Sasha Banks Reveals Real Reason Behind Her Hiatus From WWE

Sasha Banks appeared on WFNZ in Charlotte this week ahead of her Clash of Champions match with Becky Lynch on Sunday, and decided to address the elephant in the room when it came to her WWE career. The four-time former women's champion disappeared from WWE television after WrestleMania 35, leading to dozens of reports stating that she and the WWE were on the outs over how creative was using her. Those reports even went so far as to say she and Bayley were visibly upset backstage after unceremoniously dropping the WWE Women's tag titles at WrestleMania, which only added more fuel to the speculation fire.

Banks finally returned to WWE television in mid-August and seem to indicate in a promo that all of the rumors of her frustrations were true. But since it was being turned into a storyline, it was hard to tell if she was simply in character.

During the interview Banks made it sound like the break was more for her mental and physical health.

"I've been doing this for seven years straight, no breaks," Banks said. "So you know, people need to step back and re-evaluate their lives, take care of their souls, and their minds. I'm back and I'm better than ever, and I got myself a championship match on Sunday so, I think I did quite well for myself, right?"

Banks attacked Natalya and Lynch with a steel chair on her first night back, turning her heel for the first time in several years. Within weeks she managed to recruit Bayley over to her side, which led to yet another beat down on "The Man." "The Boss" will now get a shot at Lynch's Raw Women's Championship at Sunday's show.

Lynch has been champion since she beat both Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair in the main event of WrestleMania 35. In the months since then, she's called out the rest of the Women's Division for not stepping up to challenge her.

"I was going to say I've got plenty of people coming for 'The Man,' but do I really?" Lynch said during an interview leading up to SummerSlam. "It's kind of a disappointment, I don't think I have enough people stepping up to 'The Man,' stepping up to the top dog, stepping up to the one that proved that anything can be done in this industry. That we can achieve anything, that if you just put your mind to it and stop sitting in that back, trying to be liked by everybody that you can actually do great things in this business. That you can change the game, you can change this industry. You can change the way people perceive this industry.

"You can be the first WWE Superstar, man, women, or child — I can say child because we did have a child tag team champion — on the cover of the ESPN Magazine. But no, people are just sitting in the back brushing each other's hair [saying], 'Oh, you're doing a great job, sweetie.' Come on guys, let's get out there and fight, this is the conflict business," she added. "And yet, they're on Twitter complaining about, 'Oh she said this, she said that,' if you actually were smart or if you were actually intelligent, you would step to 'The Man,' you would want to make money. You realize I'm a freakin' WrestleMania main eventer."