Sasha Banks Talks Wrestling Training In Mexico
Sasha Banks has opened up about some recent wrestling training that she did in Mexico.
It has been about seven months since Sasha Banks stepped into a wrestling ring, but it is expected that she will appear for New Japan Pro Wrestling at Wrestle Kingdom 17 on January 4th. It has since been reported that Banks, who goes by her real name of Mercedes Varnado outside of WWE, is reportedly getting paid a large amount of money for her NJPW appearances, perhaps even more than what Chris Jericho got when he wrestled for NJPW.
While there have been rumors of Banks possibly returning to WWE some day, it hasn’t been confirmed anywhere, so it’s possible she’ll just appear for NJPW and perhaps other wrestling promotions like AEW. During her WWE career, Sasha Banks was a six-time Women’s Champion on the main roster and a three-time Women’s Tag Team Champion. Banks left WWE in May after Naomi and herself weren’t happy about the creative direction of the company.
Bayley is one of Sasha’s closest friends that has been an on-screen rival and ally at times including when they won the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles together in 2019. Banks appeared on Bayley’s Instagram Livestream on December 14th to raise money for Family Giving Tree. During her appearance, Banks talked about training in a wrestling ring in Mexico recently.
“I miss Mexico so much. I think about it every single day. What a huge crazy honor to live in a different country, let alone Mexico. Just to go out there to train lucha libre with these top legends that I grew up watching, whether it was Ricky Marvin, The Juice Juventud, Skayde, I have been such a fan of his work. The way that he teaches, he taught a lot of CHIKARA Pro guys. Claudio (Castagnoli), Drew Gulak. I’m a huge fan of Claudio’s work.”
“I wanted to get my basing down, my rolls down, so I found him at the gym and freaked out like a fan. ‘You’re here. You’re actually here. I’ve been DMing you for years, trying to find an email, trying to go to a seminar in the United States.’ There I was in Mexico, training with him. Craziest timing, so meant to be. Trained with five different people whether it was Ricky Marvin, The Juice [Juventud], Mamba, Skayda, Mr. Iguana. There was so much. I miss it daily. I’m homesick from Mexico because I belong there.”
Banks and Bayley were joined by NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez during the chat as well. Roxanne talked about how much she looked up to both of them.
A Bayley-Sasha-Roxanne chat. And Indi Hartwell posted a message. pic.twitter.com/ctXjWpOxXX
— John Canton (TJRWrestling) (@johnreport) December 14, 2022
Sasha Banks went on to talk about how when you mess up a spot while training in Mexico, they have fun with it rather than harshly criticize somebody.
“On the last day of training, Skayde kept hitting me over the head because I kept messing up all the spots. ‘Nooo.’ He called me ‘El Stupida.’ I was like, ‘I’m gonna cry. What the hell.’ I was doing two a days, training in the morning, training at night. Everything is on the other side. He is so ‘zippity doo da’ and I’m like, ‘I didn’t understand.’ [claps heads on head] ‘El stupida.'”
During her appearance on Bayley’s Instagram livestream, Sasha Banks didn’t talk about her NJPW appearance or why she left WWE.