IYO Sky discusses hardships that almost led to WWE departure

IYO’s championship victory came a year after she made her main roster debut at SummerSlam in 2022 as a member of Damage CTRL alongside a returning Bayley and Dakota Kai.
IYO’s call up came just over a week into Triple H taking over as the head of creative in the company, which was the perfect time for IYO to make the move up, as she has discussed rumours of her being set to leave the company prior.
Speaking to Tokyo Sports (translated via Himanshu Doi), IYO has discussed hardships during her NXT career, which almost led to her leaving the company last year.

She said:
“My career in NXT was also going quite well. But the period was four years, so it was a long time for me. I thought I was going to the main roster, but there was no information. For two years due to the coronavirus, the company itself was not moving. Even though I was able to wrestle, there were weeks when I didn’t wrestle. I think it was difficult for me to spend so much time asking myself, “What am I going to do here?””

IYO’s return at SummerSlam came after she had been sidelined with an injury for four months, which she suffered during her last match in NXT at NXT Stand & Deliver in 2022.
Discussing the injury and her recovery, she said:
“I don’t know if it was because I had such a mentality, but I had a broken bone in my heel called the talus (on my right side). It was the first time I had broken a bone while wrestling, and it was also the first time I had surgery for a wrestling injury. I still have a bolt in his ankle.”

Prior to IYO’s call-up, reports emerged that she was set to leave the company, with her potentially being set to return to Japan.
Speaking on her desire to return to Japan, she said:
“I did think about it. It’s not that I don’t like America, but that if there’s nothing I can do here, I think there are more things I can do if I go to Japan. The situation of STARDOM I was in before had changed, and I was able to grow significantly after leaving Japan, so I was starting to feel confident that I would be able to show a different kind of work in Japan this time.”

IYO obviously ultimately re-signed with WWE, going on to find success on the main roster following her call-up.
Speaking on what made her stay in America, she explained:
“I have to follow my own policy of never giving up. In America, I could have also approached the company and said, “I want to terminate the contract”. But I definitely didn’t want to do that, so I set a goal to work hard until the end of my contract, and I stayed there for almost a year. I appeared at SummerSlam (August 2022) when my contract was about to end in one month.”

IYO is set to defend the WWE Women’s Championship against Asuka on tonight’s (September 22) episode of SmackDown.
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