Mercedes Mone Claims Wrestling In Japan Was Her Goal Before WWE

Sasha Banks is widely considered one of the greatest female professional wrestlers of all time, and her accolades speak for themselves. She made headlines last year after leaving WWE’s RAW, sparking a lot of speculations and rumors, she then moved to New Japan Pro Wrestling under the ring name Mercedes Mone. That being said, it seems NJPW was always her goal even before joining WWE.

Sasha Banks made her NJPW debut at Wrestle Kingdom 17, where she debuted as ‘The CEO’ Mercedes Mone. She came out after KAIRI’s successful title defense against Tam Nakano. Fans were simply elated to see Mercedes after her debut and just wanted her to succeed.

Despite it almost being a month since her NJPW debut, fans still can’t process the fact that Mercedes Mone ended up leaving WWE and did not come back following her walkout.

While speaking with NJPW, Mercedes Mone talked about her decision to leave WWE. Mone revealed that wrestling in Japan was always her number one goal, even before joining WWE.

“Personally, I always knew I was going to make an impact here. But it’s cool to see how quick it was, the turnaround to go from another name and character I’ve done for ten years to now be Mercedes Moné, and to see that instantly trend… just people obviously caring and wanting to see my match with KAIRI was cool.

“For it to sell out with that match being the only thing announced at that time was amazing. I know my fans always love and support me, so I knew it was going to do well, but it was kind of a shock to see how quickly it went that well.

“I’ve been working every single day since I left there. I’ve been making movies, making TV shows, magazines, modelling, I haven’t stopped.

But wrestling has always been my number one love, and there was no soul searching involved in coming back to wrestling. I went to Mexico for a month in October and lived there.”

Seeing Manami Toyota and Akira Hokuto, Aja Kong, all these hard hitting matches, and it was like ‘wait, there are matches where women are outperforming and having better matches than the men?’

They were hitting just as hard as the men, having these 30 minute long five star matches. I was so amazed by them that Japan became my number one goal even before WWE.

So I managed to achieve what I wanted to achieve in WWE, and now I get to live out this international dream.

I’ve been saying ‘Moné makes the world go round’, and I mean that. I’m thrilled to start this in Japan, and with NJPW and STARDOM.

STARDOM, to me, has the best women’s wrestlers in the world, and I really want to cement my legacy with my wrestling fans, to cement my name with the greatest of all time. I’m ready to f**king go.”

Mercedes Mone also has a lot of matches lined up for her in Japan next month. There is the belief that Mercedes Mone will be following in Brock Lesnar’s footsteps after her NJPW debut. It remains to be seen if Mone will end up beating KAIRI for the title next month, as fans would love that to happen.

What’s your take on Mercedes Mone? Sound off in the comments!