For wrestling fans with a keen interest in the scene, Joey Ryan will be a familiar name. For those who haven’t heard of him, strap in, because I’m about to tell you all about the professional wrestler with a magic penis who was once resurrected from the dead.
It’s important to stand out in wrestling, and having a unique gimmick is a pretty good way to gain an audience base and prominence — or notoriety, in the case of Ryan. It all started in 2015 with a fateful wrestling move, known colloquially as a penis flip, but more recently dubbed the “YouPorn Plex” after Ryan earned a sponsorship with the pornography company.
Wrestling in Japanese wrestling promotion DDT, Ryan performed a unique manouevre, which involved him “grabbing” fellow pro wrestler Danshoku Dino with the power of his ultra-strong penis. Here is that fateful moment.
Needless to say, the ridiculousness of the move meant that Joey’s self-dubbed “Wrestlemania moment” went viral, earning the ire of purist wrestling fans around the globe. This included curmudgeonly wrestling critic Jim Cornette, who would later refer to Ryan as a “putrid penis boy” and a “half-baked brown & serve roll covered in pubic hair”, just to give you an idea of the ire that Ryan drew.
Thankfully, he shook off the criticism and began incorporating his deadly strong penis into his wrestling act permanently, pull off great feats of strength with it and even building his penis lore. His dick became invulnerable as well, so any wrestler trying to get a cheap dick kick or penis shot was immediately shut down. Ryan had balls of steel, and nobody could best him.
Until he died.
In 2018, Ryan had been featured heavily in wrestling YouTube show, Being The Elite, which follows the semi-fictional lives of a wrestling faction known as “The Elite”.
One of the group, Hangman Page, had developed a fascination with Joey Ryan after he was emasculated by him and his super strong penis during a wrestling match. Page started referring to Ryan as a “penis pretender” and became increasingly agitated and violent towards him. The only logical course of action was to murder him, so Page snuck into his room one night and beat him to death with a corded telephone.
Folks, this is wrestling.
In Episode #109 of Being The Elite, Ryan was declared dead, and a funeral was held. The prime suspect, Stephen Amell (of Arrow fame), was quickly arrested by Japanese police for the murder, and Page attempted to cover it up.
For several months afterwards, the “dead” Ryan would continue to appear in independent wrestling shows sporadically, but something was different. Something was… ghoulish. This wasn’t Joey Ryan, this was his ghost, you see. His ghost even appeared at wrestling extravaganza, Starrcast.
But in wrestling, death is not the end, and so it was that after months of “being dead”, Ryan miraculously returned, with the help of some mysterious “penis druids”.
At wrestling PPV “All In”, an event promoted by The Elite (Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks), Hangman Page was facing off against party boy Joey Janela, and had just pinned him to end the match when the lights went out. Eerie music played, and the stage filled with the figures soon known as the “penis druids”.
These mysterious beings eventually parted to reveal the figure of Ryan, having escaped the clutches of death by some form of miracle. And so it was that Joey Ryan, the man with the mystical penis, was resurrected into the world of wrestling.
If you’ve never watched wrestling, or have rarely tuned in since the days of The Rock or Shawn Michaels, the concept of a “penis pretender” being resurrected by magical walking dicks might seem a touch ridiculous, and it is.
But that’s the point. Wrestling is ridiculous. But it can also be serious, heartbreaking and fun. The joy in wrestling is seeing that variety, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
God bless Joey Ryan — and god bless wrestling.