Sasha Banks and Naomi still haven’t been on WWE TV since receiving their indefinite suspensions following a walk-out back in late May. Various reports about the pair being quietly granted their release from the company and removed from the internal rosters have popped up ever since, but WWE has never outright confirmed it nor have they removed the pair from the official WWE.com roster (though, for whatever it’s worth, that roster still includes Vince McMahon despite his retirement announcement). But then a report from WrestlingNews.co dropped on Monday stating the pair had agreed to return to the company now that Paul “Triple H” Levesque is overseeing WWE Creative.
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The two did not appear on Raw despite WWE’s Twitter account dropping a hint about their return, but a few more insiders have since provided updates on the report. Bryan Alvarez stated on Wrestling Observer Live that he believed the initial report was accurate. Dave Meltzer then noted in his daily update for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “Regarding the Sasha Banks and Naomi rumors of them returning, I don’t know that it’s signed yet but it is moving in that direction and internally they do expect it to happen.”
Meltzer also discussed WWE’s attempt to reconcile with the pair last week while on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast. The pair reportedly wanted to defend their WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships against Nikki A.S.H. and Doudrop at June’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, but WWE’s Creative team wanted each of them to challenge for one of the Women’s Championships and lose in singles competition. The two objected and opted to leave just as Raw was getting started, resulting in them getting stripped of the tag titles, suspended and publicly chastised by commentators on WWE programming for several weeks.
“It’s kind of up in the air. I mean, they’re gone. The last I heard was that there would be attempts to be made to reconcile, especially with Vince gone,” Meltzer said. “So, it’s up in the air. I don’t think there’s anything definite just yet.”
Vince McMahon announced on July 22 that he was retiring from all positions within WWE as accusations of sexual misconduct and inquiries from federal prosecutors over unreported expenses continued to mount. Levesque was named Head of Creative the following Monday.
