Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado (born January 26, 1992) is an American professional wrestler, currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) under the ring name Mercedes Moné, where she is the current TBS Champion in her first reign. She also works for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and its sister promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom (Stardom), where she is the current Strong Women's Champion in her first reign while also being a former one-time IWGP Women's Champion.
As part of a working relationship between NJPW, AEW and Revolution Pro-Wrestling (RevPro), she is the current Undisputed British Women's Champion in her first reign.
Regarded as one of the best women's wrestlers in the world and noted for her egotistical, glamorous, and luxurious onscreen character, Mercedes has also been recognized for her popularity within the audiences. She is best known for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Sasha Banks. Mercedes won her first championship while in the developmental brand NXT, the NXT Women's Championship. Upon being promoted to the main-roster, she would also become a five-time Raw Women's Championship, a one-time SmackDown Women's Champion and a three-time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion (alongside two different partners). Upon winning the SmackDown Women's Championship in October 2020, she became the Fourth Women's Triple Crown Champion and the Third Women's Grand Slam Champion.
Mercedes previously wrestled on the independent circuit before signing with WWE in 2012, where she was assigned to WWE's developmental territory NXT. She, along with fellow wrestlers and real-life best-friends, Bayley, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch, known as the Four Horsewomen (of Wrestling), became one of the front-runners of the WWE's Women Evolution movement that revolutionized the Women's Professional Wrestling industry in North America. Mercedes was in the first women's match to ever headline an NXT TakeOver event, 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. Upon moving to the main-roster, she became the first woman to headline a WWE pay-per-view event, the first woman to compete in a Hell in a Cell match. In 2021, at WrestleMania 37, Mercedes became the first African-American woman to jointly headline a WrestleMania, WWE's flagship event, in what was considered Wrestlemania's second all-women main event.
These performances and her popularity led her to be voted Woman of the Year, as well as having the Feud of the Year, being the first to achieve that feat, and the Match of Year in 2015, 2016 and 2020 by Sports Illustrated and Pro Wrestling Illustrated. She was also the third most tweeted about female athlete in 2021.
After leaving WWE due to creative issues, Mercedes made her NJPW and Stardom debut on January 2023, at Wrestle Kingdom 17, where she challenged for the IWGP Women's Championship in her first appearance before winning it the month later. Mercedes went on to hold for two months before losing the title in April. Mercedes participated at the tournament to crown the inaugural Strong Women's Champion, reaching the finals before losing it due to an ankle injury, in what it was her last appearance for the promotion after her NJPW contract ended in December, she signed with AEW the following month and made her debut at Dynamite: Big Business in March 2024, subsequently winning the TBS Championship in her AEW in-ring debut at Double or Nothing two months later and in the month later she won the Strong Women's Champion, thus becoming a double champion.
Between WWE, NJPW, AEW and RevPro, she has held 15 total championships (including nine world titles), and is the only woman to have held championships in all four companies.
Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado was born in Fairfield, California, on January 26, 1992, the daughter of Reo and Judith Varnado. Her mother is of German descent, while her father was African-American. Her family moved to various places, including Minnesota, to find schools and hospitals for her autistic brother Joshua. They settled in Boston, where she began her professional wrestling career. She went to school online and grew up watching All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW).
Mercedes, at 16 years old, attended Wrestlemania 21 on April 3, 2005, in her home state of California, in an event that marked John Cena's first WWE Championship win. It was also Eddie Guerrero's final WrestleMania event as he died in November that same year.
Professional wrestling career[]
Early Career[]
Varnado began training at Chaotic Wrestling (CW), based in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 2008. She made her in-ring debut, under the ring name Mercedes KV, on October 1, 2010, in an intergender tag team match where she teamed with Nikki Roxx in a losing effort to Alexxis and Danny E. KV and Roxx quickly formed an alliance, teaming together regularly and accompanying each other to ringside. On October 22, KV lost her debut singles match to Danny E, and lost a rematch to him on November 13. In June 2012, Kaestner-Varnado participated in a WWE tryout camp and on August 18, it was announced that she had been signed to a contract. She was assigned to NXT, WWE's developmental territory, where she adopted the ring name Sasha Banks.
