Wrestling / Sasha Banks

It's Boss Time!

Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado (born January 26, 1992) is an American professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling under the ring name Mercedes Moné. She is best known for her time in WWE, where she wrestled under the name Sasha Banks.

Mercedes trained in Chaotic Wrestling and debuted for them in 2010 under the name Mercedes KV, where she teamed with Nikki Roxx and won their Women's Title belt from Alexxis in 2011. She's also worked for NWA On Fire, Beyond, NECW and Top Rope Promotions, and won the RWC No Limit Title belt in 2012 before signing to WWE.

Under her former ring name, she was one fourth of WWE's "Four Horsewomen" (alongside Charlotte Flair, Bayley, and Becky Lynch), a cohort of four women who came through NXT and were a major part of the revolution of women's wrestling in WWE, through their stellar matches.

She is a one-time NXT Women's Champion, a five-time Raw Women's Champion, a one-time SmackDown Women's Champion, one of the inaugural Women's Tag Team Champions together with Bayley (titles they've held twice, and the second team to accomplish the feat), the fourth Women's Triple Crown Champion and the third Women's Grand Slam Champion. In 2020, she also made her acting debut as Koska Reeves on The Mandalorian.

After controversially walking out on WWE in 2022 along with her then-tag team partner Naomi, Mercedes's status with the company was in question for the rest of the year, and it was eventually reported that negotiations for a new contract between her and the company had fallen through. On January 4, 2023, she made her first appearance for New Japan Pro-Wrestling at Wrestle Kingdom 17, joining the roster of their women's promotion World Wonder Ring ST★RDOM and debuting the Mercedes Moné name. She would defeat Kairi to become IWGP Women's Champion for the first time on February 18, 2023; that December, it was announced that her NJPW/Stardom contract had ended. On March 13, 2024, she debuted for AEW at Dynamite: Big Busine$$, a special episode effectively named for her.

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It's trope time!

• Aborted Arc: Sasha's friendship with Bayley was tested in 2018 when Bayley had enough of Sasha taking advantage of her and attacked her during June. A month later, all animosity between them were resolved after Sasha told Bayley that she loved her.
• All There in the Manual: She's a first cousin of Snoop Dogg, as William Regal has mentioned once or twice. This was more regularly brought up upon her advancement to the main roster, with the (somewhat) logical conclusion of Snoop accompanying Sasha to the ring for a WrestleMania entrance. In 2019, she received a remixed entrance theme, with Snoop contributing the rap verses.
• Alliterative Name: As Mercedes Moné.
• Alpha Bitch: Expect her character to unabashedly come off like this when she's a heel.
• Always Someone Better: On both sides of this trope. She's talented enough that multiple wrestlers have rated either her or Asuka as the top women's wrestler out there. However, in 5 years on the main (Raw/Smackdown) WWE roster, she's never been scripted to have a successful singles title defense in any of her first 5 reigns as Raw Women's Champion, and is currently on track to have the worst track record at WrestleMania of all WWE Superstars, also at 0 wins, 6 losses, as of WrestleMania 37. FINALLY earned her first victory albeit in a tag team match at WrestleMania 38.
• Amazonian Beauty: She's definitely got a muscular build. She was featured on the cover of the women's Muscle & Fitness magazine in 2016, and WWE.com ranked her number 13 out of the top 25 best abs in WWE history, in a list that included both male and female superstars.
• Anti-Hero: Even when she's a face, she's still generally arrogant and attention-seeking, but does genuinely care about her friends.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Hers seem to be arrogant blondes, of which there is no shortage in WWE, particularly Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss.
  • She's had an on/off dynamic to this effect with Bayley; as of this writing, their hatred of each other is in full effect.
• Ascended Meme: Of sorts; in response to her NXT Phrase Catcher "Sasha's ratchet!", there was an extended period of time where she wore a shirt that said "I'm not ratchet"◊.
• Ass Kicks You: Whenever she is caught by her opponent from behind, she would thrust her rear backwards in order to knock her away. There was also a stinkface she delivered to Emma at a WWE live event.
