During her recent chat with Tokyo Sports, WWE Monday Night Raw Superstar IYO SKY discussed her recent name change, as well as her return from an injury. Check out the highlights below.
On her ankle surgery:
“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.”
On her name being changed from Io Shirai to IYO SKY:
“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 ‘Io.’ 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.”