Hiatus (2022-2023)[]
Since May 2022, Mercedes, took a break from professional wrestling after walking off WWE's Monday Night Raw. Since October, Mercedes teased on her Twitter account that something "crazy" would be happening, with Mercedes disclosing what it would be. Since December it had been rumored that Mercedes's WWE contract would expire at the end of 2022, with WWE trying to renegotiate a new deal during the summer. Negotiations fell through with both parties being "very apart on money", as it was believed that she was done with WWE. It was later revealed by Wrestling Observer Newsletter journalist Dave Meltzer that Mercedes would appear at Wrestle Kingdom 17, based on a multiple dates agreement that she had signed with Bushiroad, which would allow her to work for both New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and World Wonder Ring Stardom (Stardom), despite not wrestling at the WK event. Meltzer also revealed that her booking in Japan was not made through WWE but directly through her, and that inside Bushiroad, it was believed she would become a free agent at the start of January, thus being free to be able to take part in the event. Leading to January, Mercedes also registered multiple trademarks through her personal company, Soulnado Inc., with the trademarks being "Mercedes Moné", "Moné Talks". "Bank Moné" and "Statement Maker", with the later believed to be the name of a finishing move.
NJPW and Stardom (2023)[]
After months of speculation, she made her debut appearance for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) on January 4, 2023, at Wrestle Kingdom 17. Going by the ring name Mercedes Moné, she confronted and subsequently attacked reigning IWGP Women's ChampionKAIRI and announced that she had joined both NJPW and its sister promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom. This led to a title match between the two at Battle in the Valley on February 18, where Moné defeated KAIRI to become the new champion. In her first title defense at Sakura Genesis on April 8, Moné defeated AZM and Hazuki in a three-way match. After the match, Moné was challenged by Mayu Iwatani for the title at Stardom All Star Grand Queendom. On April 15, Moné made her Stardom debut attacking Iwatani after her match, establishing herself as a heel. At the event, on April 23, Moné lost the IWGP Women's Championship to Iwatani, ending her reign at 64 days.
On April 28, NJPW announced the creation of the Strong Women's Championship, with it being contested in a singles-elimination tournament and with the bracket being revealed on the same day. The tournament featured Mercedes, CMLL's Stephanie Vaquer, AEW's Willow Nightingale and Stardom's Momo Kohgo. On May 21, at Resurgence, Mercedes defeated Vaquer in the first round and later lost Nightingale in the finals after she got injured during the match. After the event, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that the original plan was to Mercedes win the match and become the inaugural champion; however, due to Mercedes getting injured during the match, the plans shifted with Nightingale winning the match instead and becoming the inaugural champion. This was Mercedes' last appearance as in December 2023, it was reported that Mercedes was no longer under contract with NJPW and Stardom.
Return to NJPW (2024-Present)[]
Moné debuted in AEW in March at the outset of Big Business, which took place at the TD Garden in Varnado's adopted hometown of Boston. On the May 29 episode of AEWDynamite, Moné defeated Skye Blue in her first title defense of the TBS Championship. After the match, she would be confronted by Strong Women's ChampionStephanie Vaquer. A Winner Takes All match between the two was then scheduled for June 30 at Forbidden Door; before their match; however, Mone was scheduled to defend the TBS Championship against Vaquer's CMLL World Women's Tag Team Championship partner Zeuxis on the June 12 episode of Dynamite and it was announced that if Moné loses her title to Zeuxis, then the Forbidden Door match would only be for Vaquer's Strong Women's Championship. This led at the June 12 episode of Dynamite to Mone defeating Zeuxis to retain her TBS Championship. On June 21, at Fantastica Mania Mexico, Vaquer retained the Strong Women's Championship against La Catalina. After the match, Moné made her CMLL debut confronting and berating Vaquer before both women getting in a brawl, leading both women to be separated, with Mercedes holding both titles before leaving. The following week, at AEWCollision, Moné, confronted Vaquer before being ambushed by Zeuxis and Vaquer, with Vaquer holding both titles as a revenge from their previous encounter in CMLL. A Winner Takes All match between the two was then scheduled for June 30 at Forbidden Door, where Moné defeated Vaquer to win the Strong Women's Championship, becoming a double champion in the process.
