That Time WWE’s Iyo Sky Nearly Went To Prison
By 2012, Sky, wrestling as Io Shirai, was close to a career breakthrough having achieved acclaim as part of the Triple Tails trio with sister Mio Shirai and Kana (WWE’s Asuka, Sky’s real-life apprenticeship under whom would form the basis of a 2025 storyline).
Sky had been in the sport five years, and even celebrated this milestone with a self-promoted event, Carino!, on March 4. It was here that she officially joined World Wonder Ring Stardom (STARDOM). An elusive new joshi promotion with actual buzz, by May 2012, STARDOM had almost tripled the attendance for its inaugural show (Birth Of Nova, January 23, 2011, 466) at Golden Stars (May 5, 1,300). There, a young Sky defeated Yuhi in the midcard. The performer and promotion were growing in parallel.
Very dedicated to the idea of perfecting her craft, Sky in her early days as a freelancer toured Mexico to supplement her training and learn a different style. She did her first tour proper in the autumn of 2010, performing dates for AAA and International Wrestling Revolution Group. In a bizarre trivia note, on, of all fateful days, May 19, Sky worked a date in Mexico for LEGEND Promociones, teaming with Keira to defeat Chica Tormenta and La Vaquerita. Sky travelled to Mexico City with her partner Nosawa Rongai, who as Nosawa also wrestled on the show. Nosawa was somewhat infamous in puroresu circles as a mercurial figure, to use a euphemism there. People like Nosawa often find themselves embroiled in conflict. A young Iyo Sky was caught in the backdraft. May 19 might have been the date of Iyo’s last match.
Masahiro Hayashi acted as a liaison between AAA and the Japanese wrestling scene; if a wrestler wished to travel between those two zones, they had to go through him. Nosawa was no different - and they did not get along. The specific nature of their conflict remains largely unknown. Whether it was personal or financial is not clear, but the extent of the acrimony is: that is because Hayashi attempted to orchestrate a plot designed to blacklist Nosawa from his home country forever.
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Upon attempting to return to Japan via Narita International airport on May 23, Nosawa and Sky were immediately placed into a detention facility on suspicion of smuggling 75 grams of cannabis into the country.
The couple immediately protested their innocence, claiming they had no idea that the paintings of and gifted to them by a friend of Hayashi had been used to conceal the drugs. This was shrewd, in that the gifts appealed to their egos.
They would never have suspected that drugs had been hidden within the frame, and they were always going to take them home. In another fiendishly clever layer of the plan, whoever planted the drugs had handed Sky and Nosawa an all-too-convenient alibi. A painting of themselves was almost too obvious an object that they could claim wasn’t first theirs. Who would do that?