AEW Star Mina Shirakawa Shows Off Amazing Body For "Release of My New Photo Book"

Ivelisse Velez, a well-known wrestler, continues to dominate in the world of professional wrestling. Famous for her time with Lucha Underground, Velez recently shared some thrilling highlights from her latest match with Shine Wrestling on Instagram. She captioned the post with pride, "My best match of 2024 🤼‍♀️🇵🇷⚔️🇯🇵." With a career centered on breaking barriers and raising the bar for women’s wrestling, Velez has become a powerful voice for female athletes. From her dedication in the ring to her role as a dog owner and advocate for healthy living, Velez's journey continues to inspire. Her passion for promoting women's wrestling shines through, solidifying her as a trailblazer in the sport.

1. She Wrestles

Wrestling is the main way Velez stays in shape. The sport has a lot of health benefits. FloWrestling states, “Wrestlers learn from challenging one-on-one struggles against an opponent and also develop an awareness of diet and nutrition through the process of making weight. While not all wrestlers and coaches approach weight loss in healthy ways, when done correctly, this can teach a physical life skill that many young athletes may never learn.”

2. She Has A Dog

Velez has a dog, whom she prominently features on her social media accounts. She shared this video on her TikTok and Instagram. Harvard Health states that having a dog can have some health benefits. “Ongoing research is showing that the health benefits of owning a dog are undeniable. Dog owners have lower blood pressure and healthier cholesterol levels, and a lower risk of heart disease, than non-owners.”

3. She Wants To Highlight Women’s Wrestling

Velez opened up about her career in an interview with The Huffington Post. She says that promoting women’s wrestling is important to her. “I have always wrestled like a guy; I have always had it in my mind to have that standard. I have always wanted to bring that level of credibility to women's wrestling. Women can fight. Women are just as good as men. Women are just as tough as men."

4. She’s Proud Of Herself

Velez is extremely proud of the way her career has gone. "With Lucha Underground, here I am, where I was meant to be all along," she said to The Huffington Post. "That's why I feel like I was meant to go through all that hell. This is perfect for what I wanted to bring to the world. It definitely means a lot. Being in this career and giving everything I have given, being acknowledged... It makes that feeling ten times bigger. I'm happy it's happening, happy for everything to come and extremely grateful!"

5. She Helped Change Things

Velez talked about being a part of getting women’s wrestling promoted to The Huffington Post. "I highly doubt it has anything to do with the talent, the women out there itself. It has to do with the fact WWE was the main wrestling entity, and that's what they wanted to sell. Anyone else who had a different agenda pretty much got short-handed. Now it's out there; there's a higher demand for that type of performer. They sort of have no choice but to roll with the punches and finally give people what they want to see."

Mercedes Mone is a very successful wrestler. She is currently with AEW, and was previously with WWE. She recently did a training session with the gym. Mone shared a video of it on Instagram, captioning it, “Always gotta stop by @hogwrestling to learn from @sensationalamazingred anytime I’m in New York! Thank you HOG Krew.” How does she stay so fit? Read on to see 5 ways Mercedes Mone stays in shape and the photos that prove they work.

1. She Wants To Promote Black Women Wrestlers

Mone tells The Ringer that she wants to promote black women in the wrestling world. “I was thinking about this the other day. It’s been our goal. It’s the goal. It’s the dream. It’s the standard. It’s the barrier that we’ve been breaking down, and it’s letting people know that we’re here to stay and you have to get used to that standard.”

2. She Puts Her Heart Into Things

Mone opened up about wrestling after an injury to The New York Post. “This was almost all taken away from me and I couldn’t imagine where I would be if I didn’t have wrestling. I would be so, so lost,” Moné said. “So for me, it’s really putting my heart, my soul, my body all out there all over again and not being afraid of getting hurt. That’s the biggest thing about having an injury is not being afraid of hitting these moves you hit before. You don’t want to get hurt again. I’m ready to put my body on the line. I’m ready to put my heart out there.”

3. She Works With Trainers

As you can see from her recent post, Mone makes sure to train. She also shared this Instagram post from the gym, and praised her trainers in the caption. “Thank you @flatbackstraining For being a safe space to do what I love most. For reminding me who da fuck I am. For welcoming me and making me better with every training session. For being a school that all wrestlers can be proud of.For going above and beyond for a young vet like this Brooklyn Girl. For being there for me when I didn’t know where to start again. And reigniting my mind, body, and passion. 💙It’s almost time.”

4. She Does Yoga

Mone loves to practice yoga to stay in shape. She shared these photos on Instagram of herself doing poses. Mone captioned the post, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Harvard Health states that yoga can help with your mental state. “Yoga develops inner awareness. It focuses your attention on your body's abilities at the present moment. It helps develop breath and strength of mind and body. It's not about physical appearance. Yoga studios typically don't have mirrors. This is so people can focus their awareness inward rather than how a pose — or the people around them — looks. Surveys have found that those who practiced yoga were more aware of their bodies than people who didn't practice yoga. They were also more satisfied with and less critical of their bodies. For these reasons, yoga has become an integral part in the treatment of eating disorders and programs that promote positive body image and self-esteem.”