On August 1, it was announced that Mercedes would make her return to NJPW after a year following her match against Willow Nightingale at Resurgence. On August 30 at Capital Collision, Moné made her return to NJPW successfully defending the Strong Women's Championship against Stardom's Momo Watanabe. She successfully defended her title against Hazuki at Strong Style Evolved. Moné then defeated Mina Shirakawa in a Winner Takes All match at Wrestle Dynasty on January 5, 2025, retaining the Strong title and winning Shirakawa's Undisputed British Women's Championship.
Other media[]
As Sasha Banks, she made her video game debut in WWE 2K17, and has since appeared in WWE 2K18, WWE 2K19, WWE 2K20, and WWE 2K22. She also appears in the mobile games WWE SuperCard and WWE Mayhem, as well as the spin-off game WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
Mercedes made her acting debut in the second season of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, where she portrays Koska Reeves, a Mandalorian who serves under Bo-Katan Kryze as a member of the Nite Owls.
"Song For Sasha Banks" – Written and performed by The Mountain Goats, tells the story of her childhood, watching Chris Jericho on SmackDown, and then becoming a professional wrestler in her own right. It was released as a single digital track on June 18, 2018.
Banks served as honorary starter for the 2021 Daytona 500. In September 2022, Banks made her modeling debut at New York Fashion Week alongside Trinity (also known as Naomi in WWE).
Mercedes is noted for her big popularity. She uses the nickname "The CEO" (or "The Boss" during her time in WWE), which she describes herself as being "the standard, the topic, the conversation, the blueprint and the CEO of the women's divison of NJPW and Stardom". She uses a Gory Special spun into a DDT as her finisher, which she calls the Moné Maker, previously a double knee backbreaker transitioned into a Crossface known as the Statement Maker.
Mercedes is known for her luxurious, glamorous, and egoistical personality. She wears two finger rings on each hand, with the first being read as "Moné" and the other being read as "$$$", a crown based on the crown of New York's Liberty Statue. She favors a cosplay-style wardrobe read as "バンクス" (Bankusu, Banks) in the back, as a reference to her WWE ring-name Sasha Banks as well as another punning reference to banks/money. Her hair is currently short and dyed in turquoise blue with flames. She often emphasizes the moniker "Moné" (Monéy), with she referring that she makes the Japanese Yen valuating and collects "the precious (jewels)", "the rubies", "the gold" and "the dollars", and by often telling her opponents to "Bank on Moné!", a reference to a catchphrase she used while in WWE, telling her opponents to "Bank on that!".
She cites WWE wrestler Tyler Breeze as one of the inspirations for her character, recalling a conversation she had with Breeze before debuting on television in which he told her "to be in television you must have a character". Her cousin Snoop Dogg and WWE legend and Hall of Famer Eddie Guerrero are her main inspirations, with her cousin assisting her in developing her gimmick.
Impact and legacy[]
Mercedes is one of the most popular and recognizable wrestlers of her generation. Mercedes was the second Raw Women's Champion and previously held the record for the most reigns at 5 reigns. At WrestleMania 37, Mercedes and Bianca Belair became the first African-American women to have headlined WWE's flagship annual event, with this being the second time that women had headlined WWE's flagship annual event, Wrestlemania leading both women to be given the Best WWE Moment at the EPSY Awards. She was also the third most tweeted about female athlete in 2021.
Mercedes was also the first woman (alongside Bayley) to headline an NXT TakeOver event, 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 Match of the Year, with Mercedes also being voted as Woman of the Year. Upon being called up to main-roster, a year later, she (alonside Charlotte Flair), became the first woman to headline a WWE pay-per-view event, the first women to compete in a Hell in a Cell match, and the first woman to win the PWI award for Feud of the Year. Her Raw Women's Championship match against Becky Lynch at Hell in a Cell 2019 was ranked No. 2 in 2019 by WWE on "The Top 25 Matches of 2019" list and was was the third most tweeted about female athlete in 2021. And a year later she was named Wrestler of the Year by Sports Illustrated at the end of 2020. Mercedes (alongside Alexa Bliss) became the first woman to ever compete in a religious Muslim country at a live-event in Abu Dhabi.
