Joey Ryan turns down contract offer from AEW

In what is a possible spoiler for his scheduled announcement at Bar Wrestling Thursday, we have confirmed with multiple sources that Joey Ryan has turned down a contract offer from All Elite Wrestling.

When Joey Ryan was released from his Lucha Underground contract, there had been a lot of speculation in regards to his future in wrestling. As he was a frequent contributor to the Being the Elite YouTube series and a big part of last year’s All In in Chicago, there was a strong belief that Ryan would end up in AEW. Then, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported that WWE had contacted Ryan about his interest in coming to NXT and possibly transitioning into a coaching position in a few years.

Shortly after the WWE story broke, Ryan began promoting a “farewell to the indies tour” t-shirt, furthering speculation that a change was imminent. Ryan recently announced via Twitter that May 30 would be the last day the t-shirt would be available.

The May 30 date coincides with Bar Wrestling’s next event, Pickle Jar Hero, where Ryan has announced that he will be making an announcement in regards to his future. While what Ryan will announce is not yet known, multiple sources confirmed with SoCalUncensored.com that AEW made Ryan a contract offer and that he ultimately turned it down.

We reached out to Joey Ryan for comment and he advised us that “everything will be answered Thursday.”

No match for Joey Ryan has been announced for Bar Wrestling’s Pickle Jar Hero on May 30. The event will be taking place at American Legion #241 in Baldwin Park, CA. Announced for the event so far is Darby Allin versus Tyler Bateman, Shazza McKenzie versus Taya Valkyrie, PPRay facing Los Luchas, and DoomFly versus Heather Monroe and Jake Atlas. As of this writing, tickets are still available through Brown Paper Tickets.

We will have updates as the story develops.

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Steve Bryant
Fan of Godzilla.