Before Iyo Sky WWE matches were taking place on WWE’s biggest stages, Io Shirai had already spent years building one of the great modern Joshi careers. From the young Triple Tails prospect alongside Kana to Stardom’s dominant ace, Queen’s Quest leader, NXT champion and eventually WWE superstar, Sky’s career is less a reinvention than a collection of different versions of the same extraordinary wrestler.
Ayumi Kurihara & Yoshiko Tamura vs. Io Shirai & Kana | August 1, 2010
When Ayumi Kurihara injured her leg after missing a dive, Shirai and Kana mercilessly attacked it while Yoshiko Tamura desperately tried to protect her partner. There was even an endearingly imperfect moment when Shirai botched a cartwheel dropkick and Kana simply laughed and pointed at her.
Kurihara eventually fought through the injury and dropped Shirai with a brutal Uranage for the victory.
It is valuable precisely because Shirai was not yet the finished article. The ingredients were there. The phenomenon was still being assembled.
Io Shirai vs. Meiko Satomura | December 23, 2015
This was about considerably more than a championship.
Meiko Satomura had invaded Stardom, taken the World of Stardom Championship from Kairi Hojo and defeated Mayu Iwatani. Shirai, now firmly established as Stardom’s ace, was left to bring the belt home.
Satomura battered her with vicious kicks, while Shirai responded by taking increasingly enormous risks, including a spectacular moonsault from the balcony/stairway area.
The finish beautifully captured the story. Shirai used Iwatani’s dragon suplex and Hojo’s diving elbow before finally landing her own moonsault.
She did not just defeat Satomura.
She carried the wrestlers Satomura had beaten into battle with her and restored Stardom’s championship before the year ended.
Io Shirai vs. Kairi Hojo | January 17, 2016
Bringing the championship back to Stardom immediately created another problem.
Kairi Hojo wanted it back.
The Threedom stablemates fought for almost 30 minutes at Stardom’s fifth anniversary show, trading heavy strikes before the fight escaped into Korakuen Hall. Shirai moonsaulted from the apron while Hojo later launched herself from the stands with a forearm.
Hojo eventually attempted her famous diving elbow, only for Shirai to raise her feet.
A tombstone piledriver, package German suplex and Tiger suplex followed before Shirai landed the moonsault.
Against Satomura, Shirai had become Stardom’s rescuer.
Against Hojo, she began establishing herself as its dominant champion.
Io Shirai vs. Toni Storm | May 21, 2016
Barcelona holds an easily overlooked piece of Iyo Sky history.
The resulting 10-minute sprint contrasted Storm’s hard strikes and technical wrestling with Shirai’s speed and aerial offence.
Shirai eventually secured the pinfall and became the inaugural SWA champion.
It lacks the sprawling drama of her greatest Korakuen Hall matches, but that almost makes it more interesting. Sky’s career was becoming international years before WWE entered the picture.
Io Shirai vs. Viper | January 15, 2017
Viper presented Shirai with a wonderfully straightforward problem.
She was much, much bigger.
Shirai responded by becoming increasingly ruthless, at one point putting a chair around Viper’s neck before dropkicking it from the apron.
Viper answered with raw power, throwing Shirai around ringside and crushing her with a cannonball senton.
The astonishing moment came late. After countering from the top rope and landing a moonsault, Shirai somehow executed a delayed German suplex on Viper before transitioning into a cross-arm suplex hold for the pin.
It demonstrated something beyond Shirai’s famous athleticism.
She could adapt her wrestling to almost anybody.
Hiroyo Matsumoto & Jungle Kyona vs. HZK & Io Shirai | April 9, 2017
This Goddesses of Stardom Championship match gave Shirai a completely different role.
Alongside HZK in Queen’s Quest, she challenged champions Jungle Kyona and Hiroyo Matsumoto in a classic power-versus-agility contest.
Kyona and Matsumoto wanted collisions, using shoulder tackles and lariats. Shirai and HZK instead relied upon speed, quick tags and aerial attacks.
Ultimately, Kyona isolated HZK and finished her with a powerbomb.
It is an important snapshot of the Queen’s Quest era. Shirai was no longer simply Stardom’s leading singles wrestler. She had become the centre of a faction and an increasingly influential presence around the wrestlers developing alongside her.
Io Shirai vs. Kairi Hojo | March 20, 2017
By 2017, Hojo knew exactly where Shirai could be hurt.
Her back.
Hojo repeatedly attacked it during this World of Stardom Championship match, even recreating the Boston crab that had helped her defeat Shirai during the previous year’s 5-Star Grand Prix.
