I think the wrestling world hates Joey Ryan.
Earlier today, Portland Wrestling had the balls to announce the return of former Bar Wrestling owner Joey Ryan. The Facebook posts advertised the 45-year-old for the upcoming show on August 23 at Vancouver, Washington. The brief announcement sent shockwaves around the wrestling internet.
As you can imagine, fans weren’t happy over the possible return of the controversial figure.
Prestige Wrestling quickly countered back at Ryan’s return by announcing that they will have a show themselves on the exact same date. They labeled the show FJR (based on the post the initials come across as F**k Joey Ryan) and they threatened that if anyone dared to work the same show as Ryan then they would be banned from future bookings under prestige .
But it wasn’t just Prestige that was giving Ryan the middle finger. People were pissed and the outrage was so much that Portland Wrestling cancelled Ryan’s appearance a couple hours later.
To recall, the outrage about Joey Ryan stems from his involvement with the speaking out movement in 2020. The former TNA star had numerous allegations levied his way. Seventeen different accusations, to be exact. Some of those accusations were sexual assault, grooming underage girls, and unwanted sexual advances. Ryan denied the allegations, but his career was over at that point. Promotions including TNA/Impact Wrestling fired Ryan and he hasn’t had a wrestling match since June 2020.
Ryan did attempt a comeback in 2021 by organizing a Wrestling 4 Women Charity event and he received tons of backlash for it then. Every wrestler or promoter pulled out of the event once it was discovered that Bar Wrestling was behind it. That heat for Ryan still hasn’t subsided and it’s doubtful that it ever will. It will be shocking if Joey Ryan ever got a chance to wrestle again. No promotion is going to take him back as he’s too much of a risk and liability. Ryan remains active on social media, but he gets heat any time he makes a post. It’s safe to assume that Joey Ryan’s career in professional wrestling (or entertainment for that matter) is done.