Io Shirai On Impact Wrestling’s Radar, John Cena Shares A Special Moment With Make A Wish Kid At RAW (Video)

February 13, 2018

Io Shirai

Thanks to Himanshu D for the following:

Gail Kim was on a recent episode of ‘Keepin it 100 with Konnan‘, who will be moving to Westwood One’s The Jericho Network. During the show, Gail (who now works in a backstage capacity since her in-ring retirement) mentioned top Stardom women’s star Io Shirai was on Impact’s radar; you can read a few transcribed highlights below:

“They said WWE didn’t pick her up because she had some kind of injury, and she is a kick-ass, bad-ass wrestler.

Someone brought her name up to me and they said, “hey, we need a Japanese wrestler , that would be awesome.” And so I asked Rebel, because I heard she came from Stardom, so Rebel went over there and she went and wrestled and trained really hard and I said, “Hey, have you heard of this girl? Did you work with her in Stardom?” and she said yes and she just put her over huge. She said, “She is so good, and when she is comfortable with a girl, they go balls to the wall.” And she said, “You would be so impressed.”

– Gail reacts to Konnan’s comments about Shirai being a high flyer:

And you know what, that’s funny that you said that because that’s the one thing that I’ve noticed that there’s kind of a lack of right now. We don’t have a high flyer in Impact.”

Shirai was previously considered as a WWE prospect and even reportedly announced she was leaving Stardom to sign with the company. Late last year, it was reported that WWE decided not to offer Shirai a contract due to a neck issue that was discovered during medical testing.