WWE champ Iyo Sky 'thrives being underdog,' longtime friend says ahead of WrestleMania 41 title match

Dakota Kai shares her thoughts on Iyo Sky's WrestleMania 41 match against Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair.

LAS VEGAS – Iyo Sky will walk into WrestleMania as a women’s champion for the second straight year, but the match on Sunday night will be even more challenging than the recent one in Philadelphia.

Sky defeated Rhea Ripley for the Women’s World Championship weeks before WrestleMania 41, and it was thought she would only be defending it against Bianca Belair. However, Ripley inserted herself into the match, making it a triple threat for the title.

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Iyo Sky during the Women’s Royal Rumble during the WWE Royal Rumble at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Feb. 1, 2025. (Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images)

Since then, Ripley and Belair have taken turns pushing Sky out of the way as they talked trash with each other. Sky, though shorter than them, made clear she wasn’t going to take any more disrespect from the two former champions.

Dakota Kai, a longtime friend of Sky’s and former Damage CTRL stablemate, told Fox News Digital she didn’t understand where the disrespect came from.

"She’s champion right now, you know what I mean? But I think with Rhea and Bianca, they’re so caught up in the issues that they have, they’re not even considering her a threat, but she’s champion for a reason," Kai said ahead of WrestleMania 41 Night 2. "She’s been my favorite for years even before she was on the Stardom scene.

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Iyo Sky wins the SmackDown Women's Championship in 2023. (WWE)

"I also think Iyo thrives being the underdog though. I think she’s going to pull out a lot of stops on Sunday to show them like, ‘Hey, you’ve been