March is Women’s History Month, and I always look at it like this: it’s not just about who held the belt — it’s about who moved the standard. Who changed what “elite” looks like. Who made the bar higher for everybody standing across from them.
IYO SKY has been doing that for most of her career, in multiple countries, under multiple names, in multiple systems that don’t even agree on what women’s wrestling is supposed to be.
And somehow, the through-line is always the same: when the stakes get serious, IYO turns the match into something that feels expensive.
The part people forget: WWE didn’t “teach” IYO how to be great — it just gave her a bigger stage
IYO’s WWE story hits harder when you remember she didn’t arrive as a project. She arrived as a finished product.
Even her introduction to the WWE audience wasn’t framed like “let’s see what she can do.” It was framed like “you’re watching someone special.” The 2018 Mae Young Classic run is still a perfect time capsule of that — she goes all the way to the final and pushes Toni Storm in a match WWE treated like a true showcase, not a developmental scrimmage.
And once she settled into NXT, the company basically stopped pretending. She wasn’t there to blend in. She was there to raise the level.
NXT TakeOver: In Your House — the night she grabbed the division by the throat
If you’re doing Women’s History Month right, you’ve got to talk about the nights that reset a division’s identity. For IYO, it’s TakeOver: In Your House 2020.
A triple threat with Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley sounds like a nightmare assignment — two bigger personalities, two bigger frames, and the risk of getting lost in the power of the moment. Instead, IYO wins the NXT Women’s Championship and makes it feel like the entire brand just shifted under her feet.
That win mattered because it proved something WWE still leans on today: IYO doesn’t need the match to be built around her to own it. If anything, she’s at her best when she has to thread the needle between chaos and structure.
The IYO formula: chaos you can trust
Here’s why she’s always been different to me — she wrestles like a high-wire act, but she does it with the brain of a technician.
A lot of high-flyers chase the pop. IYO chases control.
- She’ll speed the match up… and then cut it off on purpose.
- She’ll take a risk… but the risk is always tied to the story of the match.
- She makes “spectacle” feel like a weapon, not a hobby.
That’s why she’s so hard to beat in big matches: she forces you to wrestle her match, at her rhythm, in her airspace.
Damage CTRL and the main roster pivot: the moment she stopped being “the great wrestler” and became “the great threat”
Main roster WWE can swallow people up, especially wrestlers whose first language isn’t English. IYO didn’t just survive it — she found a lane where her presence did the talking.
Damage CTRL was important because it gave IYO weekly TV positioning as a serious player, not a guest feature. Then Money in the Bank 2023 happens, and you can feel WWE shifting gears: she isn’t just “one of the best in-ring talents,” she’s a chess piece they want in title stories.
And the cash-in at SummerSlam 2023 is still one of the cleanest examples of IYO’s value. The moment is loud — but what makes it stick is how believable she is when the bell rings. She doesn’t look like someone holding a title because the script says so. She looks like someone holding a title because it makes sense.
March 3, 2025: the night she proved she could be the champion
and
the storyline
Women’s History Month is the right time to talk about the difference between being champion and being the reason the division feels hot.
On March 3, 2025, IYO beats Rhea Ripley to win the Women’s World Championship. That’s not just a title change — that’s WWE putting their trust in the kind of wrestler who makes the belt feel important by default. And the timing wasn’t accidental. It placed her right in that WrestleMania-season pressure cooker where you either look like the champion of the moment… or you look like a placeholder.
IYO didn’t look like a placeholder for one second.
The WrestleMania-level takeaway: IYO makes people wrestle like it matters
This is the Women’s History Month point that matters to me most: IYO has a rare ability to make everyone around her level up.
You see it in how opponents sell her offense — they sell it like it’s dangerous. You see it in how they pace themselves — they slow down just enough to make her bursts feel sharper. You see it in how crowds react — because even fans who don’t know every chapter of her career can tell they’re watching someone operating at a different speed.
And that’s why her biggest compliment isn’t “she’s athletic.” It’s this:
When IYO is in a big match, it feels like a big match before anyone even takes a bump.
2026: the pivot point — from tag gold to solo urgency
Right now, IYO is in one of those career pockets that tell you a lot about how WWE views someone. She just came out of a tag title run with Rhea Ripley — a team that actually clicked because it felt like mutual respect between two killers — and then it ends the way wrestling partnerships usually do: not with a betrayal, but with the reality that WrestleMania season pulls everyone toward singles ambition.
That’s why the last couple weeks have been interesting. You can feel WWE repositioning her: she’s not drifting, she’s being aimed. She’s showing up in key matches, working with top names, and staying in the mix where titles and contenders are being sorted out.
Even last night, she was right in the middle of the Women’s Intercontinental Title picture — making it through the early portion of the gauntlet before Bayley outlasted everyone to earn the shot. And that’s kind of the most “IYO” thing possible: she doesn’t have to win the whole thing to remind you she’s dangerous. She just has to get time, space, and stakes.
The praise, the critique, and the truth that sits underneath both
If you listen to the smartest fans and the people who actually watch matches like they’re studying them, the praise is consistent: IYO is one of the best bell-to-bell wrestlers WWE has, period. Not “one of the best women.” One of the best.
The critique is usually the same too: WWE storytelling sometimes leans on promos, and IYO isn’t going to beat everyone in a long, English-heavy microphone war. But the thing is… she’s one of the rare wrestlers who can make that problem smaller, because her charisma isn’t dependent on perfect language. It’s dependent on timing, movement, facial expressions, body language — the stuff that reads in any country.
That’s why she keeps ending up in important matches: she communicates “main event” without needing to announce it.
Why IYO SKY is a Women’s History Month headliner
Women’s History Month is about impact, and IYO’s impact is obvious if you’ve been paying attention:
She helped normalize a style of women’s wrestling in WWE that’s fast, risky, high-level, and still structured. She’s the bridge between global women’s wrestling excellence and WWE’s biggest stages. And she’s proof that you can be small, fearless, and still feel like the most dangerous person in the ring.
IYO SKY isn’t just part of women’s wrestling history.
She’s one of the reasons the present-day standard is so high.
I’m the quiet one until the bell rings then I’ve got takes. I live for WWE NXT and TNA, I want every promotion to succeed, and I will absolutely roast the bad decisions on sight (because someone has to). Anime taught me to respect long-term storytelling; wrestling taught me that sometimes the plan is “we panicked” and called it “unpredictable.” The Miz got me into all of this, so yeah I appreciate confidence, commitment, and the art of talking like you’re already the main event. Now I bring that same energy to the page as the main writer for Late Night Crew Wrestling because if you’re not here to be must-see and tell the truth, why are you here?!