13 Wrestlers Who Died In The Ring 8

8. Emiko Kado

If you’ve never seen women’s wrestling from Japan, then there’s something you need to know: it’s not like American womens’ wrestling. Although they are moving away from it these days with the arrival of people like Natalya, Charlotte and Paige, modern day WWE womens’ wrestling has mostly been in the directon of titillation over athleticism. In Japan, it’s the total opposite. Much like the mens’ wrestling, it’s hard hitting action from bell to bell. The percentage of girls who drop out at various points of training is enormous, and you should go out of your way to find a documentary about this very subject called “GAEA Girls”.
One person who did survive the training camps was a young lady called Emiko Kado. Debuting for the ARSION promotion, he
r first match was at their first anniversary show in front of 1550 people at Korakuen Hall in Japan. It was a losing effort, but in Japan, unlike the United States, debuting wrestlers usually come in to little fanfare, wear plain gear and lose every match for a good year or so before being allowed to work their way up the ladder. In fact, Kado lost her next 14 matches as well, meaning that she came into her tag team match on March 31st 1999 with a 0-15 record. On this show in Fukuoka, Japan, she was teaming with Michiko Omukai against the far more experienced team of Mariko Yoshida and Mikiko Futagami. It’s also quite common for an experienced wrestler to test a rookie’s resolve by not quite pulling their punches and giving them something of a real beating. However, on this occasion, it occurred with fatal consequences.

Kado received a hefty blow to the head resulted in Kado suffering an acute sprained membrane in her brain. She was rushed to hospital but died ten days later of intercerebral bleeding (brain bleed). She was aged just 23 and had been a professional wrestler for just a month and a half.