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Hana Kimura, one of World Wonder Ring Stardom‘s star performers, has died, taking her own life at age 22. The news was confirmed by Stardom through Twitter today with the message, “We are very sorry to report that our Hana Kimura has passed away. Please be respectful and allow some time for things to process, and keep your thoughts and prayers with her family and friends.”

Kimura drew concern at about three a.m. Japan Standard Time with a series of social media posts that expressed extreme emotional distress, some with graphic pictures of self-harm. One of the posts, which have since been deleted, said she was getting “nearly 100 frank opinions every day,” thanked her mother and everyone who has supported her, and said, “I’m weak. I’m sorry.” Another said “I don’t want to be a human anymore.” The last two said, “Thank you, everyone. I love you.” and “Bye-bye.”

On Instagram, Kimura posted a picture with her cat, and on her Instagram story, four selfies, the first captioned with the date and the last with “Sayonara.”

Those connected to Kimura said that her friends and people from Stardom were “en route to her.” At about one p.m. JST, Stardom shared that she had passed away.

Hana Kimura was the daughter of wrestler Kyoko Kimura, and began her own in-ring career in 2016 in Wrestle-1. She started performing for Stardom later that year and officially joined the promotion in March 2019. She was one of the promotion’s rising stars, having held the Artist of Stardom Championship twice, the Goddess of Stardom Championship once, winning the 5 Star Grand Prix tournament in 2019, and becoming the leader of her own faction, Tokyo Cyber Squad, last year. She also worked internationally for promotions including Pro Wrestling EVE and Ring of Honor, and wrestled in a dark match with other Stardom wrestlers at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14 earlier this year.

In the autumn of 2019, she joined the cast of the reality show Terrace House and living with the five other castmembers in a house in Tokyo. The “opinions” she mentioned in her tweets were likely a reference to online comments and harassment that increased during her time on the show, especially as she began to have more arguments with one of her housemates. More details on Kimura’s time in Terrace House can be found here.

If you or someone you know struggles with thoughts of suicide, help is available through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. More resources can be found through the International Association for Suicide Prevention here.

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Here are your quick and dirty, editorial-free WWE Friday Night Smackdown results for May 22, 2020. This week’s show featured more first round matches in the Intercontinental Championship tournament, a champion vs. champion match, and more. Make sure you’re here tomorrow for the complete Best and Worst of Friday Night Smackdown column.

WWE Friday Night Smackdown Results:

– The show opened with The Miz and John Morrison making fun of Braun Strowman with “rejected puppets” from the Firefly Funhouse. Strowman interrupted, and Morrison volunteered Miz for a one-on-one match.

1. Universal Champion Braun Strowman defeated The Miz with a powerslam. After the match, Morrison challenged Strowman to a 2-on-1 handicap match for the Universal Championship at Backlash.

2. Intercontinental Championship Tournament Match: AJ Styles defeated Shinsuke Nakamura. Styles won with the Phenomenal Forearm.

3. Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley defeated NXT Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair. Bayley countered a roll-up and held the ropes to steal a victory.

4. Dolph Ziggler and Sonya Deville defeated Otis and Mandy Rose. Rose has new denim gear to match Otis. Deville pinned Rose after a stiff knee strike to the back of the head. After the match, Otis tried to check on Rose but got superkicked by Ziggler.

– The Forgotten Sons want to kill you for not loving the troops enough.

5. Intercontinental Championship Tournament Match: Jeff Hardy defeated Sheamus. Hardy won with a roll-up to advance in the tournament.

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If the latest reports are to be believed, it certainly appears that the NBA is inching ever-so-slowly toward a return to action. There’s been plenty of discussion in recent weeks about how this might work logistically, given the safety protocols that would have to be implemented as the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread.

Last week, the league announced that teams residing in markets that have loosened their social distancing restrictions could resume skeleton-crew workouts at their practice facilities, but that was met with a tepid response, in no small part because so many players have traveled out of market to be with their families during the crisis and are reluctant to return until there is a more definitive plan to resume play.

The idea of a so-called “bubble” location has taken hold, with Walt Disney World in Orlando emerging as the clear front-runner to host the games, which various reports have indicated could include an abbreviated 70-game finish to the regular season, followed by the playoffs.

In order for that to happen, players and team personnel would potentially have to undergo 14-day quarantines, and there is reportedly some consensus among them that they’d prefer to simply travel straight to the bubble location rather than return to their home cities and have to quarantine twice. Via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:

Teams want to avoid having to quarantine significant portions of their rosters twice — once upon returning to more restrictive markets, and again, at the bubble site.

In anticipation of the league’s expectation of restarting the season, the NBA has told those teams that it plans to work with them on solutions that possibly include redirecting some teams directly to campus/bubble sites instead of team facilities to hold training camps, sources said.

For example, here’s what Raptors All-Star guard Kyle Lowry wants to avoid: He has been working out in Philadelphia and could have to return to Toronto and quarantine for two weeks — without a guarantee that Canadian regulations would let him use the team’s facility during that period of time. Conditioning gains he had made could be dulled — just as Lowry and others are looking to accelerate preparation.

An additional report on Friday indicated that the travel squad for each NBA team would be reduced to a maximum of 35 people in all, whereas teams regularly travel with more than 50 people. Regardless, an NBA return is starting to look more promising as the league continues to hammer out all of the details on what will be mammoth undertaking to safely resume play.

(ESPN)

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