• Badass Boast: The acronym of her "BOSS" nickname (see Fun with Acronyms below) means that whenever she calls herself "The Legit Boss", she's literally saying she is "The Legitimately Built-on-Self-Success Sasha Banks". This despite being Snoop Dogg's cousin, which she didn't often bring up in her wrestling life until after she was already a WWE main roster star.
• Being Evil Sucks: There's some fairly strong subtext that underneath the bling and the attitude, she wishes she could have the same happy and lovable personality that Bayley does. By summer 2016 she's let loose a bit more after a few months as a face on the main roster and even acknowledged the likes of Bayley and Enzo Amore as friends.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Notable aversion for Roadblock 2016. One of her many matches against Charlotte saw Charlotte inadvertently nail Sasha in the face with her foot during a kickout. It started with a mild but visible nosebleed and about five minutes latOH DEAR GOD.◊ Notably, no one stepped in to stop the match, and Sasha finished the rest of her match with the entire lower half of her face covered in blood.
• Beta Bitch: To Summer Rae, and later, to Charlotte Flair. When the Beautiful Fierce Females split, Sasha went out on her own. She eventually evolved into an Alpha Bitch in her own right.
• Blessed with Suck: In 2020, she won the Raw Women's Championship for a record fifth time. Too bad she lost it back to the previous champion in her first title defense just like the previous four.
• Boisterous Bruiser: She will throw just as much trash talk as she does punches.
• Borrowed Catch Phrase: A variation. She got one of Charlotte's t-shirts and altered the caption "Do It With Flair" to "Do It Like a Boss".
• Broken Win/Loss Streak: She ended up breaking two of her losing streaks in late 2020. First was finally winning a match in the Hell in a Cell structure when she defeated Bayley for the Smackdown Women's Championship at the eponymous PPV. The next was finally making a successful title defense on the main roster against Bayley, much to fans' surprise.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • She has never successfully defended the Raw Women's Championship. She's won it a then-record five times, yet barely has held it over 100 days...
  • She is also 1-6 at WrestleMania, and 0-2 inside Hell in a Cell, going into her third match in the structure. She finally broke the latter streak with a (depending on who you ask) cathartic win over Bayley to capture her first Smackdown Women's Title. She managed to defend the title successfully, but has largely been ignored as champion, barely getting TV time, with it instead going mostly to her former bestie Bayley, Carmella and Bianca Belair.
• Cardboard Pal: Summer Rae on a stick (a cardboard cut-out of Summer's head).
• Catchphrase:
  • Mostly used on Twitter, but it's "Bank on it."
  • Sporadically kicks off the Backstabber that segues into the Banks Statement with the line "Nighty night!"
• Characterization Marches On: When she first turned heel, she was a generic Beta Bitch to Summer Rae. As time went on, she adopted the familiar look of sunglasses, rhinestones and tacky outfits. After turning face on the main roster, the character became a goofier, sassier version of her real life personality.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: All four of WWE's Four Horsewomen have turned on each other at least once. But with Charlotte almost exclusively wrestling as a heel on Raw/Smackdown, Becky being a Tweener, and Bayley being a pure babyface until 2019, Sasha was the most likely one to pull a Heel–Face Revolving Door and turn on someone, usually Bayley. Corey Graves said it best:
  Corey Graves: If you've got a back, Sasha's got a knife.
  • It's frequent enough that the trope has become almost entirely literal. Sasha's use of the Double Knee Backbreaker is called the "Backstabber", which is used in almost every match to set up her finishing submission, the "Banks Statement".
  • In 2020, for once, a heel Bayley betrayed Sasha, and would "pillmanize" Sasha's neck twice in the following weeks, claiming the attack was preemptive. As this had a bit of truth, Sasha's resultant Heel–Face Turn was more of a Hazy-Feel Turn.
• Cool Shades: In NXT, she had a signature pair of shutter shades, but her taste has since evolved to a more customized pair with "LEGIT" at the top and "BOSS" printed across the lenses.
• Corrupt the Cutie:
  • She managed to do pretty much exactly the same thing to Becky Lynch as Summer Rae had done to her, with very similar results. Ironically on the main roster it was Becky who was able to bring about a Heel–Face Turn for her.
  • Ultimately ended up doing the same thing to Bayley, who turned heel for the first time in WWE because of Sasha's Toxic Friend Influence and Bayley's extreme loyalty to her.
