Io Shirai Appears At WWE Event In Tokyo

WWE’s newest signee, Io Shirai, was on hand at the WWE live event in Tokyo this morning. She was officially unveiled as the newest addition to the roster. Shirai will be assigned to the NXT brand.

Shirai is a former 2x Wonder of Stardom champion. She has been voted as Tokyo Sports’ Joshi Puroresu Grand Prize winner (the equivalent of woman’s wrestler of the year award) the last 3 years in a row.

Shirai was rumored to be heading to WWE last year but failed medical evaluations prevented this from happening. It was reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that neck and heart problems caused WWE to back away from signing her. She continued to compete for Stardom the following year after not signing with WWE.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated ranked Shirai #6 in their female top-50 rankings in 2017.

Shirai confirmed her departure from Stardom back in late May with many speculating she would be headed to WWE.

Parts of Shirai’s blog in late May revealing her departure from Stardom were run through Google Translate.

“I’m going to leave Stardom with me aiming for a further leap of pro-wrestling life in the future.

The Korakuen Hall show on June 17 will be the last for Stardom.”

World of Stardom also Tweeted out the following facts about Shirai’s time with the promotion:

“Io Shirai’s done it all in Stardom.

World of Stardom champion twice, 1014 days.

Wonder of Stardom champion twice, 375 days.

Tag champion 407 days.

High Speed champion.

Artist of Stardom champion 6 times.

SWA champion.

5 Star Grand Prix champion.

Now she will show it to the world.”

Matt Cappotelli

Former Tough Enough winner, Matt Cappotelli, has lost his battle with brain cancer. He was 38.

Matt’s wife, Lindsay, has been keeping fans up-to-date on his well-being through her blogs and Facebook posts. Yesterday, she shared the news with the world.

“Hey Team Capp…I’ve been struggling with what to say and how to say this, and I’ll probably end up rambling, but here goes,” she wrote. “Today my love-my strong, sweet, beautiful love-took his last breath at 3:30 a.m. and went Home to be with Jesus…exactly one year after his brain surgery,” she continued. “You think you can be prepared for this when you know it’s coming, but you just can’t. The only person whose comfort I want right now is the one who can’t give it to me.”

Earlier this year, Lindsay outlined the timeline of Matt’s latest battle with brain cancer.

“Dr. Yao, the brain surgeon, came to our room to discuss things more with us and give us our options,” Lindsey wrote. “He explained that the tumor was of significant size and that he was shocked at how fast it had grown in the 4 months since Matt’s February MRI.”

Cappotelli had been working as a trainer at Ohio Valley Wrestling since 2013. He had previously won the promotion’s heavyweight championship before being diagnosed with a brain tumor for the first time in 2006. He announced last summer that he’d been diagnosed with a grade IV glioblastoma multiforme cancer. This form of cancer is the most aggressive of its kind.

“Throughout all of this, Matt and I really never discussed death,” Lindsey wrote. “A part of me wishes that we had, but I just never wanted to make him think that I didn’t think he would make it. Because I still had hope, and I didn’t want him to give up hope.”

Twin Sons of Hall Of Famer Receive WWE Tryouts

There are several brother tag-teams performing at a high-level in wrestling today. Last night, the Briscoe Brothers faced Matt and Nick Jackson for Ring of Honor. Jimmy and Jey Uso are one the best teams in the world. The Hardy Boyz have done fairly well for themselves as well throughout their lengthy careers.

While the Dudley Boyz don’t count as a real-life family combination, the 23-year-old twin sons of D-Von Dudley do. They both received tryouts at the WWE Performance Center recently.

The pair has wrestled both under their real names of Terrence and Terrell Hughes, as well as with the surname Dudley.

The Hughes brothers were among the 40 WWE hopefuls at the Performance Center this week. Former Impact Wrestling stars, Robbie E and Chelsea Green were also in attendance.

WWE.com had this to say regarding the brothers:

“Terrell & Terrence Hughes, the 23-year-old twin sons of WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley. Both men played football in high school, and Terrell qualified for regional and state competition in wrestling. Their sports-entertainment training began in 2012 at the Dudleys’ Team 3D Academy, and the Hughes brothers have held tag team titles on the independent circuit under the name TNT.”

The brothers have wrestled 36 professional matches on the independent circuit. They have also won several tag team championships already in their short careers.

Their father, D-Von Dudley, retired from in-ring action in 2016. He continues to work with WWE in a producer role, usually for tag-team matches. D-Von and Bubba Ray have been inducted into both the Impact Wrestling and WWE Hall of Fames. D-Von also has two younger sons as well, born 6 and 13 years after Terrell and Terrence.

NXT Head Trainer, Matt Bloom, and Mark Henry presided over the tryouts.