The Japanese website Nikkan Sports is reporting that former All Japan Women’s promoter Kunimatsu Matsunaga committed suicide in Tokyo on Friday. He was 63.
The Matsunaga brothers started All Japan Women’s promotion in 1968 and until its close in April this year it was one of the oldest professional wrestling promotions in the world. Toshikuni Matsunaga, its former president, died at 57 in fall 2002. Sunoe Matsunaga, one of the first trainees in the company, who wrestled as Yuriko Amami, died in 2003 at the age of 67.
As of press time, there were no details on the reason for neither the suicide nor the specific conditions under which it took place.
Long removed from its successful heights of the 1990s, All Japan Women had become indebted for millions and continued to run in debt until the government threatened to shut the company down for its tax debt. The promotion’s last show was on April 17.
Matsunaga, who as a referee was known as Jimmy Kayama, joins several other tragic deaths among Japanese pro-wrestling promoters. Shinya Hashimoto, whose Zero-One promotion ran over $1 million in debt, died last month at 40 due to a condition likely related to the stress of running the promotion. Naoto Morishita, the former promoter of PRIDE Fighting Championships, committed suicide at the height of his company’s success in 2003.
We will have more details on this when they become available.