• Cut Short:
  • Her run as Chaotic Wrestling's women's champion due to being signing a contract with NXT. She didn't even stick around to drop the thing, denying Ivy Fit her logical title shot for beating Mercedes.
  • 17 days into her Ring Wars Carolina No Limitz title run, Mercedes KV was being interviewed in her Boston hotel room when Mia "The Scandinavian Sweetheart" Svensson burst in, beat KV up, forced a referee shirt around the neck of and pin fall from the interviewer and then got in a car and sped off with the belt.
• Dark Magical Girl: There's strong subtext that a lot of Sasha's bluster and confidence is covering up for her insecurity. And the fact that she breaks character pretty readily whenever she's shown an ounce of legitimate compassion by Bayley or Renee Young seems to indicate that Sasha is lonely and scared, not truly cynical and bitter.
• Dark Reprise: After turning heel in 2019, Sasha's theme song went from cheerful to arrogant, with intense brass instruments and darker lyrics courtesy of Snoop Dogg:
  She's a legit boss, but y'all knew that
  Da Big Boss Dogg, yeah, I had to do that
  That's my family and we so G
  Bow down to the new champ of WWE!
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • Mercedes has made no secret that she's a HUGE Eddie Guerrero fan, and her character is inspired by his as a heel and her wrestling is definitely inspired by him and other WCW-style cruiserweights. She's even mentioned that she'd use a Frog Splash at Mania^note She did..
  • Between the frequent use of her knees (see Extremity Extremist below), the arrogance when winning and the total cowardice when she's losing, the one-word Red Baron that screams "top dog", and the association from looking up to a Flair to looking down at everyone, the Boss almost becomes reminiscent of one of her own bosses…
  • Also somewhat to Kevin Owens. The two have, at least in WWE, longstanding histories with a lovable underdog babyface character (with Bayley in this case playing the role of Sasha's Sami Zayn) that, for better or worse, often dictate most of their storylines and booking (and ultimately lead to both Zayn and Bayley undergoing their first WWE heel turns to support Owens and Sasha). Also, each had an initial run of success not long after debuting only to be oddly pushed down the card and locked out of the title scene.
• The Dog Bites Back: While still a face, she had a match against Charlotte. When the latter chopped her, Sasha suddenly got incredibly aggressive — as a possible hint that she wasn't as nice as she seemed.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Subverted; it's commonly believed that she provided the vocals for her own entrance music "Sky's The Limit", but in actuality it was a joke rumor started by Bayley that was taken seriously.
• Double Take: Did a magnificent one when the crowd first chanted "Ratchet!" at her (in a match against Emma). According to her, she thought they were calling her "rat shit" — and when someone else understood and explained that it was "ratchet", she was surprised again at the idea of being described by such a ghetto slur.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Her first appearance to the main roster WWE audience outside of NXT was as one of the scantily-clad concubines accompanying Triple H's epic entrance at WrestleMania XXX.
  • Mercedes was first seen on AEW programming as part of the audience during All In 2023 in London.
• Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: She has quite the selection of bling.
• Evil Feels Good: After she turned heel on Paige, she looked somewhat troubled by what she had done. But by the time she was backstage with Summer, she admitted that she had loved doing it.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • After splitting from Charlotte and Summer and trying to make a name for herself, her formerly dark blonde hair became brown. Likewise when she first challenged Charlotte for the Women's Championship, she added red to her hair. After she split from Team BAD, her hair became pink and she wore it straight. Following WrestleMania it became a milder shade of magenta, and then purple following her final rematch against Charlotte. Then right after her Face–Heel Turn in 2019, she ditched a purple wig to reveal blue underneath.
  • Her debut in New Japan Pro-Wrestling sees her with orange/red hair pattern in the styles of flames that's burning a blue pattern, a signal that her past as Sasha Banks is done.
• Extremity Extremist: Sasha uses her knees A LOT. From a running double-knee into the corner, to her double-knee drop to an opponent draped over the ropes, to her double-knee backbreaker she uses to set up the Banks Statement.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • After Paige beat her in a match, she offered babyface Sasha a handshake, but having gotten a pep talk from Alpha Bitch Summer Rae about making herself relevant, Sasha attacked Paige instead and thus turned heel.
