couple weeks so she could rest up and heal up a few injuries. Fans are also split on whether her HeelFaceTurn is a good idea — as The Boss character is essentially a heel and gets watered down as a face. Others argue that it would be impossible to book Sasha as a heel, which WWE tried to do at first but fans just cheered her anyway. Despite detractors, she is still beloved by a large amount of fans for what she's done for women's wrestling in WWE. It's also unclear how much of this is to do with ArcFatigue in her feud with Charlotte.

** After a disappointing 2018 in which her face character had largely become irrelevant and uninteresting, fans were incredibly satisfied to see Sasha definitively return to her heel character in August 2019. Then for those who felt as though she was being treated as Bayley's sidekick, Sasha recovered from Bayley's treacherous attack in September 2020, took the [=SmackDown=] Women's Championship, and established herself as a distinctive tweener atop the women's division.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: A ''huge'' favorite among NXT Divas on Diva Dirt. She also seems to be popular with the NXT live audience; see RootingForTheEmpire. Despite not being in the title picture upon her main roster call-up, she had gained a '''enormous''' fanbase to the point where she was arguably one of the most popular people in all of the company, male or female. "WE WANT SASHA" comments became so incredibly common during any Diva's match not featuring her that Sasha herself pinned a tweet on her Twitter page that read: "Be so good they can't ignore you." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mx-S0awvOg This pop alone shows how well-liked she is.]]

** The period of time when every Sasha promo seemed to mention Wrestling/EddieGuerrero to the point people had dubbed it Eddiesploitation 2.0.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Judging by Bayley's comments a week after attacking her, does Sasha ever has a plan to betray Bayley in the near future? Later weeks often shows Sasha in tears for what Bayley did and how she is angry over Bayley's betrayal after everything they had been together and Sasha helping Bayley several times to defend her title for a year. However Sasha has a long history of betrayals with Bayley being a frequent victim of it as well as playing victim in order to get sympathy.

** After a disappointing 2018 in which her face character had largely become irrelevant and uninteresting, fans were incredibly satisfied to see Sasha definitively return to her heel character in August 2019.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Her HeelFaceTurn in 2020 when Bayley attacked her following their failed attempt to reclaim the Women's Tag Team Championship. For the next several weeks, Sasha often makes a speech of how Bayley destroyed their friendship after everything they had been through together while Bayley continued to attack her. The issue is that Sasha, like Charlotte, has a long history of betrayals and KickTheDog moments, ''and'' she was the one who was responsible of turning Bayley into what she is today . That Sasha has a history of betraying Bayley more than once with no remorse and that she continues to act as an AlphaBitch even when she was a face doesn't help her case. As a result, it comes off as LaserGuidedKarma more than anything else.

* UnfortunateImplications: It was [[http://www.lethalwow.com/2015/09/13/bobby-between-the-ropes-the-wwe-divas-and-the-uncomfortable-subject-of-race/ noted]] how, despite Sasha's obvious popularity, her trio, Team B.A.D. was placed in the HufflepuffHouse stable in the 'Divas Revolution' storyline... which just so happened to be composed of a mixed-race woman (Sasha), a black woman (Naomi), and a Samoan woman (Tamina), while 5 out of the 6 women that composed the other two trios (Team PCB and Team Bella) were white. Likewise while she has broken out of the MinorityShowGhetto in terms of fan reactions, it took her suspiciously long to get her push — and far longer than her relatively unknown contemporaries (Charlotte and Becky Lynch were still developing their characters when they got their title pushes). Exasperated with her three short title reigns on the main roster, effectively killing her momentum and credibility — in favour of a white competitor. And the next person pushed was {{Wrestling/Bayley}} who — while she's Latina — looks [[LatinoIsBrown much whiter than Sasha]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Her HeelFaceTurn in 2020 when Bayley attacked her following their failed attempt to reclaim the Women's Tag Team Championship. For the next several weeks, Sasha often makes a speech of how Bayley destroyed their friendship after everything they had been through together while Bayley continued her attack to attack her. The issue is that Sasha, like Charlotte, has a long history of betrayals and KickTheDog moments, ''and'' she was the one who was responsible of turning Bayley into what she is today . That Sasha has a history of betraying Bayley more than once with no remorse and that she continues to act as an AlphaBitch even when she was a face doesn't help her case. As a result, it comes off as LaserGuidedKarma more than anything else.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Sasha turns Face late in 2020 when Bayley attacks her following their failed attempt to reclaim the Women's Tag Team Championship. For the next several weeks, Sasha often makes a speech of how Bayley destroy their friendship after everything they had been through together while Bayley continued her attack to attack her. The issue is that Sasha, like Charlotte, has a long history of betrayals and KickTheDog. It doesn't help that Sasha has a history of betraying Bayley more than once and not only she doesn't apologize or feels remorse for what she did, she was eventually EasilyForgiven after a while. Other factors include Sasha continues to act as an AlphaBitch even when she was a face and her being the one who was responsible of turning Bayley into a what she is today further made Sasha as if she deserves all the bad things that happened to her.

