Various: Criminal Charges Expected Against Man in Hana Kimura’s Death, ROH News, Indies

Dec 18, 2020

Tokyo Police to File Charges Against Man Accused of Cyberbullying Hana Kimura

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department reportedly are preparing to file criminal charges against a man who is accused of cyberbullying Hana Kimura prior to her tragic death earlier this year, according to Asahi Digital.

It was reported that this man, who is in his 20s and lives in Osaka, Japan, sent several online bullying and threatening messages to Kimura and later deleted those messages following her death from suicide on May 23rd. It was also reported that images of these messages were taken by others prior to their deletion and sent to the police for possible criminal investigations.

Tokyo police are currently investigating around 1200 posts from 600 accounts as part of their on-going criminal investigations into the death of Kimura.

Ring of Honor News & Notes

During a recent interview with PWInsider Elite (via Fightful), ROH COO Joe Koff revealed that the company is currently in talks with both RUSH and Dragon Lee regarding new contracts. RUSH’s current contract with the company expires at the end of this year.

Fightful Select reported (via 411Mania.com) that LSG is still working without a new contract in the company. LSG’s ROH contract reportedly expired earlier in the year and he has continued working dates for the company but still has yet to sign a new deal with them.

During a recent interview with TV Insider, Mike Bennett revealed that he is currently working on a per-appearance deal with the company.

ROH officials reportedly are currently considering more plans to revamp their product, according to Fightful Select (via 411Mania.com). It was reported that one of the ideas being considered is revamping their divisions to include a potential ranking system similar to AEW. Another idea is to introduce something prior to matches to determine if a wrestler will be going for the Pure, Television, or World Championship and under the specific rules of those match types.

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Taya Valkyrie filed a trademark for “Taya Valkyrie” for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes on December 10th to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced the list of match options for for the scheduled King of Pro Wrestling Championship match between Bad Luck Fale and Yano at their Road to Tokyo Dome event on December 23rd. The options available for fan voting are Body Slam match or Last Corner Pad Removed match.

NJPW reportedly has sold well under 20,000 tickets as of press release for their two-night Wrestle Kingdom 15 event next month in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Lucha Libre AAA reportedly drew a peak live combined viewership of 106,900 for their Triplemania XXVIII event this past Saturday on YouTube and Facebook, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that this was higher than last year’s event which had a peak live combined viewership of 49,300 on AAA’s English and Spanish Twitch channels.

This past Wednesday’s episode of MLW Fusion featured a teaser for the upcoming debut of former Lucha Underground talent Mil Muertes. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason why MLW is able to use the Mil Muertes name and character is due to him having the rights to use the name in the indies as part of the terms of his deal with Lucha Underground.