IYO SKY was out of action earlier this year with an ankle injury.
SKY made her return and main roster arrival at WWE SummerSlam, debuting with the also-returning Bayley and Dakota Kai. Before that, Shirai had been out of action since the WWE NXT Stand & Deliver event on April 2, where she worked a Fatal 4 Way with Alba Fyre, Cora Jade, and the winner, NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose. She had her first match back on the August 1, which was a No Contest bout with RAW Women’s Champion Bianca Belair. It had been reported that Shirai was injured, but the nature and severity of the injury were never announced, or confirmed at all.
In an update, SKY recently spoke to Tokyo Sports and revealed how she broke her right ankle when hitting a moonsault on Fyre at Stand & Deliver. She hit her foot on the announcer’s table, and later had surgery at Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
SKY commented the following via rough translation, “When I flew in a moonsault outside the ring against Kay Lee Ray, I hit my foot on the announcer’s table and broke my right ankle and had to have surgery. I was referred to a ‘master ankle surgeon’ in Alabama, who is a WWE official. Now I have one bolt in to hold the bone in place. I was unable to put any weight on my right leg for about a month, and I had to use a crutch and a wheelchair. It took me about three months to be able to put my full weight on it.”
The former Io Shirai debuted the new IYO SKY name when she, Bayley and Kai surprised everyone at SummerSlam last month. She talke to Tokyo Sports about the name change.
SKY said the following via rough translation, “I think the image of the previous ‘Shirai’ can be conveyed in kanji to Japanese people, but that is not the case in the United States. I think it is a good name because the ‘SKY’ in it conveys the image. The first letter of ‘Io’ was capitalized and the second letter was lower-case ‘o’. So it looked like a lowercase L and O (lo), or like a number, and some people misread it. Now it’s all capitalized ‘IYO,’ which I think makes it easier to understand.”
SKY and Kai are currently participating in the tournament for the vacant WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles. They defeated WWE 24/7 Champion Dana Brooke and Tamina Snuka in the opening round, then on this week’s RAW they defeated Alexa Bliss and Asuka to advance to the finals. SKY and Kai will now work the finals on the August 29 RAW. Their opponents will be decided this Friday on SmackDown after a Second Chance Fatal 4 Way with Brooke and Snuka, Natalya and Sonya Deville, Xia Li and Shotzi, and Nikki A.S.H. and Doudrop. The Fatal 4 Way winners will then face Raquel Rodriguez and Aliyah that same night, with the winners advancing to RAW to face SKY and Kai for the vacant straps.
SKY is also schedule to compete at WWE Clash at The Castle on September 3 in Cardiff, Wales, as she, Kai and Bayley will team up to face Asuka, Bliss and Belair in six-woman tag team action.
Stay tuned to WrestlingHeadlines.com for more.
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(H/T to Fightful for the quotes)