page_title: Sasha Banks
hierarchical_section_title: Sasha Banks
caption_attribution_description: English: Sasha Banks posing at Axxess in April 2018.
context_page_description: Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE as a member of the SmackDown brand under the ring name Sasha Banks. She previously wrestled on the independent circuit, most notably for Chaotic Wrestling, where she once held the Chaotic Wrestling Women's Championship.
  Her match against Bayley at NXT TakeOver: Respect on October 7, 2015, was the first women's match to ever headline a NXT TakeOver, the first Iron Woman match in WWE history, and the longest women's match in WWE history at the time with a length of 30 minutes. Their match was voted by Pro Wrestling Illustrated as the Match of the Year, with Banks also being voted as the Woman of the Year, while their match at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in August 2015 won the NXT Year-End Award for Match of the Year.
  In 2016, she and Charlotte Flair became the first women to headline a WWE pay-per-view event and the first to compete in a Hell in a Cell match, the first women to main event Raw in a women's match since 2004 and the first women to win the Pro Wrestling Illustrated award for Feud of the Year.
context_section_description: Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado (born January 26, 1992) is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE as a member of the SmackDown brand under the ring name Sasha Banks. She previously wrestled on the independent circuit, most notably for Chaotic Wrestling, where she once held the Chaotic Wrestling Women's Championship.  
  Her match against Bayley at NXT TakeOver: Respect on October 7, 2015, was the first women's match to ever headline a NXT TakeOver, the first Iron Woman match in WWE history, and the longest women's match in WWE history at the time with a length of 30 minutes. Their match was voted by Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) as the Match of the Year, with Banks also being voted as the Woman of the Year, while their match at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in August 2015 won the NXT Year-End Award for Match of the Year.
  In 2016, she and Charlotte Flair became the first women to headline a WWE pay-per-view event and the first to compete in a Hell in a Cell match (both at Hell in a Cell in October 2016), the first women to main event Raw in a women's match since 2004 and the first women to win the Pro Wrestling Illustrated award for Feud of the Year. In February 2019, she won the inaugural WWE Women's Tag Team Championship with her tag team partner, Bayley (together known as The Boss 'n' Hug Connection), at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.
caption: Banks in 2018
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