  • Made her surprise return for the first time since WrestleMania 35 by attacking Natalya and Becky Lynch, notably interrupting Natalya's heartfelt message about her late father and brutally assaulting Becky with a steel chair.
• Finishing Move: Bank Statement, a bridging crossface, often set up by a double knee backbreaker. Early on, she used a straight-jacket neckbreaker slam called Bankrupt, but it was later used more as a signature move.
  • As Mercedes Moné, she still uses the Bank Statement but she added another one in her repertoire, a Gory Special dropped into a DDT which she calls the Moné Maker.
• Forehead of Doom: A noticeable feature of hers which she, herself, acknowledged.
• Foreshadowing: A major hint to Mercedes signing with AEW came with the announcement of ''Big Business", where its promotional image featured the name of the city of Boston, but spelled as "Bo$$ton". During her WWE run, one of Sasha Banks' epitaphs was "The Boss".
• Fun with Acronyms: Sasha must really like acronyms, as she's been in three stables with acronyms in their names:
  • She, Summer Rae, and Charlotte were BFFs, the Beautiful Fierce Females.
  • She and Becky Lynch named themselves Team BAE (Best At Everything).
  • She later joined Tamina Snuka and Naomi as Team B.A.D. This originally stood for Best At Dominating, but was changed to Beautiful Alpha Divas (at least on Naomi's Twitter the week before Sasha showed up) and then to Beautiful And Dangerous—all three names being similar to the above team names Sasha's associated with, making her connection to the group feel like Fridge Brilliance.
  • Even her nickname "The Boss" is one as well, with "BOSS" being short for "Built On Self Success".
• Gem-Encrusted: She loves her rhinestones.
• Girl Next Door: As a face.
• Girly Bruiser: Is stunningly gorgeous as well as a very good wrestler. Look at her Finishing Moves—very very atypical WWE woman moves that wouldn't seem out of place on a technical male wrestler. She also gave herself pink hair in 2016 and will wear some pink on her ring gear, not to mention plenty of rhinestone-studded jackets.
• The Glomp: Gave one to Bayley after the latter defeated her to win the NXT Women's Championship.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Tends to wear some gold on all her ring outfits, as well as her accessories.
• Good Is Dumb:
  • She only won about two matches as a face and both were treated as upsets—with fancy pins. She didn't gain a finisher or start winning regularly until she turned heel.
  • She's also very fond of using this as a tactic on faces. At Takeover: Respect, Bayley offered her a handshake...and got smashed into the mat for it.
• Hard Head: Aside from her occasional usage of her head as a weapon, there's her Raw match with Becky Lynch from 2016 which ended after Becky delivered a series of headbutts to Sasha. While Banks was knocked out, so was Becky, which resulted in a double pinfall.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: After being betrayed by Bayley in 2020, Sasha turned face but keeps her heel tendencies, even after her feud with Bayley ended.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: After losing a match to Paige, she was visibly annoyed at it. Paige went to shake her hand, acknowledging her as a Worthy Opponent. Sasha rebuffed this and attacked Paige instead.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: From 2020 to 2021, Sasha has made multiple turns depending on who she is feuding with at the time.
• Hero-Worshipper: Sasha is a fan of Eddie Guerrero and uses some of his movesets as a tribute. On one episode of Raw in 2016, she uses Eddie's Wounded Gazelle Gambit tactics (with a title belt instead of a chair) on Dana Brooke to get her evicted during her match with Charlotte.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Sasha was essentially the one who goaded Bayley to do a Face–Heel Turn late in 2019. Overtime, Bayley proved to be Eviler than Thou, eventually turning on Sasha the following year.
• Hypocrite: Whenever Bayley and Sasha feuded in the main roster, the latter often calls out to Bayley for betrayal and destroying their friendship. However, Sasha often leaves out of the fact that she had betrayed Bayley several times since their NXT days. This is more prominent in the beginning of 2018 where Sasha betrayed Bayley during the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber matches but has the audacity to complained when Bayley begins to abandon her during tag team matches.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: She doesn't get "ratchet" chanted at her for no reason.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sasha Banks may be a ruthless, near-heartless competitor, but Mercedes Kaestner-Varnado is not. Examples of her nicer side coming out include:
  • Her tearful hug with Bayley after their match at Takeover: Brooklyn.
