Start It Up: Sasha Banks Getting Special Honor This Month

It comes with the territory. Back in 2019, WWE announced that FOX would be airing SmackDown every Friday night. This was the biggest broadcast deal that WWE had ever earned and it changed a lot of things about how WWE operated. They were now part of one of the biggest networks in the world and they had to do something with it. Now WWE is /getting a little cross promotion.

One of the most important aspects of SmackDown moving to FOX is that it gets to be listed alongside some other mainstream sports. FOX airs everything from Major League Baseball to the NFL to college sports and more. It makes WWE seem a lot more important to be on a list like that and they have made it feel like an important change. Now two of those sports are crossing over a bit.

During this week’s SmackDown, a graphic announced that SmackDown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks will be an honorary starter at the Daytona 500 NASCAR race on February 14. As starter, Banks will deliver the “start your engines” order before the race. John Cena served as an honorary starter for the 2012 edition of the race. Banks also appeared on this week’s show in an in-ring segment with Carmella, Reginald and Bianca Belair.

It'll be #BossTime at @DAYTONA!#SmackDown @SashaBanksWWE @NASCARONFOX pic.twitter.com/qdZr8ssMC3

— WWE (@WWE) February 6, 2021

Opinion: This might not be the biggest deal in the world but if you can get some extra eyes on WWE as a result, good for them. It’s just nice to see wrestlers getting the chance to do something a little more mainstream because there is usually a thick wall between the two sides. That can get annoying in a hurry, but it is part of the nature of the wrestling business and always has been.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books.

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