Joey Ryan's Bar Wrestling is officially closed.
During the speaking out movement, Ryan has had multiple women come forward with allegations of sexual assault that has taken place over the years. On Saturday night, he posted a statement where he said he would not comment on the allegations after speaking to his lawyer and then proceeded to comment on his behavior and how he's been getting help since October 2018. You can view his full statement by clicking here.
Since his statement, more women have come forward with accusations and some wrestlers, including Joey Janela and Ryan Nemeth (Ryan's former roommate), have called out Ryan for lying in his statement and being a "piece of shit." Ryan would eventually delete his Twitter account.
The Twitter account for Bar Wrestling was also deleted, leading to speculation that the company would close its doors.
Steve Bryant of SoCalUncensored confirmed the promotion is finished. Ryan did not return a request for comment from Bryant. Sources told Bryant that Bootleg Theater, the home of Bar Wrestling in Los Angeles, have ended their relationship with the promotion. Highspots has also pulled Bar Wrestlnig's video library for its network. Fightful has reached out to Highspots regarding the footage.
Highspots issued the following statement on the matter to POST Wrestling:
We ended the agreement as it relates to any future money being paid to Joey, therefore we removed Bar Wrestling from HSWN since Bar Wrestling would have received money based on the number of viewers it attracted.
We did not pull the Joey Ryan Penis Party since Joey was paid a one time fee (last payment was March 2019) to use his name to promote the show, he never saw a penny for sales after the fact (same deal as Janela has with Gamechanger as it relates to Spring Break). However, we will be rebranding that single show as the Wrestlecon Penis Party and we will not be doing any future shows under that name.
WE did not pull the Bar Wrestling DVDS and video downloads off Highspots.com (yet) because we have already paid for that content and nothing related to its sales would go back to Joey. We may choose to remove those things in the future, but since ZERO money is being paid to Joey for those sales, its something I’m comfortable keeping up at this time as I continue to ponder how to handle these issues.
Bar Wrestling has not run an event since March 11, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bryant reports wrestlers were being contacted to run empty arena events in July, but those plans have been scrapped following the allegations against Ryan.
The company opened in 2017 and was one of the more popular promotions in Southern California.
UPDATE: On July 18, Joey Ryan posted a video update on the accusations. You can see the video above.
