December 6, 2004 Observer Newsletter: Zero-One, Dick Ebersol’s influence on wrestling

Shinya Hashimoto’s Zero-One promotion, which just a few years ago seemed to have the best booking of any major company in the world, fizzled out of business just as Hashimoto had feared it would once he was no longer appearing on the shows.

However, Hashimoto has hardly come off as a sympathetic character after the company announced it was closing its doors on an 11/25 press conference, being approximately $1.2 million in debt. Many have blamed Hashimoto for using company money for personal use, and almost everyone in the company had turned on Hashimoto.

At the house show later that evening at Korakuen Hall, the final show of the promotion, it was expected Hashimoto would address the fans, but instead, he never came.

With Hashimoto out, a new company will start in its wake called Fast On Stage Corporation, with Shinjiro Otani as company president and Yoshiyuki Nakamura heading up the business end.

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Former WWE star Ryan Sakoda passes away

Ryan Sakoda, who was best known for this brief run in the WWE in the early 2000s, has passed away.

PWInsider reported that Sakoda passed away on September 2. There is no word on the cause of death. He had recently been working for Disney at their Grand Californian Hotel.

Training under Rick Bassman, Sakoda first started his career wrestling for UPW. He also made appearances for ZERO-ONE, where he and Samoa Joe held the NWA Intercontinental Tag Team titles. In 2003, Sakoda signed to WWE and had a brief run as the tag team partner for Akio (Jimmy Yang), associating themselves with Tajiri for a time. After the storyline was dropped, Sakoda was released from WWE in August of 2004.

After his WWE run, Sakoda competed in Wrestling Society X, and continued to wrestle until around 2007. In 2015, Sakoda filed a lawsuit with other former WWE talent claiming that they were seriously injured during their time for the company. Sakoda said that he was suffering from headaches, severe migraines, memory loss, and severe depression as a result of his time in the company. All cases were dismissed by the United States Supreme Court earlier this year.