Sasha Banks On Difficult Upbringing, Why She Was Drawn To Eddie Guerrero, Becoming A Wrestling Fan
Recently on Making Their Way To The Ring, former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia talked with WWE Superstar Sasha Banks on a number of topics including her difficult upbringing and her affinity for the late great Eddie Guerrero.
According to Banks, she moved around a lot as a kid because she has a brother with autism and her family would move to find appropriate care for him. For the girl who would grow up to be 'The Boss', professional wrestling was an escape from her tumultuous childhood.
"We moved a lot when I was younger because I have a brother with autism and we were just trying to find the right schools and the right doctors. After, from California, we moved to Iowa because that's where my mom's is from." Banks continued, "for me, growing up was really difficult having a brother with autism. It was such a struggle, but having that two hours of having wrestling, I just felt like that was my time and the only time I was? yeah, my escape, pretty much."
Banks recalled that she discovered wrestling and knew it was her calling as a 10 year old girl in Iowa watching SmackDown.
"Wrestling is the only thing that I ever loved. The moment I laid my eyes on wrestling, I knew that was what my calling was. I remember I was living in Iowa at the time and there was nothing on TV and we had no cable and SmackDown came on. It was legit, maybe at midnight, I was like, 'what is this?' And then I remember my mom coming in. She was like, 'what are you doing? What are you watching? God wouldn't like this stuff. Turn that off!' I was like, 'okay' so I turned it off. I ran into my brother's room and turned it back on and just continued watching it and I was like, 'wow' and I was instantly hooked ever since that very moment."
Banks insinuated that she was drawn to Guerrero because he also faced adversity in his own life.
"Just knowing that he did struggle, that he lived in a hotel, I was living in a hotel for three years and that was really hard on me, like in Minnesota, living in a hotel and trying to go to school. I'm crying? kids would make fun of me and I would ask the bus driver to drop me off somewhere else so [the other kids] wouldn't see me walk to the hotel room. I couldn't give out my phone number because they would call the hotel and they'd be like, 'why are you living in a hotel?' Like, my mom didn't have a job at the time. She was dealing with my brother. We had nothing. So for me, seeing his struggle and then seeing his comeuppance. He went through addiction; he got clean; and here he was, when he won that championship, I remember bursting into tears and I was like, 'oh my God.'"
Check out the podcast in the video above. If you use any of the quotations that appear in this article, please credit Making Their Way To The Ring with an H/T to WrestlingINC for the transcription.
Source: Making Their Way To The Ring