Eventually Shirai’s back gave way while attempting a German suplex.
That made everything afterwards feel desperate rather than inevitable.
Shirai eventually recovered sufficiently to land a tombstone piledriver and moonsault. The latter was not perfect, but Hojo stayed down.
Sometimes the most revealing performances are those where a wrestler’s usual brilliance becomes physically difficult.
Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai | August 10, 2019
WWE eventually discovered that Io Shirai was much more interesting when she stopped being nice.
Her TakeOver: Toronto match with former friend Candice LeRae demonstrated why.
LeRae attacked before the bell. Shirai responded with a facebuster onto the apron and an overhead suplex onto the announce desk. Even an Avalanche Spanish Fly could not finish LeRae.
Then came the shock.
LeRae kicked out of Shirai’s moonsault.
Rather than panic, Shirai immediately trapped her in the Koji Clutch and rendered her unconscious.
The black-clad NXT version of Io Shirai felt new to WWE audiences, but the cruelty underneath it had existed in Japan for years.
Io Shirai vs. Sasha Banks | July 1, 2020
Sometimes the simplest dream matches are the most effective.
Sasha Banks was an established WWE superstar. Shirai was NXT Women’s Champion. The championship was not on the line, but reputation certainly was.
Their Great American Bash match delivered the expected athleticism before becoming wonderfully tangled in wrestling history.
Bayley attempted to help Banks.
Then Asuka appeared.
A decade after Kana and Shirai had teamed together as Triple Tails in Japan, Asuka sprayed Banks with green mist and Shirai landed the moonsault for the victory.
Two completely different periods of Shirai’s career had suddenly collided on WWE television.
Io Shirai vs. Rhea Ripley | November 18, 2020
Rhea Ripley represented perhaps the ultimate test of Shirai’s speed against raw power.
Their NXT Women’s Championship match became increasingly violent, with Ripley even bleeding from her ear.
The defining moment came when Shirai hit a spectacular sunset flip powerbomb that sent Ripley crashing through the announcers’ desk.
Ripley somehow returned to the ring at nine.
Her reward was immediate.
Shirai climbed to the top and landed the Over the Moonsault for a clean victory.
Ripley was one of NXT’s most imposing wrestlers. Shirai had deliberately called her out because she wanted to beat the best.
She did.
Iyo Sky vs. Utami Hayashishita | July 13, 2024
Six years after leaving Japan, Iyo Sky returned at Marigold Summer Destiny.
Waiting was Utami Hayashishita, who had idolised Sky before eventually succeeding her as Queen’s Quest leader in Stardom.
What followed was not a gentle homecoming.
Sky seemingly rediscovered the vicious Io Shirai of her Joshi prime, battering Hayashishita with stiff strikes, palm strikes and submissions across 25 minutes.
Hayashishita kept fighting back, forcing her former inspiration to earn the victory.
Eventually a tombstone piledriver and Over the Moonsault finished it.
Only afterwards did the hostility disappear, with both women raising each other’s hands and embracing.
For one night, Iyo Sky felt remarkably like Io Shirai again.
Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Naomi | July 13, 2025
Five years after NXT, Sky and Ripley met again on a much larger stage.
This time it was WWE Evolution, the Women’s World Championship and the main event.
Sky wanted to prove Ripley could not defeat her one-on-one. Ripley nearly did exactly that, hitting the Riptide after a referee bump with nobody available to count the pin.
Then Naomi changed everything.
She cashed in Money in the Bank, attacked Sky with the briefcase, sent Ripley into the ring post and landed a split-legged moonsault on Sky.
Three.
Sky’s championship was gone.
The beauty of the ending was its frustration. Sky and Ripley had spent months arguing over who was better.
Naomi simply found the perfect moment to make the question irrelevant.
Iyo Sky vs. Mayu Iwatani | October 26, 2025
Seven years had passed since the former Thunder Rock partners last wrestled one another in singles competition.
By Marigold Grand Destiny, they represented two very different journeys.
Mayu Iwatani had remained an icon of Japanese wrestling. Iyo Sky had become a global WWE superstar.
Their 26-minute reunion initially acknowledged that history before becoming increasingly brutal.
Sky hit a moonsault to the floor and repeated German suplexes. Iwatani responded with a Crucifix Driver, moonsault and vicious corner Poisonrana.
Eventually Sky overwhelmed her old partner with a Dragon Suplex, German Suplex, Tombstone Piledriver and two consecutive Over the Moonsaults.
It was a fitting conclusion to this collection.
The name, promotions and scale have changed enormously since 2010.
The wrestler underneath them never stopped evolving.
