This is the kind of stuff you never want to read about and never happen…while browsing socials just now, I discovered there were apparent death threats made against Tokyo Joshi Pro wrestler Wakana Uehara today (yesterday Japan time). The posts in Japanese and English were reported on by her official Twitter/X account. One post, in Japanese but also in English, stated the threats said someone was sent to Shinjuku (part of Tokyo) today to kill Uehara in front of her mother and her family. So far Uehara appears to be safe and unharmed and while this may have been a joke, she is wisely taking it very seriously and will be more aware of her surroundings. She closed by thanking the fans who have always supported her.
Uehara had a stage performance scheduled today and, as a result, is not at today’s TJPW event (in progress at the time of this post, there is no live WRESTLE UNIVERSE broadcast) in Aichi.
More as it becomes available.
UPDATE: Yahoo Japan via Nikkan Sports reports the social media account in question has been identified and shut down, and Uehara posted on social media post-event today, all went well and she is okay but will continue to be careful going forward. Probably will be little to no criminal action because of lax/weak laws against this sort of behavior online in Japan, as sadly is still the case following the tragic Hana Kimura suicide caused by cyberbullying. Hopefully an incident like this lends more fuel to the fire and helps the neverending push by Hana’s mother, former wrestler Kyoko Kimura, to toughen the laws in Japan about this.