5. She Doesn’t Pressure Herself

Mone revealed in an interview with The Ringer that she doesn’t pressure herself to perform well. “I don’t want to put pressure on myself because I’ve been doing this for 14 years. I have more excitement than pressure, but I am really nervous as well, just because it’s been a year since I performed, but being in the ring with someone like Willow Nightingale, I know it’s going to be absolutely everything I’ve ever dreamed of. We’re going to go out there and steal the show.”

Tiffany Stratton is known for her aggressive attitude in the WWE world—and she works hard to put her money where her mouth is. The wrestling star is all muscle, and one thing she never skips is leg day. Stratton, 24, shared pictures of herself posing in a pink sports bra, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail with a matching pink scrunchie. “Buff Barbie reporting for leg day 🫡🎀,” she captioned the post. “Beautiful,” a fan commented. Stratton is a beast inside and outside the ring—here’s how she stays strong, focused, and ready for a fight.

1. Crossfit and Bodybuilding

Stratton has always been athletic and strong. “I used to be a bodybuilder,” she told TV Insider. “I did one show and won the entire thing. I used to do CrossFit. I feel like people are surprised at that. They look at me and think pretty blonde. I was an elite gymnast. I was on the national team. I just think people look at me and forgot what I did before coming into wrestling… I definitely feel like I have a chip on my shoulder. I feel people look at me and see just another blonde that looks pretty. I always deliver in the ring. I take wrestling very seriously. I take these premium live events very seriously.”

2. Sculpting Her Physique

Stratton got into bodybuilding after seeing photos of herself and being unhappy with her appearance. “I was kind of chubby in all honesty if I look back at my photos,” she said on the Out of Character with Ryan Satin podcast. “So I got into bodybuilding. That is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be able to form my muscles to how I wanted them to look. That's why I got into bodybuilding and I went through a whole prep, a bodybuilding prep and that was life changing. I'm so glad I did that before I came to the WWE, because now I know how to get in shape for a big pay-per-view or just in general bodybuilding definitely taught me that and the discipline for dieting and stuff is on another level.”

3. Wonder Woman Dreams

Stratton has big dreams of becoming an action hero. “I would love to go into acting,” she told TV Insider. “My dream role would be some cool action superhero girl that does cool flips. That’s my dream role. Like a Wonder Woman. I’m a big fan of her. I was dressed as her for Halloween one year.”

4. Inspired By Charlotte Flair

Stratton was inspired by Charlotte Flair to go into wrestling. “I would say I was flipping through the channels. I came across a random Friday Night Smackdown and I saw Charlotte Flair,” she said on the Out of Character with Ryan Satin podcast. “I saw that she was blonde, she was buff, she could flip, she could talk some [trash], and I was like, that is literally everything that I can do."

5. Private Life

Stratton keeps strict boundaries between her personal and private life. “I still try to keep my private life private,” she told TV Insider. “But I’ve always behaved like a champion, even before I became a champion. I know how to act in public. It wasn’t like I had to change how I acted within the public eye. I was always very put together and never got drunk at a club and was acting crazy. So I’ve been able to avoid that.”

1. Japanese Skincare

Shutterstock

Sawayama was ahead of the curve when it came to Asian skincare brands. "I always hoarded skincare when I went to Japan for my summer holidays, so I remember getting a lot of drugstore makeup and skincare,” she says. “I think one of my first purchases was eye makeup — clear mascara and light blue eyeshadow. I have a skincare subscription from Dermatica which, across the year, is a splurge. I also use Athletic Greens to get my vitamins and minerals for the day."

2. Beauty Idol

Sawayama’s beauty idol is her mother. “She’s like 60 and she has no wrinkles,” she says. “I asked her, ‘What’s your skin skincare routine?’ She’s like, ‘I use baby oil, then I wash my face with shampoo. I’m like, okay, well I need to ditch my ten step Korean skin care routine because I don’t need to do all that!”

3. John Wick Miracle

Shutterstock

Sawayama was in disbelief when she got the role of Akira in John Wick: Chapter 4. “John Wick is a miracle movie to me,” she says. “I’ve been doing auditions and self-tapes in the background of music for years, but I hadn’t landed anything. Then I got a call from Chad Stahelski, the director, and he’d seen my music videos. He asked what I was doing for the next three months. I’d finished the bulk of my writing for the second record and had a gap in my schedule. I was in Berlin three days later. The ink on the contract hadn’t even dried when I began stunt training.”

4. Training For John Wick

Sawayama’s training for John Wick: Chapter 4 was intense—five weeks of work every day, including night shoots. “A tour is easy compared to this,” she says. “It was the most intense thing I’ve ever done. In music, I know what I’m doing onstage. I know my groove. But acting is completely new, and I was learning in a very high-pressure situation. It taught me I can push myself even more. We did five hours of exercise every day — and there were times I’d get through half the day and really not want to do it. But you push through. When I feel like I’m dying, I can tap into this place, locate where the tiredness is, and shine a light on it.”

5. Beauty Community

Sawayama loves the beauty communities on Instagram. “When I was growing up, I’d look at Dior in the 2000s, when Pat McGrath was doing like these amazing, insane looks,” she says. “We didn’t have as much access to stuff like that, but now we have all these beauty communities on Instagram. I think that’s the strength of Instagram, to be able to tap into these communities that will appreciate your creativity. I think that’s been a really positive thing. People are not as self conscious, maybe. Previously, you’d have to look at magazines and archives and books, but now you don’t because of Instagram.”