Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks made WWE history over the weekend at WrestleMania 37. It was the first time that two Black women were featured in the main event of WWE’s biggest show of the year. Belair and Banks battled for the SmackDown Women’s Champion, and Belair won her first title in her young WWE career, when speaking to CBS Sports, Belair said she enjoyed being part of history.
“I was very happy with the performance,” Belair said. “I haven’t watched it back yet because I’m super critical of myself. I just want to live in the moment right now and be happy because I know when I watch it back, I’m going to be critiquing myself and saying, ‘You should have done this. You should have done that.’ Even though I won, I’m still going to critique myself. I loved the match and my thing was that I understood how big the moment was and how big of an opportunity it was. I understood that this moment was more than just about us. We were representing for women, we were representing for women of color. I just wanted to deliver and live up to the moment.”
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Belair, 32, made her main roster debut in 2020 after spending a couple of years in NXT. Her career began to take off in January when she won the Royal Rumble match, earning the right to face Banks at WrestleMania 37. She is now the third woman of color to win the SmackDown Women’s title, with Banks and Naomi being the other two.
“WrestleMania in itself is already a huge deal. When you’re in WWE and anyone asks what your goals are, you say you want to go to WrestleMania. The biggest goal is to main event at WrestleMania. WrestleMania is already a unique event itself, and there’s already pressure to live up to the expectations of being at WrestleMania. To be able to create history at WrestleMania — to be able to create history and main event at WrestleMania? I don’t think there’s anything bigger than that.” Belair is looking to reach the same status as Banks, who is a future WWE Hall of Famer. Banks has won every major title in WWE, making her a grand slam champion. Her SmackDown Women’s title reign of 167 days is the second-longest in its history.
