{"id":21086,"date":"2018-06-30T10:37:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T14:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=21086"},"modified":"2018-06-30T10:37:52","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T14:37:52","slug":"officially-official-io-shirai-joins-wwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/06\/30\/officially-official-io-shirai-joins-wwe\/","title":{"rendered":"Officially Official: Io Shirai joins WWE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After months of reports and speculation, former\u00a0<strong>Stardom\u00a0<\/strong>Ace Io Shirai has announced she is joining the WWE.\u00a0 She appeared at a SmackdownLive house show in Japan to make the announcement and posted a tweet to her personal\u00a0Twitter featuring Red, Blue, and a WWE logo<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u65b0\u305f\u306a\u4e00\u6b69\u3002 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AKJTHF1fqo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/AKJTHF1fqo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; IYO SKY (@Iyo_SkyWWE) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Iyo_SkyWWE\/status\/1012991190310907904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 30, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/TagMeInBro\/status\/1013030884679864320<\/p>\n<p>With the announcement of a second\u00a0<strong>Mae Young Classic\u00a0<\/strong>tournament later this summer it would be perfect for Shirai to follow in the footsteps of fellow Stardom alumni <strong>Kairi Sane\u00a0<\/strong>(formerly Kairi Hojo).\u00a0 A win could launch her into a potential rematch with\u00a0<strong>NXT Women&#8217;s Champion Shayna Baszler\u00a0<\/strong>whom Shirai previously had a classic match with for the\u00a0<strong>World Of Stardom\u00a0<\/strong>title.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BkpTuHihuGy\/<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Who is Io Shirai?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Io Shirai is often considered one of the best women&#8217;s wrestlers in the world where she was the ace of Stardom during their most popular period.\u00a0 A member of the Stardom Trinity with Sane and\u00a0<strong>Mayu<\/strong> <strong>Iwatani<\/strong>,\u00a0the three helped popularise Joshi wrestling at a time when Joshi was on a real down period.\u00a0 The three women put on many a classic match as Stardom gained more and more attention both in Japan and with an international audience.\u00a0 If there is any WWE comparison to be made Io Shirai is Charlotte.\u00a0 Highly decorated, never afraid to put her body on the line and a charismatic star.\u00a0 Shirai joins WWE as one of the most decorated Joshi wrestlers ever.\u00a0 Shirai is a\u00a0<strong>6 x Artist of Stardom<\/strong>, was\u00a0<strong>Goddesses Of Stardom\u00a0<\/strong>champion for 407 days, had two World of Stardom reigns, one of 468 days and another of\u00a0546 days,\u00a0<strong>2 x Wonder of Stardom\u00a0<\/strong>champion and a former\u00a0<strong>High Speed Champion<\/strong>.\u00a0 She leaves Stardom as the first ever Grand Slam champion.\u00a0 It is clear that the WWE has signed one of the best women&#8217;s wrestlers in the world and Shirai will open many fans eyes to just how good talented and badass a women&#8217;s wrestler can be.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Highlights:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eKFpuWEHRW8<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Io Shirai vs Toni Storm : Stardom Osaka 2016 - SWA Title Match | Highlights\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KK5HwdN6xFA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Io Shirai vs Mayu Iwatani Highlights\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wGAOqEfjXOU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After months of reports and speculation, former\u00a0Stardom\u00a0Ace Io Shirai has announced she is joining the WWE.\u00a0 She appeared at a SmackdownLive house show in Japan to make the announcement and posted a tweet to her personal\u00a0Twitter featuring Red, Blue, and a WWE logo \u65b0\u305f\u306a\u4e00\u6b69\u3002 pic.twitter.com\/AKJTHF1fqo &mdash; IYO SKY (@Iyo_SkyWWE) June 30, 2018 https:\/\/twitter.com\/TagMeInBro\/status\/1013030884679864320 With the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":21094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,317,3,320],"tags":[304,1428,896,47],"class_list":["post-21086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-women","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-io-shirai","tag-kairi-sane","tag-mae-young-classic","tag-wwe"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}