Kairi Sane & Io Shirai are two of the best wrestlers in the world today, regardless of gender. Both are currently under contract to WWE, where Kairi is a former NXT Womens Champion, the winner of the inaugural Mae Young Classic, and is currently one half of the WWE Womens Tag Team Champions alongside Asuka. Io hasn’t been as decorated yet, having failed the capture gold or tournament success, but is one of the best performers on the brand as well as one of the most popular. Both are sure to find success in 2020 in WWE, but their former home is wanting to call them back.
Stardom Is Bringing Joshi Back Under BushiRoad
In late 2019, it was announced that New Japan Pro Wrestlings parent company BushiRoad had purchased Stardom, the top womens wrestling promotion in Japan. Their intent is to bring it back to TV as a major brand, and make it as big as possible. This began with an untelevised dark match in the Tokyo Dome before Wrestle Kingdom, the first time women have performed in the Tokyo Dome in years. While we will likely never see Stardom absorbed into NJPW to provide a womens division, we will see them collaborate more often going forward.
Io Shirai & Kairi Sane Were Two Of The Biggest Names In Stardom
One thing that could majorly help in their rise is if they could get two of their biggest stars back. Alongside current ace Mayu Iwatani, Kairi Sane (then Kairi Hojo) and Io Shirai were the biggest stars in the company, and were consistently topping the cards. Both Kairi & Io did everything that could do in the company before leaving for WWE, but with expansion on the mind, them returning would be a huge boon for the company. They would also likely bring some WWE viewers who became fans along with them, providing an instant boost in viewership.
While losing these talents would hurt WWE ‘s growing womens divisions, they would recover quickly due to their insane talent pool they have sitting around in Florida waiting for a chance to shine. Stardom has also recently lost a major player after one of their new top stars in Kagatsu announced her retirement. Add in Riho beginning to focus on working in AEW, and you can see why they are almost desperate to get back some of their past big names. Nothing will come of this until contracts with WWE begin to expire, but a bidding war is on the horizion.
Would you want to see Kairi & Io stay in WWE or head back home and boost their old company? Let us know in the comments down below.
