Sasha Banks was always a rather gifted athlete who took her profession very seriously. She had one specific goal from the very beginning of her career in the wrestling world, which was to be the very best performer possible, and not just of the females, but she wanted to be the best performer in the world period, and as a WWE wrestler, she had achieved incredible success within a short period of time, even overtaking her male co-workers in terms of popularity as a result of her determination to prove herself, and she wasn't ever planning on falling off. She wanted to stay ahead of the game so much, she couldn't help but critique herself whenever she had one little misstep competing in the ring, as she knew at any minute she could lose her spot to the next woman, looking to make a name for themselves in a such a game changing era for the female competitors, known as WWE's "Women's Revolution", which featured the likes of those closest to Sasha as both her friends and rivals alike, and namely coming from her all female group from WWE's third branded show NXT, where Sasha aligned herself with three other women to form the "Four Horsewomen", in reference to the famous NWA/WCW male group, legendary wrestler Ric Flair, lead back in his prime. Well now, Sasha had been apart of the Four Horsewomen with his daughter, and long time friend Charlotte Flair, whose goal was to take after her father, thus she would end up becoming Sasha's greatest rival from the very beginning of their call up to the main WWE shows, Raw and Smackdown. Those two fought tooth and nails to prove which one was the better of the two, while the other two members of their former group had accompanied them at two separate WrestleMania ppvs. The red headed, tough Irish "Lass Kicker" Becky Lynch, was on their heels their first year at the big ppv, while Sasha's side pony tailed, pure hearted best friend Bayley, overtook both her and Charlotte the next year. Sasha's road to becoming the "Greatest of All Time" wasn't gonna be an easy road, but she was gonna have to show everyone who was "Boss", even if it mean't she had to set some boundaries for herself. She was so determined to achieve her goals, she trained harder and spent less time with her friends, all the while watching old videos of her childhood hero, the late great Eddie Guerrero. Her dream was to be like a female version of him, and right now, she was feeling the pressure of falling short of him, so she took time for herself, and continued to study his greatness, as well as pump herself up even more in gym rooms. As she got down to business, she couldn't help but notice the looks she would get from some of the guys in the room with her. Some of them were fans of her work, while others were confused by her strict work ethic. Then of course, there were those who noticed all of her hard work paying off, for reasons beyond the work area, which Sasha wanted no parts of, as she always considered herself to be more than eye candy, and left the male hormones for the "divas" of the wrestling world to get a kick out of, quite frankly. She was about to be in for quite a surprise however, when a fellow wrestler of her own liking started to catch her eye.
As soon as Sasha planned ahead of time to get an early work out in a gym she would have all to herself, she found herself in the company of none other than her fellow male co-worker, Japanese wrestler and Smackdown's resident "Rock Star", Shinsuke Nakamura. She looked over at him, noticing he was taking the same form as her with weights in his hands, lunging forward with them down by his side. In turn, he looked back over at her with a slight turn of his head and a sly grin on his face, to which she quickly regained focus and continued her workout, while Nakamura laughed to himself with certainty of the moment he just shared with her. Sasha paid him no attention though, as she went on about her mission deeply indulged, until Nakamura made a comment to her about her brief distraction. He literally let her acknowledgement of him go right to his head, as he whipped out a mirror and put on a show for his female "workout partner", fixing his hair which draped over one side of his head unlike the other side which was shaved. As he turned his attention fully toward Sasha, he fiddled with his hair as cocky and as playful as can be, telling her he knows she can't "resist" him as he's so "beautiful", to which she pridefully overruled in an attempt to suppress how she was really feeling. Nakamura wasn't sold on her response though. In fact he saw through Sasha's ego, and saw her as playing "hard to get", much to his approval, as he obviously liked playing games with people. He came up with an idea to win her over, figuring he could challenge her at her own expertise of exercising right then and there in the workout room, under the conditions of taking her out on a date if he won, so they could discuss their very obvious different tastes in music. Sasha wasn't having it though, as much as she liked a challenge. For once, she decided against her competitive nature and tried to take the high road, as she thought Nakamura was coming on too strong, even though she was in fact a fan of his, and she did find him as attractive as any other Asian man as much as she didn't wanna admit it, but she just wanted to be the best at what she did for a living, so a date was a no go for her. She immediately rejected him and set out to leave the gym, until she heard him make a provoking remark about how she was no "Wonder Woman", knowing good and well she would take it to heart after she represented for the legendary Superhero in the first ever female Royal Rumble. She quickly stopped in her tracks, and headed right back towards Nakamura to take him up on his challenge, which she knew she would have in the bag now after he made the wrong comment to her. She couldn't wait to make an example out of him, as both of them engaged in a series of contests for who could do the most pushups, sit ups, arm curls, pull ups, leg presses, and even an arm wrestling match ensued, all of which Sasha won, but not without Nakamura causing her distractions, making her laugh with funny comments about how his taste in music was "better" than her's, and how Hip-Hop "sucks", and Rock n' Roll was "better", or how Catwoman was "better" than Wonder Woman. He got to Sasha a great deal for better or worse, because she had more fun than she was willing to admit, and she was pushed to the limit which was good for her training, but her job was now done for the time being, and she didn't wanna get too attached to Nakamura, who she left laying in a pool of his own sweat, exhausted, yet lying about like a silly fool who now thought he was in "love".
