SUMMARY
- Sasha Banks joined NJPW at Wrestle Kingdom 17 under her original name, Mercedes Moñe.
- Sasha has been out of action since May, when she suffered an ankle injury during her match with Willow Nightingale.
Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado is a famous American professional wrestler who is widely popular because of her work in WWE under the ring name Sasha Banks. The former five-time WWE Women’s Champion left the Stamford-based promotion in 2022 and joined New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
Sasha Banks joined NJPW at Wrestle Kingdom 17 under her original name, Mercedes Moñe. On her debut, she confronted the IWGP Women’s Champion, Kairi, and attacked her, which led to a feud between them. A title match was set up to end this feud at the NJPW Battle in the Valley 2023, where Mercedes clinched the victory and became the new IWGP champion. After a reign of 64 days, she lost her title to Mayu Iwatani.
Mercedes Monè has filed 3 new trademarks:
• “Mone Wear,”
• “Time Is Mone,”
• “Mone Talks” pic.twitter.com/gLNvQqikcH— WrestlePurists (@WrestlePurists) December 29, 2023
Sasha has been out of action since May when she suffered an ankle injury during her match with Willow Nightingale. Since then, fans have been speculating about her recovery and return. Recently, news came out that she has filed three new trademarks, “Mone Wear,” “Time is Mone,” and “Mone Talks,” showcasing her name.
This led to numerous fan theories surfacing on the internet about her returning to WWE with her real name. One of the fans on X wrote,“ If she goes back to WWE, I think she may have negotiated her way to return as Mercedes Mone.” He had a theory that Sasha may have negotiated with the Stamford-based promotion about sticking to her original name and returning to the Triple-H-led promotion.
Another fan wrote, “If she goes back to WWE. She shouldn’t be Sasha Banks she should remain Mercedes Mone,” indicating that Sasha should not compromise with her name to return to WWE. Other fans also wrote about her return in a more confident tone.
One of them said, “Pretty much confirmed she’s returning to wwe with the mone charector” and the other one said, I’m guessing she’s Coming to wwe as Mercedes mone ( witch imo is smarter move)”. The user believed that Sasha returning to WWE with her real name could be a smarter move.
Is Sasha Banks teasing her WWE return?
According to the latest reports, Sasha Banks could be teasing her WWE return through cryptic messages and posts on her social media. In her recent Instagram story, she was spotted near the TD Garden. This is the same arena where WWE held a live event this week.
Mercedes Mone posted this on her IG of herself at TD Garden. WWE did a live event there tonight. pic.twitter.com/JmZsRjTgEQ
— Wrestling News (@WrestlingNewsCo) December 28, 2023
She also shared a picture on her X account, wishing her fans happy holidays. But people noticed the “HHH” hidden in the caption as “Happy Happy Holidays”. Well, nothing is very clear right now, and Sasha is a free agent currently, which could lead her anywhere. But fans are hopeful that she will return to WWE, maybe with her original name and identity.