Latest Update on Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair Ahead of SummerSlam

This year’s SummerSlam is supposed to feature at WrestleMania 37 main event rematch as Sasha Banks will challenge Bianca Belair for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. However, over the weekend both Banks and Belair were scheduled to wrestle in Charlotte, North Carolina and Columbia, South Carolina, but were pulled from the events in what was described as “unforeseen circumstances.” This immediately led some fans to panic, given that SummerSlam is less than a week away.

PWInsider‘s Mike Johnson released a report regarding the two on Sunday night, stating, “PWInsider.com has spoken with several sources inside the company who expressed concern their announced match will not take place at Summerslam this weekend, but there is nothing confirmed in that regard.” Stay tuned for any further updates on the situation as they become available.

Banks and Belair’s first match saw “The EST” win her first championship in WWE while also marking the first time women of color competed in the WrestleMania main event. The pair won an ESPY for the momentous occasion and have talked about the significance of the match in several interviews.

“It was, that whole month was such an exciting thing for me,” Banks said on the Just Women Sports podcast in June. “We had no idea who was going to main event WrestleMania. The year before I was telling my best friend, Bayley, like ‘I’m going to main event WrestleMania 37.’ It was always my dream to main event a WrestleMania. So I was just putting it out there in the universe and really just striving and working towards it. So the month before WrestleMania, I really thought, I heard rumblings that it was going to be the guys. And I was like ‘okay, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? All I can do is be me and just keep doing my work as best I can and show Vince that if I’m not the main event, I don’t know what main event you’re going to have.’

“It was legit the Wednesday before WrestleMania I found out that we were the main event,” she continued. “And I was again so nervous because I was asking around ‘did you get the card? Did anyone tell you?’ And they’re like ‘you’re not the main event.’ And I’m like ‘nobody told me that!’ I’m like ‘okay, I still have time because Vince hasn’t said anything. I’m going to go to rehearsals and if I find out, all I can do is maybe ask Vince and that’s all I can do.’ I went to rehearsals and TJ Wilson, who’s our producer, he told me that I was the main event. And I just instantly started crying and was just like ‘wow. No way!’ Like I knew it, it’s something that I wanted. Just to finally to hear the words that ‘you’re the main event.’ It was so overwhelming, it’s bringing back tears. It’s crazy, it’s crazy, because it’s the biggest thing you can ever do in wrestling. My heroes haven’t gotten to do what I’ve done. So not only that, and just being a woman and being an African American woman. We’re checking off so many things. But the biggest thing that I got to check off was my biggest dream in my heart. Fully accomplishing that last checkmark on my list of everything I had written down since I was a kid. That was just last month and I am on vacation right now still soaking that in. I’m just ready for what’s next.”