** As mentioned above, Sasha announced a fake retirement after an injury before revealing that she is faking it to ambush Dana Brooke. While this normally works for a heel like Mark Henry did in 2012, remember, Sasha's a face.

** After a disappointing 2018 in which her face character had largely become irrelevant and uninteresting, to say that Sasha definitively returning to her heel character the following summer was a welcome change would be an understatement.

** Her reigns as Raw Women's Champion. Having held it four times, each one of them never lasted longer than 27 days. Many have criticized the Raw creative team for being lazy and not knowing what to do with Banks. Even Sasha herself has outright stated her frustration of the short reigns (also explicitly saying that she'd rather be on the [=Smackdown=] brand).
** '''EVERYTHING''' about her 2018 storyline with Bayley. Having been drawn out since the spring of 2017, many have given up hope of it ever being of any interest due to it never escalating into a feud. As of December 2018, it seems like the dissension between the two has been eradicated entirely.

* DistaffCounterpart: To Wrestling/KevinOwens. The two have, at least in WWE, longstanding histories with a lovable underdog babyface character (with Wrestling/{{Bayley}} in this case playing the role of Sasha's Wrestling/SamiZayn) that, for better or worse, often dictate most of their storylines and booking. Also, each had an initial run of success not long after debuting only to be oddly pushed down the card and locked out of the title scene.

* CharacterRerailment: A lot of detractors emerged for Sasha in 2016 during her feud with Charlotte — thanks to questionable booking, Sasha's character getting watered down, numerous promos referencing Eddie Guerrero and a downright bizarre segment where she pretended to retire just to pull a sneak-attack on Dana Brooke. In the summer of 2017 when she feuded with Alexa Bliss, she was back to winning most of her matches, subverting GoodIsDumb and managing to come across as edgy without being bitchy.

* {{Narm}}: The period of time when every Sasha promo seemed to mention {{Wrestling/Eddie Guerrero}} to the point people had dubbed it Eddiesploitation 2.0.

* ArcFatigue: The 2016 ''Raw'' brand chapter of her feud with Charlotte. The feud started in late June before finally ending in December. It was a feud many fans had long grown exhausted of and waited for it to simply end and for both women to move on from each other. The feud had been continued by means of rematch clause after rematch clause because the two kept on trading the WWE Raw Women's Championship between each other like it's a hot potato with ''Raw'' episodes (Sasha wins LOL) and pay-per-views being treated like some odd unbreakable form of home field advantage. As of the 'end of the line' at Roadblock, the two traded the title six times. This means that Sasha was a three-time champion and Charlotte a four-time champ, just over a year after both debuted on the main roster, before the belt itself was even a year old.

** Another camp isn't exactly happy that Sasha herself has become the spokeswoman or mouthpiece for this change. It was the collective work of her, Bayley and Becky Lynch that got women's wrestling recognition in the first place. ''Diva Dirt'' writers also took exception to Sasha's line — "no more bra and panties, no more two-minute matches, no more stupid butterfly title" — pointing out that Sasha herself had never wrestled in such matches or held the Divas' Championship. Others are fine with it, since WWE has historically had the champion or top face speak on behalf of the division.

