28, 2003, MMA fighter turned pro wrestler Giant Ochiai was training under Kenzo Suzuki in the WJ dojo when he lost consciousness and eventually fell into a coma, dying of an acute subdural hematoma on August 8, 2003. Choshu, Nagashima, and Suzuki were all present in the dojo when he lost consciousness, but none of them were charged to his death. However, WJ faced severe media scrutiny for refusing to accept responsibility for the incident. In the fallout of Ochiai's death, Kenzo Suzuki and Yoshiaki Yatsu both left the promotion, with Yatsu, in particular, blasting Choshu in interviews with the media, famously telling Nikkan Sports "Riki Choshu has no idea how independent wrestling works". WJ's numerous financial issues also became greater and greater public knowledge around this time; Choshu's spending had not slowed down, and he continued to make extravagant purchases with investors money, including sending ¥1 million a month to both of his daughters who were studying in the United Kingdom at the time. Numerous wrestlers began to claim they were owed money by Choshu, with Kensuke Sasaki putting up ¥5 million of his own money and canceling his life insurance to help continue to promote events. WJ's unpaid salaries were later parodied in the promotion, with Shiro Koshinaka forming the "Labour Union" stable and feuding with Choshu in kayfabe over his numerous debts to them. In a bid to recoup money and replicate the success of Pride FC and K-1, Choshu announced "X1" in September, a sister MMA promotion of WJ which drew some attention after they announced Katsuhiko Nakajima, then 15 years old, would debut as the youngest MMA fighter ever on the card. Despite the attention, the show was heavily panned by fans who criticized the inexperienced fighters and low level of competition. In addition to this, the cage itself began to collapse during the show and had to be held up by ringside assistants during the last fights. Choshu himself walked out of the event and refused to talk to the media before the end of the show, to the anger of Sasaki and Nagashima. Closure After the colossal failure of X1, many WJ events would be promoted and then suddenly canceled just days before; it was later revealed that Nagashima had either lied about booking the venues or not paid the money owed to hire them and when he was unable to secure them,