  • At Takeover: Respect, when the entire roster including Stephanie McMahon and Triple H came out to hand her flowers and congratulate her on her performance, she literally collapsed in tears.
  • Also from Respect: did she make Bayley's mega-fan Izzy cry with pitch-perfect heeling? Absolutely. However, when the cameras turned off...she gave her massive bouquet of flowers to Izzy as an apology.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: She has wrestled in her natural (brown) hair, as a blonde, magenta haired, pink haired, and blue haired.
• Kayfabe: When not getting emotional during milestone and watershed moments, she is known for never breaking character. There are only three recorded instances of it, one of which was written into the story:
  • Her backstage interview with Renee Young after winning the title where Renee specifically addressed questions to Mercedes the performer instead of Sasha the character.
  • The curtain call with the rest of the Four Horsewomen after dropping the title to Bayley at Takeover: Brooklyn.
  • The promo several weeks later, in which she explained the above away as Bayley having earned her respect "for that night only," opened with her voice audibly shaking as she talked about the overwhelmingly positive reception to the first title match.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Audrey Marie cruelly sent letters from a secret admirer to her. Then attacked her from behind and claimed it was in retaliation for Sasha upstaging her. This angle was run on the main roster in mid-2013, but with A.J. Lee and Kaitlyn as Audrey and Sasha, respectively.
  • After Bayley lost to Charlotte at the live special, Sasha came out just to talk trash and rub Bayley's loss in her face.
  • During the Iron (Wo)Man match at NXT Takeover: Respect, after damaging Bayley heavily by tossing her into the video screen, she proceeds to scream at Izzy, a noted fan of Bayley, making the girl cry. It was quite extreme for even her, as the announcers (including Corey Graves, who had previously defended Sasha's ruthless strategy earlier) were quick to point out.
  • Speaking of the first example with Bayley, karma eventually bit Sasha back — albeit post-Heel–Face Turn — when she tried to be a Graceful Loser after ultimately losing her own feud with Charlotte. Instead, Nia Jax attacked Sasha — thus worsening her post-Hell in a Cell 2016 injuries — just For the Evulz.
  • In 2018, Sasha portrays herself as a terrible friend towards Bayley. First, she betrayed her at the first ever Women's Royal Rumble by eliminating her, then the next month, at the first ever women's Elimination Chamber, when she kicked Bayley off the pod there are on while smiling smugly at her. While Bayley justified both times as every person for themselves, she berated Sasha for betraying her friend so easily.
  • After her 2019 return, Sasha interrupted several promos of Natalya reminiscing about her late father to attack her and mock her, calling her a crybaby and on one point saying, "Go to hell, Nattie, and tell your daddy I said hi."
• Laser-Guided Karma: At NXT Takeover: Brooklyn, she repeatedly slammed Bayley's arm onto the steel steps in an attempt to incapacitate her and successfully defend her title. Not only did it not work, but at the following special NXT Takeover: Respect, Bayley decided to return the favor and slam Sasha's arm on the steps during their iron-man rematch. For Bayley, however, it worked successfully and allowed her to escape the Bank Statement and retain the title by forcing a submission at the last second.
• Like Goes with Like: The only reason for her joining a faction with Naomi and Tamina, with whom she had no kayfabe connections? Both she and Naomi were black, while Tamina is Samoan.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Even as a heel, she's loved by many fans both for her sass and for being genuinely Badass Adorable. The original meaning of the Team BAD acronym ("Beautiful Alpha Divas") almost lampshades this — though ironically, this was the version Naomi came up with before Sasha joined the gang. In-universe, she's also shown that she is capable of showing a softer side, notably with her tearful interview after winning the NXT Women's Championship or her sincere hugging of Charlotte after a hard-fought match.
• Mood Whiplash: In an interview after winning the NXT Women's Championship, she was initially in-character, boasting that the belt only proved that she was the best, as she had been saying all along. When Renee Young discretely asked for Mercedes-the-person's reaction (essentially phrasing it as "Okay, so if that's how Sasha Banks feels, how do you feel?"), she quickly burst into Tears of Joy and talked about how it was a dream come true.
