And hopefully good future
Note: This is a follow up piece to The Meaning of the Boss, published a few days before WrestleMania. Thanks again to Tonya to sharing her thoughts on another historic WrestleMania match. You can find her at @TheWitchMilitia on Twitter.
On Sunday, April 3, Sasha Banks and Naomi made history when they defeated three other teams to become the first Black WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions. These two ladies are absolutely no strangers to making history, however. Banks has the honor of being the first Black NXT and RAW Women’s champion and Naomi holds the honor of being the first Black SmackDown Women’s champion and first Black Woman to win a WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal. While their pairing was rushed and could have been done much better, the WWE has made sure to highlight the real life sisterhood the two ladies share and what I feel has the potential to make their reign special.
Naomi started out in the Diva’s era as a contestant on the all women’s version of NXT when it was a game show. She was a standout and immediately gained a loyal fanbase by the time she was called up to the main roster in a barely planned out tag team with Cameron called the Funkadactyls, and remains one of the last holdovers from the Era. Sasha Banks started out on the revamped NXT, where it mirrored a more conventional wrestling show. She was a standout and immediately gained a loyal fanbase by the time she was called up to the main roster in a barely planned out stable with Naomi and Tamina, called Team B.A.D. See a pattern here?
It was in Team B.A.D. that the seeds were planted for the current champions title reign. Through that teaming, a bond of sisterhood was started, one that continued after the group split and the two ladies went on to have history making solo runs. Teaming together to make history again seems poetic for the pair. It also combines two fiercely loyal fanbases who will support whatever their favorites do. This is a major benefit to the tag team division. It will serve WWE to actually use this to build a competent division that remains intact year round and not just as WrestleMania approaches. Having the star power of Banks and Naomi together, along with both ladies’ willingness to highlight other women, could turn around what has been a haphazard and directionless title lineage.
Make no mistake, neither Sasha Banks or Naomi need to be tag team champions. Their careers in WWE will be just fine solo. But their pairing has the potential to improve the show in such a positive way, if WWE does the right thing by them. My ultimate hope is to see more care given to a division that greatly needs it. That is something the champions have worked for and supported for years and I cannot imagine a greater outcome of their win than that.
Stroke of Genius 