Mercedes' popularity often led to chants of "We want Sasha!" during matches or segments that involved her. This rise in popularity led her to sometime being often involved in controversial situations, an example being AEW wrestler Sammy Guevara getting suspended after he made an inappropriate joke about wanting to "go rape" her during a podcast in January 2016. Guevara later apologized for his remarks and took accountability for what he said, with them later being in contact with each other, and apologizing to her, engaging in an "open discussion" to help him understand the severity of his comments.
She is regarded by her friends and fellow co-workers as "one of the most talented, dedicated and popular wrestlers of all-time", with them often citing that she was "taking the women's division to a completely different level". Hall of Famer Vickie Guerrero (widow of Eddie Guerrero) has told her "If Eddie was alive, he would be proud of you.".
Personal life[]
Through her father, Varnado is a first cousin of rapper Snoop Dogg, who helped develop her in-ring persona. She is also a first cousin of music producer Daz Dillinger and singers Brandy Norwood and Ray J. She is a fan of K-pop music and of Japanese anime and manga, with Sailor Moon and BTS being her favorite K-Pop and animation series.
Varnado has cited Eddie Guerrero as her favorite wrestler and inspiration. She was in attendance at Guerrero's memorial episode of Raw on November 14, 2005, in Minneapolis, and she also revealed that she was unaware that Guerrero had died before she arrived at the arena.
On August 4, 2016, Kaestner-Varnado married retired professional wrestler Sarath Ton. The two met while they were both wrestling on the independent circuit. Ton, who is widely known by his ring name Mikaze, now works as a costume designer for WWE.
In wrestling[]
Finishing moves
Statement Maker (Bridging crossface, often transitioned from a double knee backbreaker, or as a counter to a roll-up)
Moné Maker (Gory special spun into a DDT)
Signature moves
Bankrupt (Straight jacket neckbreaker slam)
Baseball slide
Belly-to-belly suplex – adopted from Bayley
Multiple Boston crab variations
Regular
Canadian Maple Leaf (Roll through single leg)
Single leg
Bow and arrow stretch
Camel clutch
Multiple DDT variations
Leg-trap sunset flip
Single arm, sometimes from the top rope
Snap
Tilt-a-whirl
Tornado
Diving crossbody
Dropkick, sometimes running
Multiple double knee variations
Armbreaker, sometimes springboarding
Backstabber (backbreaker, sometimes transitioned into a straight jacket)
Diving Meteora to an opponent trapped between the turnbuckles
Meteora (Diving)
Pop up
Rent's Due (Roll-through facebreaker)
Springboard slingshot
Swinging facebreaker
To a cornered opponent
Elbow smash
Frog splash
Fujiwara armbar
Hair-pull whip
Headbutt
Multiple hurricanrana variations
Diving
Running
Springboard
Tiger feint
to an opponent sitting on the turnbuckle
Japanese arm drag
Kneeling jawbreaker
Knee strike, to counter a kick
Leg-trap sunset flip guillotine choke
Lou Thesz press, with multiple punches
Modified headscissors driver, into the turnbuckles
Modified scissored armbar
Modified Stump Puller
Monkey flip
Multiple forehand chops
Multiple pinning variations
Backslide
Crucifix
Rolling leg clutch
Roll-up, sometimes while bridging
Small package
Schoolgirl roll up
Oklahoma roll
Wheelbarrow victory roll
Pendulum backbreaker, followed by a snap sidewalk slam
Powerbomb, from out of the corner
Reverse chinlock, with bodyscissors
Romero Stretch (Elevated surfboard stretch)
Roundhouse kick
Snap suplex
Straight jacket choke
Straight jacket crossface
Spear
Step-up knee strike
Springboard arm drag
Springboard crossbody, preceded by an O'Connor roll
