On the May 16 episode of WWE Raw it was announced that Sasha Banks & Naomi had walked out of the show, forcing WWE to change the main event.
During Raw, Corey Graves called them "unprofessional" and WWE released a statement saying Banks & Naomi, "walked into WWE Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis’ office with their suitcases in hand, placed their tag team championship belts on his desk, and walked out."
On Friday's WWE SmackDown it was announced that Banks & Naomi had been suspended indefinitely by WWE.
Speaking on his Unlocking The Cage podcast, WWE Raw announced Jimmy Smith gave his reason as to why he thinks WWE put out the statement.
"The rumor I have heard is, in the days of social media, where the performers themselves can spin their own narrative. Nowadays, if The Ultimate Warrior got cut -- people know the story, at SummerSlam, he ran to the back, was immediately fired by Vince McMahon because he made all these demands -- Ultimate Warrior would have picked up his phone and recorded something on Instagram and said 'F Vince McMahon' or whatever. The superstars themselves are able to get their own story and narrative out in the public in ways they couldn't 20, 10, 15 years ago. What it feels like the WWE is doing, I don't know, they haven't discussed it with me, is they are getting ahead of the ability of Sasha Banks and Naomi to put out their own narrative. If you don't say why, they'll say why, and it'll paint them in a different light. WWE wants their perspective out there," he said. "I'm not surprised at all by the stance of WWE. They almost don't have a choice. You don't release a statement saying, 'they dropped their titles, they're unprofessional, we expect our talent to perform their contractual obligations.' You don't make a statement like that and not punish the people. Once they did that, the consequences are there."
Previously, Smith detailed what was going on during Raw as he learned about Banks & Naomi walking out and the show being changed. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
Banks & Naomi have yet to publicly comment on the situation.
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