A Refusal to Read the Room

Joey Ryan is back online, and he is talking. That alone is enough to exhaust anyone who paid attention to the wrestling industry in the summer of 2020.

The man who became the poster child for the darkest corners of the independent scene has decided that now is the time to start litigating his legacy. It is a bold strategy. It is also failing miserably.

Ryan recently popped up to claim that he turned down an offer to join All Elite Wrestling. He also spent time arguing with fans on social media. He aggressively defended his contributions to the business after being told to stay out of it.

Most disastrously for his attempted comeback tour, Ryan explicitly denied that he ever groomed anyone. That specific denial immediately triggered a massive backlash. It resulted in the resurfacing of allegations made by current WWE NXT star Roxanne Perez.

This is what happens when someone attempts to rewrite a history that the internet has permanently archived. Ryan is not just trying to clear his name. He is actively trying to position himself as a misunderstood victim who walked away on his own terms. The reality is far less flattering. He was pushed out, loudly and completely.

The AEW Claim and the Timeline Problem

Let us address the AEW claim first. Ryan insists he turned down an offer to join the promotion. Context is everything here.

When AEW was forming in 2019, Ryan was undeniably a major name on the independent circuit. He was prominently featured at All In, the precursor to AEW, complete with an army of men in penis costumes. That was the peak of his viral fame. The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes booked him. The crowd ate it up.

At the time, he did receive interest. He ultimately signed a lucrative deal with Impact Wrestling instead. If Ryan is simply recounting a business decision from 2019, he is stating a known fact.

However, bringing it up now feels like a desperate attempt to validate his self-worth. It reads as a demand for respect. He wants fans to remember that he was once a highly sought-after free agent with multiple billionaire-backed companies fighting for his signature.

The problem is that everything that happened after 2019 renders that fact completely irrelevant. By mid-2020, the Speaking Out movement had swept through professional wrestling. Ryan was named by multiple women who accused him of sexual assault, harassment, and predatory behavior.

His promotion, Bar Wrestling, was shuttered almost overnight. Impact Wrestling fired him. He filed multiple defamation lawsuits against his accusers. The vast majority of those suits were dismissed or dropped.

Tony Khan would not let Ryan within a hundred miles of an AEW arena today. Bragging about a contract offer from the pre-pandemic era while currently radioactive is a bizarre flex. It ignores the reality of why he is no longer employed in any major promotion.

Defending the Indefensible

Ryan’s recent interactions with fans reveal a man entirely disconnected from his current standing in the wrestling world. When a fan bluntly told him to stay out of wrestling, Ryan fired back.

He aggressively defended his contributions to the business. He demanded recognition for his past work. What were those contributions, exactly?

He popularized an incredibly divisive gimmick centered around his genitalia. He ran a successful independent promotion in Southern California. For a few years, he was a massive merchandise seller. Nobody denies that he made money. He had a brief run in Lucha Underground that critics actually praised.

But those contributions are permanently tainted. The gimmick itself required opponents to grab his crotch and be flipped over. It relied heavily on the illusion of consent and trust in the ring. The allegations against him completely shattered that illusion.

You cannot separate the viral fame from the stories of how he allegedly treated women behind the scenes. His refusal to accept his exile is telling. The wrestling industry has a notoriously short memory. Promoters have forgiven terrible behavior in the name of drawing money.

Yet, Ryan remains completely blacklisted. The sheer volume of allegations, combined with his litigious response to them, made him too toxic to touch. Defending his past matches on Twitter does not change his present reality. Fans do not care about his match ratings from 2017.

The Resurfacing of Roxanne Perez's Allegations

The most damaging aspect of Ryan’s recent posting spree is his specific denial of grooming. Ryan claimed online that he was never accused of grooming anyone. This was a catastrophic unforced error.

Wrestling fans immediately brought out the receipts. The most prominent among them involved Roxanne Perez. Before she was a cornerstone of WWE's NXT brand, Perez was a teenage wrestler on the independent scene known as Rok-C.

During the Speaking Out movement, allegations surfaced regarding Ryan's inappropriate communications and behavior toward her when she was underage. Ryan trying to play semantics with the word grooming is a horrific look. It implies he thinks he can win a technical argument about his behavior.

He ignores the massive power imbalance and the ages of the people involved. Perez is currently one of the most respected and successful young stars in the entire industry. Her credibility is absolute. Ryan, conversely, has zero credibility.

By denying the grooming accusations, Ryan forced fans to revisit the darkest parts of his history. He dragged Perez's name back into the conversation regarding his misconduct. It is a selfish act masquerading as self-defense. He wanted to clear his name on a technicality and instead reminded everyone exactly why he was exiled in the first place.

A Permanent Exile

There is no path back for Joey Ryan. That is the hard truth he seems entirely unwilling to accept. He can log on and argue with fans all day.

He can remind people about his 2019 contract offers. He can try to split hairs over the specific terminology used by his accusers. None of it will work. The wrestling business moved on without him.

The independent scene survived the collapse of Bar Wrestling. AEW grew into a massive national television product without his involvement. Impact Wrestling rebranded and rebuilt its roster after firing him. The world kept spinning.

History shows us exactly how these situations play out. Look at Velveteen Dream or Marty Scurll. Both men attempted quiet comebacks after their respective scandals. Both found that the doors to major promotions were permanently locked.

The internet does not forget, and corporate sponsors do not forgive. Ryan’s situation is even more severe because of his combative public stance. His current media strategy is a masterclass in how not to handle disgrace.

Every time he posts, he hands his critics a shovel and invites them to dig up his past. The industry is healthier without him. The locker rooms are safer without him. No amount of revisionist history will change the fact that his legacy is permanently defined by the summer of 2020.

We are watching a man shadowbox with ghosts. He is fighting a war for his reputation that he lost years ago. The best thing he could do for the wrestling business is to simply log off. But based on this week's outbursts, that is the one thing he refuses to do.