• Ms. Fanservice: Considered one of the most beautiful female wrestlers of her generation, as described by fans and peers (e.g. Kevin Nash, Chris Jericho, and infamously Sammy Guevara), and frequently flaunts her looks as part of her character (especially in the more narcissistic persona she adopts as a heel).
• Never My Fault: After Elimination Chamber 2018, Sasha acted surprise after Bayley started to abandon her during tag team matches and called her out for this, completely forgetting that she betrayed Bayley first during the first two pay-per-views of the year.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the summer of 2014, she had a very well-received match with Alexa Bliss that got rave reviews...at a house show, with most mentions of it being done on WWE.com.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: On July 16, 2018, her and Bayley — while enemies — were paired in a tag-team match against Alicia Fox and Dana Brooke. When Fox began targeting Bayley, Sasha attacked both team members to save her. Once confronted by Bayley in a subsequent backstage segment, she admitted that she saw herself as this for her.
  "It's one thing for me to beat you up, but I'll be damned if anybody else does."
• Phrase Catcher:
  • Michael Cole has an affinity for saying "It's Boss time!" whenever her music hits.
  • In her NXT days, "Sasha's ratchet!" ("No, she's not!")
• Power Trio:
  • The longest-lasting and best-known incarnation of the BFFs, which included Sasha (obviously), Summer Rae, and Charlotte.
  • Sasha was added to Team BAD by Stephanie McMahon when Naomi demanded that she and Tamina Snuka get to take part in the battle for control in the main roster Divas's division between Team Bella (the Bella Twins and Alicia Fox) and Team PCB (Paige, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte).
• Red Baron:
  • As Sasha Banks: "The (Legit) Boss", "The Blueprint"^note Triple-reference if you count her cousin's Crip blues, and "The Standard".
  • As Mercedes Moné: "The CEO."
• Rich Bitch: An integral part of her heel character is constantly flaunting and gloating over her glamour and riches, to the extent of actively singing her praise for Vince McMahon and telling online haters to "stay broke".
• The Rival:
  • Was developing sort of friendly rivalries with Nikki Roxx and Ivy Fit, not so friendly Mistress Belmont in her short US independent stint.
  • Bayley. They've probably got the record for most singles matches between two women in NXT. The Undertaker praised one of them as his favourite wrestling bout in ages. Also, their rivalry extends beyond the squared circle whether it's trying to be a fellow wrestlers BFF or in video games on Up, Up, Down, Down.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: She donned pink hair for much of her face run, and — perhaps symbolically — removed a pink wig to reveal blue hair for her Face–Heel Turn.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Her five Raw Women's Championship reigns all ended up with the previous champions regaining it in Sasha's first title defense.
• Shaking the Rump: In 2021 she began kicking off her entrance by sensually dancing to her theme song on the stage, dance in which the main movements are of her hips.
• She's Back: After losing the Women's Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 35 left her visibly distraught, she all but disappeared from the company until making a surprise heel return on August 12, 2019.
• Shout-Out:
  • Her WrestleMania 32 ring gear was one to Eddie Guerrero, as was the frog splash she performed during the match. Eddie's nephew Chavo Guerrero Jr. didn't appreciate it very much though — he claimed that she did the move badly.
  • She changed her Twitter display name to $asha Broken Bank$ whilst she was out with a back injury. Matt acknowledged it himself.
  • Gave one to Trish Stratus and Lita in a Worked Shoot promo about the Women's Revolution when she returned from that injury.
• Southies: Seemingly Mercedes KV's gimmick even though she's from California. But she did feud with Lexxus...
• Tag Team:
  • With Summer Rae as the BFFs, before Charlotte joined them to turn it into a Power Trio.
  • With Becky Lynch as Team BAE.
• Tears of Joy: As noted above, her first interview as NXT Women's Champion.
• The So-Called Coward: While her first instinct at the start of nearly every match she's in seems to be to make a hasty retreat from her opponent, Sasha has proved that when push comes to shove, and shove comes to shove-through-the-wall, she will stand firm against her opponent. Case in point; standing up to Dana Brooke and Emma and being willing to fight both of them by herself.
