What if Sasha Banks returns at WWE SummerSlam 2019?

Sasha Banks has been conspicuously absent from the WWE landscape since WrestleMania. Reports suggested that she was unhappy with losing the Women’s Tag Team Championship at the biggest show of the year—expecting a longer run with the titles for her and Bayley—and attempted to quit the company, only for management to suggest she take time off instead.

Where is Banks headed? Given how long she has already been absent, it’s not unthinkable that she would sit out the remainder of her WWE contract. However, Banks is also well established as a life long wrestling fan, and it’s hard to imagine her willingly giving up a year-plus of her career, in her physical prime, even if she does have serious issues with her employer.

So what if Banks returns at SummerSlam 2019?

It’s far from a foregone conclusion that Sasha Banks will be in Toronto, but there are a number of intriguing possibilities if she does show up.

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#5 Lending Bayley a hand

Sasha Banks may well return to have Bayley's back.

One of the more obvious way for Sasha Banks to make her return would be to offer her help to Bayley. That seems like a less organic way for her to mark her return than it might have earlier in the summer, for example, when Bayley was outnumbered by Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross, with both coming after her SmackDown Women’s championship.

WWE could have something more involved in mind for Banks and Bayley, though, than simply revisiting their on air tag team and riffing off of their well documented real life friendship.

Bayley’s SummerSlam challenger is fellow face, Ember Moon. While Moon is not nearly as well established on the main roster as Bayley or Banks, she does have talent and a well received NXT run behind her. WWE could use this moment as not just a face versus face match, but one complicated by Banks becoming involved, perhaps at the behest of her old running buddy.

#4 Turning heel

Sasha Banks could get back to her heel roots from NXT.

Whether Sasha Banks were to help Bayley win against the champion’s wishes, or help her only to betray her in the immediate aftermath, either approach could set up Banks to play a more heel-like character than she previously has on the main roster.

To be fair, Banks did debut ostensibly as a heel when she was a part of Team BAD with Naomi and Tamina Snuka. Banks never got much opportunity to shine during that era, though, and it’s consequently a pretty forgettable part of her main roster run. In contrast, when she was in NXT, Banks was defined by her arrogant heel persona that took her all the way to substantial run with the NXT Women’s Championship.

The heel turn could be enough to reinvigorate Banks and, in particular, help her get over previous disappointments with WWE booking in favor of a bold new direction for her creatively, and playing to what are quite arguably her greatest strengths.

#3 Setting up a re-do of her NXT feud with Bayley

Sasha Banks and Bayley had great matches in NXT and they're overdue to renew the rivalry on the main roster.

However WWE plan to get there, it is important that they revisit the feud that Sasha Banks and Bayley had in NXT. That program was an instant classic, featuring Banks as a dominant, arrogant heel champion, against Bayley as a plucky underdog.

The matches delivered at back to back TakeOver specials, and it’s surprising that WWE hasn’t gone back to the well on the main roster, instead only teasing dissension between the two, and having them work respectful face v face matches on TV.

Banks and Bayley can truly bring out the best in each other in the ring, especially with Banks playing her natural heel role, and Bayley as her polar opposite face. While Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair have clearly usurped the top women’s roles in WWE in recent times, Banks and Bayley have every opportunity to re-elevate themselves by working as each other’s ideal opponents.

#2 An eventual clash with Becky Lynch

Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch could be a great rivalry down the road.

While Sasha Banks’s WWE career has been much more famously and extensively linked with Bayley’s, and she also has an established history with Charlotte Flair, fans shouldn’t forget about the chemistry that has been demonstrated between Banks and Becky Lynch.

Before Banks had her TakeOver classics with Bayley in Brooklyn and main eventing the Respect show, she had an outstanding match with Lynch at Unstoppable. Their hard hitting, emotional match, full of submission holds and counters stole the show then, and given how much each woman has grown as a character since, there’s little doubt they could put on another classic.

The two have crossed paths here and there since, but never in a proper feud. If Banks can be built up as a heel, she could be exactly the serious rival that The Man needs to recapture the momentum she had going into WrestleMania and put on a genuinely great match.

#1 A push

Sasha Banks had uneven booking leading up to her departure; if she comes back now, she might have a big push ahead.

It may seem obvious to suggest that a returning former champion would garner a push from WWE. Just the same, Sasha Banks had an uneven year leading up to her sabbatical.

That time included a stop-start program with Bayley, and largely getting shut out of either Women’s Championship picture in favor of Ronda Rousey’s featured spot, Charlotte Flair’s more consistent run on top, Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax getting opportunities, and Becky Lynch’s rise. The best Banks could get was her tag title run with Bayley.

Now that she has been away for a bit, it would be a great time to hit the reset button on The Boss and to give her a big push, especially if she were to get a heel turn on her way back in the door.

She’d be a welcome addition to the top of either brand’s women’s division, and her in ring talent in particular could help elevate the overall picture.