Sasha Banks’s Blue Hair Heel Turn was the Coolest Thing to Happen on WWE in Months

Last night Sasha Banks made her long-awaited return to Monday Night RAW with a heel turn that practically blew the roof off the arena. After embracing a tearful, injured, grieving Natalya — oh gosh, poor Nattie — Banks smacked her down and proceeded to beat the literal shit out of her in front of Natalya’s hometown crowd. Then, when superstar and reigning RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch arrived, Banks brutally beat her down, too. She struck The Man again and again with a metal chair until referees pulled them apart.

It was mean. It was cruel. It was hands down the best thing that’s happened in the WWE Universe since WrestleMania.

Ever since WrestleMania 35, WWE has had something of a heel problem. It’s not just that the powers that be tried to make Baron Corbin happen again, but the Women’s Division lacked any potent rival for the company’s new poster girl, Lynch. Ronda Rousey left WWE (for a break? or for forever?) immediately following her contentious defeat at WrestleMania, and while Charlotte Flair is a potent heel in her own right, the Becky/Charlotte rivalry had long run out of steam. WWE’s writers pushed newcomer Lacey Evans hard, and it never came together. The “Sassy Southern Belle” was too inexperienced in the ring to feel powerful enough to take on The Man, and she…well…was not likable, even in an unlikable way. (I believe Decider contributor Sean T. Collins put it best in his own wrestling column when he described Lacey Evans as “about as over as dysentery.”)

So, yeah, WWE needed to find a good, potent, electrifying heel to pit against its star, Becky Lynch. And for months, fans were clamoring for Sasha Banks. After all, Banks and Lynch started off in NXT together, and are famously two of the Four Horsewomen. Banks also had been underutilized since being called up from NXT. There she was known for being a delicious heel. However, Banks’s dark side had yet to be unleashed in the main shows, and as Becky Lynch’s star rose, hers had fallen.

Banks also walked away from wrestling immediately following WrestleMania. Rumors circulated that she was unhappy not just with how she had been underutilized on the main roster, but that she was hurt that she had been forced to unceremoniously lose the Tag Women’s Title mere weeks after earning it. While her Tag Team partner Bayley found a place as Smackdown Women’s Champion, Banks took to posting cryptic Instagram and Twitter posts comparing herself to a butterfly in a cocoon. Something that Lynch herself blasted in the days before SummerSlam.

So that’s the background on why fans were so pumped about Sasha Banks’s return. There was a hunger — nay, a need — for someone of Banks’s caliber to come and take on Becky Lynch. What Banks did, however, was a masterpiece in villainy. It was everything the fans wanted and more.

First, it must be stressed that Banks returned with absolute swagger. She came with a big, bright smile, and hugs for some young fans. She even approached Natalya with a semblance of good will, hugging her warmly. All this made her turn — AND SHE LITERALLY TURNED — all the juicier. Add a fabulous wig reveal, wherein Banks showed the crowd that she was throwing away her trademark violet locks in favor for electric blue, and it was sensational.

Banks’s heel turn was as dastardly as you could get: beating up an injured, grieving woman, and refusing to apologize for it. And then she gave Becky Lynch the kind of whooping you typically see in the men’s division. In fact, it looked an awful lot like the metal chair assaults that Seth Rollins has had to put up with all summer. Banks going brutal on Lynch actually made Lynch look like a bigger badass. She is The Man, and she’s ready to fight back against an opponent who is actually up to her mettle.

Sasha Banks’s return was a brilliantly plotted and perfectly executed moment. The fans, naturally, are losing their minds. How else can you explain the fact that while she’s beating Nattie, you can hear folks shouting, “Welcome Back!” and “Thank you, Sasha!” Or while she’s hitting the face of the company with a freaking chair, the fans are screaming, “This is awesome.”

It was awesome. And it bodes well for the next few months of women’s wrestling on Monday Night RAW.

Welcome back, Sasha. We missed you.

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