• Token Minority: Formed a Power Trio in NXT along with Caucasians Charlotte Flair and Summer Rae. You could also say the same towards her time as Triple H's entourage in WrestleMania XXX along with Charlotte and Alexa Bliss.
• Token Minority Couple: Of the Four Horsewomen, she and fellow non-Caucasian Bayley have teamed up the most. Hell, they were even the inaugural Women's Tag Team Champions (the revived versions)!
• Took a Level in Badass: Originally just Summer Rae's lackey, Sasha's performance against former BFF Charlotte cemented her as one of the top Women's wrestlers in the industry.
• Took a Level in Kindness: It was a slow turn but she eventually showed a softer side, starting with her NXT Women's Championship win. She began to acknowledge her fellow women as Worthy Opponents and had some grudging respect to show for Becky Lynch.
• Toxic Friend Influence: She is heavily implied to be the cause of Bayley's late-2019 Face–Heel Turn. Bayley was conflicted when Sasha marked her return by beating the hell out of Natalya and Becky Lynch, saying she considered all three of them her friends and didn't know what else to say, but when she tried to prevent Sasha from hurting Becky again, she ended up turning around and beating up Becky herself. Ironically, though, this backfired for her as Bayley would go on to become an increasingly unpleasant and self-deluding heel who kept Sasha in her shadow.
• Town Girls: Team BAD fit this. Tamina as the butch - presented as something of a Brawn Hilda of the group and is also the muscle of the team. Sasha herself as the femme - with her love of rhinestones and accessories. Naomi meanwhile as the neither.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Sasha met her husband Sarath Ton ("Mikaze") when they were indie wrestlers, and he designed his own wrestling gear then. He started to do hers as well, and was eventually hired by WWE in a seamster role. He often gets to put a lot of her design requests and accents into her in-ring and out of ring attire.
• Ur-Example: She competed in the first:
  • Match Type - WWE Women's: Iron Man, Hell in a Cell, Royal Rumble (being the first entry), Wrestlemania Battle Royale, and Elimination Chamber matches
  • Championship Match - WWE Women's: Inaugural WWE Women's Tag Team Champion (won, teaming with Bayley) (the previous title was the WWF Women's Tag Championship), revived WWE Women's Championship (later the Raw Women's Championship), and non-brand exclusive Women's Money In The Bank match.
  • As per the Butt-Monkey trope, she has only won one of the above above 8 matches.
• Un-person: Subverted after their walkout in 2022, she, along with Naomi, are no longer mentioned or appears on camera, and their merchandise was discontinued, that compares to CM Punk's level back in 2014. Despite that, they retained their WWE.com profiles.
• Use Your Head: Does this on occasions in which she wants to knock her opponent down from the top rope. Both times she did it in WWE, she won a championship.
• Waif-Fu: Averted. She's one of the smaller women, but is able to work over her opponent and wrestle a strong ground game.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Charlotte Flair and formerly Bayley, and technically Summer Rae, though there was never a feud between them.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She pretty much disappeared without a trace since WrestleMania 35, without a single on-camera mention of her even from Bayley, for several months. Finally subverted on the August 12, 2019 edition of Raw when she made a surprise comeback.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Attempted this on Summer Rae — and got a "The Reason You Suck" Speech in response. This led to Sasha's Face–Heel Turn.
• Wild Card: As of 2016, Sasha split from Team BAD and formed an Enemy Mine situation with Becky Lynch. While not explicitly a Face, she's notably a little nicer and braver.
• With Friends Like These...: In 2018, Sasha betrayed Bayley during the Royal Rumble by eliminating her after a brief team up. She did it again a month later at Elimination Chamber by pushing Bayley off a pod while smiling smudgy at her. This led to Bayley to have doubts regarding their friendship.
• Worthy Opponent: Subverted after she won the Women's Championship. She took Charlotte's offer of a handshake...but then immediately rubbed it in her face that she had won the title. It was eventually played straight after Charlotte earned another title match, which Sasha won. The two women hugged sincerely afterwards. And definitely played straight with Bayley, after she won the Women's Championship from her. Without hesitation, Sasha burst into tears and hugged Bayley. As of 2016 she came to regard Becky as such. As opposed to her usual mocking of opponents, she showed a sort of grudging respect towards her.

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