** Maybe this or HarsherInHindsight depending on your perspective. Her excitement about being the face of the Women's Evolution, how there would be no more Bra and Panties matches and the women would all be serious wrestlers now, etc., culminated in the historic first Women's Hell in a Cell match between her and Charlotte Flair for the ''Raw'' Women's Championship…in which the face-in-peril/stretcher spot booking Sasha received was widely panned as starkly inferior enough to some of the same spots in previous men's Cell matches that it did more to play on her "injury prone" reputation and make her look bad than to add drama to the main event, the numerous failed attempts at table breaks marred the flow of the match as well as its finish, and Sasha was increasingly wedgied into an accidental MsFanservice as the proceedings went on whenever Charlotte needed to pull on her tights for a throw.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Her reigns as Raw Women's Champion. Having held it four times, each one of them never lasted longer than 27 days. Many have criticized the Raw creative team for being lazy and not knowing what to do with Banks. Even Sasha herself has outright stated her frustration of the short reigns (also explicitly saying that she'd rather be on the [=Smackdown=] brand).

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Yes, even Sasha is gaining a decent group of detractors. While still widely liked by the wrestling community, a lot have criticized her main roster run as being highly underwhelming, with most complaints going to her promo skills (as a face) and her ring-work, the latter which has been reckless enough that she had to actually give up the belt for a couple weeks so she could rest up and heal up a few injuries. Fans are also split on whether her HeelFaceTurn is a good idea — as The Boss character is essentially a heel and gets watered down as a face. Others argue that it would be impossible to book Sasha as a heel, which WWE tried to do at first but fans just cheered her anyway. Despite detractors, she is still beloved by a large amount of fans for what she's done for women's wrestling in WWE. It's also unclear how much of this is to do with ArcFatigue in her feud with Charlotte.

** Sasha's face turn in 2016 begins with her attacking Becky Lynch following her loss against Charlotte, before attacking the Flair. Before this, Sasha was an AlphaBitch who is NotSoDifferent to Charlotte who treated everyone around her like shit and was allied with fellow heels, Naomi and Tamina.

** Her feud with Bayley throughout 2018. It was Sasha who threw the first stone by betraying Bayley during the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber. During the latter event, she even smiles smugly when she does it. Yet it was Bayley who was often portrayed as the villain of the feud, having abandoning Sasha during tag team matches, commentators calling her out for her for her childish grudge and Bayley who after being mocked by Sasha for the last time, throws her temper against her. However, only time will tell which one of these two who is the one who turn heel.

* TearJerker:
** Her story regarding the Eddie Guerrero tribute show: She was a huge Eddie Guerrero fan and had won front row tickets to a live WWE show. She says that she made a sign saying "I love Eddie" and hoped he would see it. Then when she got to the show, she thought it was strange how there were so many "RIP Eddie" signs around, assuming Eddie had been booked to wrestle the Undertaker that night. Another fan then told her Eddie had died that morning.
** Related to the above, sharing a moment with Wrestling/VickieGuerrero in the fallout of ''Wrestling/RoyalRumble 2018'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0fKeAw7A48 where both of them had a heart-to-heart chat about Latino Heat]].

** EVERYTHING about her 2018 storyline with Bayley. Having been drawn out since the spring of 2017, many have given up hope of it ever being of any interest due to it never escalating a feud and the fact that whenever either woman display any type of behavior related to a heel, they almost immediately cop out.

* AwesomeMusic: Her "Sky's the Limit" theme, and her old theme, "Fastest Girl Alive".

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Yes, even Sasha is gaining a decent group of detractors. While still widely liked by the wrestling community, a lot have criticized her main roster run as being highly underwhelming, with most complaints going to her promo skills (as a face) and her ring-work, the latter which has been reckless enough that she had to actually give up the belt for a couple weeks so she could rest up and heal up a few injuries. Fans are also split on whether her HeelFaceTurn is a good idea - as The Boss character is essentially a heel and gets watered down as a face. Others argue that it would be impossible to book Sasha as a heel, which WWE tried to do at first but fans just cheered her anyway. Despite detractors, she is still beloved by a large amount of fans for what she's done for women's wrestling in WWE. It's also unclear how much of this is to do with ArcFatigue in her feud with Charlotte.

