Recently, Bianca Belair & Sasha Banks made history by not only becoming the first two black women to main event a wrestling show since the days of Ethel Johnson & Babs Wingo in the 1950s, but they had the very first ever all black women main event at WrestleMania 37.
Before WrestleMania 37 Night 1, KofiMania at WrestleMania 35 was definitely the best night in black wrestling history as Kofi’s journey to become WWE after 11 years had finally been completed, but WrestleMania 37 Night 1 has forever surpassed that first with Bobby Lashley becoming the very first black man to walk into & walk out of WrestleMania as WWE champion, but the 2nd black wrestler to ever achieve that feat with the legendary Jazz being the first to do so about 20 years ago. But the biggest and most memorable moment from the entire WrestleMania 37 event was the historic main event from Night 1 between Bianca Belair & Sasha Banks.
This match in my personal view is not only my favorite women’s wrestling match ever, but the best women’s match in the 37 year history of “The Super Bowl Of Sports Entertainment” called WrestleMania. The historical and generational significance of this match was far bigger than Sasha/Bayley at The 2015 NXT Takeover Brooklyn Show.
This match is also historically significant because for far too long, black women in wrestling were told by Ken & Karen that “you’re not main event worthy”, “you’re ugly”, “you’ll never be on top of the card”, “you’ll never main event an event”, and “you’ll have to work twice as hard”, but the Bianca/Sasha match not only was incredible but shattered all those negative stigmas, and stereotypes about black women in wrestling, but the match gave young black women in wrestling and little black girls something to aspire to “main event a show like WrestleMania” one day because right now, black wrestling is MF’ING BOOMING!!!
Bianca/Sasha will forever go down in history as being not only one of the greatest women’s wrestling matches ever, but also proved to all the doubters & naysayers out there that Black Women Can Main Event A Show & Absolutely Kill It!!!
Before the match both Sasha and Bianca were emotional, but Bianca was the most emotional as she cried a bit before the bell rung, but once the bell rung to start the match, all the pre-match emotions were completely out of the window as both black women put their wrestling faces on.
This match was one of those rare showcases of Sasha Banks’s intellect and technical prowess vs Bianca Belair’s strength, power, and athleticism. Sasha showed her intellect and technical prowess by using Bianca’s hair against her several times during the match and Bianca showed her strength, power, and athleticism by catching Sasha after she did a suicide dive through the ropes by grabbing her and picking her up into a military press position and then throwing her back into the ring and that shot is such an iconic moment from the entire match.
The two women told an amazing story in the ring by being given enough time to do so and we saw cool spots, counters, and of course the storytelling, selling, chemistry, psychology, and emotion that I always love to see in a wrestling match. After these two women duked it out, Bianca Belair finally managed to whip Sasha Banks with her hair and Sasha sold that beautifully and got hit with The KOD and pinned for the 3 count and the crowd in Tampa absolutely erupted. After the match, I saw a video of Sasha smiling at Bianca while selling her injuries, but also the face that she and Bianca made history that inspired future generations of blck girls & black women to wanna main event a wrestling show one day.
The Conclusion - The Bianca Belair & Sasha Banks match was such an instant classic match that will forever go down not only in wrestling history, but also in black wrestling history because the match was Such Good Shit!!!
By Kwame Shakir
