Sasha Banks Explains Her Love of Wrestling, Why She Was Drawn to Eddie Guerrero, and Facing Adversity in Her Life

– Below are some more highlights from Sasha Banks’ recent appearance on Lilian Garcia’s Making Their Way to the Ring podcast from earlier this month. Banks also talked about her wrestling career and why she loves it (transcript via WrestlingInc.com).

Banks on why she loved wrestling when she was young: “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 on how she loved 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 on why she was drawn to Eddie Guerrero: “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.'”