** Another camp isn't exactly happy that Sasha herself has become the spokeswoman or mouthpiece for this change. It was the collective work of her, Bayley and Becky Lynch that got women's wrestling recognition in the first place. ''Diva Dirt'' writers also took exception to Sasha's line - "no more bra and panties, no more two-minute matches, no more stupid butterfly title" - pointing out that Sasha herself had never wrestled in such matches or held the Divas' Championship. Others are fine with it, since WWE has historically had the champion or top face speak on behalf of the division.
* CharacterRerailment: A lot of detractors emerged for Sasha in 2016 during her feud with Charlotte - thanks to questionable booking, Sasha's character getting watered down, numerous promos referencing Eddie Guerrero and a downright bizarre segment where she pretended to retire just to pull a sneak-attack on Dana Brooke. In the summer of 2017 when she feuded with Alexa Bliss, she was back to winning most of her matches, subverting GoodIsDumb and managing to come across as edgy without being bitchy.

* EthnicScrappy: A leaked video from a promo class saw Sasha playing a snobby character that talked in a ghetto accent - which would have raised a lot of eyebrows given WWE's long story with racial characters. She turned heel and played the character without the accent.

** She claims she was homeschooled - as in went to school online. So it's rather interesting that a homeschooled girl ends up getting corrupted by an [[Wrestling/SummerRae evil blonde]] and turning into NXT's biggest AlphaBitch. [[Film/MeanGirls Sound familiar?]]

* MisBlamed: Sasha had to go on record to say that despite her disdain of the 'Diva Era', her dislike was entirely of the booking and degrading things the women were forced to do - and ''not'' the women themselves.

* UnfortunateImplications: It was [[http://www.lethalwow.com/2015/09/13/bobby-between-the-ropes-the-wwe-divas-and-the-uncomfortable-subject-of-race/ noted]] how, despite Sasha's obvious popularity, her trio, Team B.A.D. was placed in the HufflepuffHouse stable in the 'Divas Revolution' storyline... which just so happened to be composed of a mixed-race woman (Sasha), a black woman (Naomi), and a Samoan woman (Tamina), while 5 out of the 6 women that composed the other two trios (Team PCB and Team Bella) were white. Likewise while she has broken out of the MinorityShowGhetto in terms of fan reactions, it took her suspiciously long to get her push - and far longer than her relatively unknown contemporaries (Charlotte and Becky Lynch were still developing their characters when they got their title pushes). Exasperated with her three short title reigns on the main roster, effectively killing her momentum and credibility - in favour of a white competitor. And the next person pushed was {{Wrestling/Bayley}} who - while she's Latina - looks [[LatinoIsBrown much whiter than Sasha]].

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Her reigns as Raw Women's Champion. Having held it four times, each one of them never lasted longer than 27 days. Many have criticized the Raw creative team for being lazy and not knowing what to do with Banks. Even Sasha herself has outright stated her frustration of the short reigns (also explicitly said that she'd rather be on the [=Smackdown=] brand).

* ArcFatigue: The 2016 ''Raw'' brand chapter of her feud with Charlotte. The feud started in late June before finally ending in December. It was a feud many fans had long grown exhausted of and waited for it to simply end and for both women to move on from each other. The feud had been continued by means of rematch clause after rematch clause because the two are trading the WWE Raw Women's Championship between each other like it's a hot potato with ''Raw'' episodes (Sasha wins LOL) and pay-per-views being treated like some odd unbreakable form of home field advantage. As of the 'end of the line' at Roadblock, the two traded the title six times. This means that Sasha was a three-time champion and Charlotte a four-time champ, just over a year after both debuted on the main roster, before the belt itself was even a year old.

** With {{Wrestling/Bayley}} who since their feud on NXT has become something of a MoralityPet for Sasha. In contrast to the grudging respect Sasha has for Becky, Bayley is the one who can easily bring out Sasha's softer side. Sasha sincerely hugs Bayley in tears after her Women's Championship win, and the two hug enthusiastically when Bayley appears at Battleground to help her out.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: A ''huge'' favorite among NXT Divas on Diva Dirt. She also seems to be popular with the NXT live audience; see RootingForTheEmpire. Despite not being in the title picture upon her main roster call-up, she had gained a '''enormous''' fanbase to the point where she was arguably one of the most popular people in all of the company, male of female. "WE WANT SASHA" comments became so incredibly common during any Diva's match not featuring her that Sasha herself pinned a tweet on her Twitter page that read: "Be so good they can't ignore you." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mx-S0awvOg Listen to the massive pop she received at TLC 2015.]]