Sasha's recent encounter with Nakamura made her keep her guard up around others even more than before whenever she was around them, which was very little, as she tried to keep an even lower profile just in case another distraction got in her way, and the coast was clear for her, or so she thought, until her best friend Bayley, managed to catch up with her one day. She had approached Sasha, asking of her whereabouts lately and offering her a day's worth of a break at least, from her constant training, to have fun in a way they were already accustomed to doing so outside of work or exercise, as Bayley suggested they got together for an evening on the youtube channel "UpUpDownDown" of WWE's very own 1/3d of the colorful, fun, pancake loving, tag team of the "New Day", Xavier Woods, for a video game session. The hang out would also feature foreign wrestlers such as the irish, redheaded mohawk haired, pale skinned "Celtic Warrior" Sheamus, and his swiss tag team partner, the "Swiss Superman" Cesaro of "The Bar", as well as solo wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura. The last person Bayley named, evidently struck a nerve with Sasha, whose facial expression changed to a somewhat reddish color. She tried to shy away, but Bayley immediately caught on, not allowing Sasha to move on, so Bayley nagged her about him until she gave in, and accepted her invite out of reluctance and pride to show she didn't sweat the man Bayley was teasing her about endlessly. After Sasha got on board, both she and Bayley got themselves ready, as they now had on t-shirts of video game characters. Bayley was wearing a shirt of her favorite video game hero Crash Bandicoot, while Sasha was wearing a shirt featuring the characters of her favorite video game Super Mario-Kart, which was the intended game the two were in for when they showed up on Xavier's channel. When they got there, his other guests were already waiting for them, which took Sasha by surprise, as she was hoping to be there before her expected "admirer" made a big deal about her arrival, which he did, just as she thought he was gonna do. Xavier Woods was the very welcoming host he always was, allowing the girls to make themselves at home as if they were just one of the guys, while Sheamus and Cesaro were no different, and treated them the same way. Nakamura however, was once again making himself obvious about Sasha being his intended object of affection, as he wasted no time greeting her with the same sly grin on his face he had on the last time those two were in the same room. He took her in for a second, noticing the difference in her from her usual appearance. As if her stylish look, inherited "swagger", freakish physique, top notch wrestling ability, and Autumn-like skin complexion wasn't enough for him, he was now digging her for her love of video games and pair of glasses she had on, making her look like a "fox" to his approval. Sasha on the other hand, put her hand in his face like he was nothing, and turned away embarrassed, while the others in the room laughed and rubbed the obvious attraction in her face. The feeling for her only got worse, when Nakamura decided to take a seat next to her, making her scooch over closer next to Bayley, who really wasn't much help, and enjoyed watching Nakamura toy with her best friend. From her point of view, she didn't see a problem, and she knew Sasha well enough to sense some mutuality from her, even though she wasn't the type to share her true feelings of affection. She was in an awkward place no doubt, but she tried to regain control when the time came to play her favorite video game, Mario-Kart, which Xavier Woods had the 8th installment and the Deluxe version of, on his Nintendo Switch. The game was limited to only four players at a time, meaning at least two people in the room would have to sit back and watch for now, and based on how the evening was going for Sasha, she had to act fast, and make the most of her day. She quickly grabbed one of the pint sized controllers and selected the main character of Super Mario to play as, leaving Nakamura no choice but to follow suit and select Mario's arch nemesis Bowser, a.k.a King Koopa, further alluding to what he had in store for Sasha. She rolled her eyes and waited on someone to accompany them, but everyone else was still too entertained by Nakamura's relentless admiration for Sasha to wanna help her distract away from him. They sat back trying to push for her to play Nakamura in a one on one game. Sasha declined, but Nakamura got her attention once again, when he told her he would lay off of her for good, if she went through with the challenge and won, but if he won, she would have to go out on a date with him. Sasha couldn't resist now, and took him up on the bet. She was confident enough, thinking she had nothing to lose as far as she was concerned, and couldn't wait to get the better of her opponent again. Unfortunately, the challenge wasn't gonna be an easy breeze for her though. She had to sit through three rounds of Nakamura relentlessly overlapping, and striking her with lightning, turtle shells, and star power every chance he got, all the while distracting her with pick-up lines like "Mamasita", in reference to her dear to heart, Eddie Guerrero, making her giggle and blush, and lose in the process, while Nakamura crossed the finish line two out of three times. Sasha wouldn't let up though, as much as her audience approved of her loss and were overexcited for Nakamura. She demanded a rematch, yelling playfully, and wanting to kill Nakamura, who was lucky everyone was on his side. Sasha was in denial, but she had no choice but to give in, and experience Nakamura's "Latino Heat" as he put it, to rub in his victory. Sasha really wanted to kill him, but she couldn't help but notice he really did have a similar spice and groove to him like Eddie Guerrero did, the more she thought about it. She accepted his date as long as he knew who was really the "Boss" between them.
When Sasha went on her date with Nakamura, she really saw more in him than he let on the two times they crossed paths. He was still slick and cocky, but he was also very gentle, fun, and there really was something to be said about his taste in music after all. His "Rock Star" ways really grew on her both in and out of the ring, as she learned a thing or two from him each time they trained together and vice versa, making Sasha into an even better person as well as an even better wrestler.