More on Sasha Banks’ Absence from WWE SummerSlam

Saturday’s WWE SummerSlam 2021 event in Las Vegas, Nevada featured a change made to the scheduled SmackDown Women’s Championship match of Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair. Prior to the start of the match, WWE announced that Banks had been pulled from the event. After some teasing of Carmella being Bianca Belair’s replacement opponent, Becky Lynch made her surprise return and took Carmella’s spot instead.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources within WWE stated that despite earlier claims of Banks being medically cleared from her unknown recent issues, there was growing chatter backstage prior to the start of SummerSlam that Banks would not be appearing at the event.

Johnson reported that recent rumors of Banks not being planned to appear at this past Friday’s SmackDown show are not true. Instead, several segments of show that originally featured Banks had to be rewritten due to her sudden absence.

Johnson also reported that the reason for Banks’ absence from SummerSlam is currently believed to not be injury related.

Fightful Select reported that their sources within the company confirmed that Banks was actually never medically cleared to compete at SummerSlam and WWE officials are currently hopeful that she will be able to return soon.