IYO SKY was recently interviewed by Tokyo Sports to talk about several professional wrestling topics.

Here are the highlights:

Her injury and making her return:

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.

Her name change 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.