The Mandalorian: WWE “Tried So Hard” to Prevent Mercedes Moné’s Star Wars Debut

Mercedes Moné has been busy since exiting WWE. The former Sasha Banks departed the sports-entertainment giant in 2022 and took her talents to New Japan Pro Wrestling. Within a couple of weeks of her debut, Moné captured the IWGP Women’s Championship, and her work outside of wrestling allowed for that newly-minted title to be paraded around places New Japan never went before. Moné brought the IWGP Women’s Championship to The Mandalorian Season 3 premiere, a show she guest-starred in as Mandalorian warrior Koska Reeves. Moné’s role within the galaxy far, far away represents one of the biggest Hollywood gigs a wrestler has landed while maintaining his or her full-time in-ring career.

WWE “Tried So Hard” to Block Mercedes Moné’s Star Wars Role

WWE did not want The Boss in Star Wars.

Speaking to Hot 97, AEW TBS Champion Mercedes Moné reflected on getting her start in acting when she debuted on The Mandalorian Season 1 in Fall 2020. At the time, Moné wrestled as Sasha Banks for WWE, and her employer was not keen on letting her take on the intergalactic project.

“I love WWE, but they tried so hard to not make me do The Mandalorian,” Moné said. “[They] put me on house shows when I was supposed to film. It was pulling teeth just to get on that show, just to be a part of that show.”

Moné has appeared in five total episodes of The Mandalorian across the show’s second and third seasons. Depending on whether she was present at The Mandalorian Season 3 reshoots, all five of those episodes were shot while she was still under WWE contract.

“With these new doors of opportunity here at AEW, I have all the time in the world to go do acting and more,” Moné praised her new employer. “(AEW President) Tony Khan will pick me up on the private jet to take me to the shows and back to the other show to film. It’s so beautiful. It’s so cool that I get these new doors, and I feel like it’s just the universe being like, ‘We want you to be this beautiful superstar that we see you as.’”

Moné has since acted in a feature film, starring opposite Lucas Till and Ruby Rose in The Collective (2023). Today, Moné wrestles every Wednesday on AEW Dynamite.