In a recent interview with The WrestlingINC Daily Podcast, IMPACT Wrestling superstar Joseph P. Ryan discussed several topics, including his recent character change.
“Well, there could be a few reasons. One, it’s about time. I know that I haven’t been in IMPACT that long, but I’ve been doing the character for 5 years, a lot of people don’t realize that the first penis flip was 5 years ago, it has been a long time and you have to keep growing and moving forward or things are going to get stale. It’s not that the character of Joey Ryan was losing its audience, as it was growing still, but you want to catch it before it happens and don’t want to change while you’re on the decline, because then it comes off as more desperate. It’s like the old Seinfeld thing, you walk out when you’re on top, give the audience something different while you’re still hot.
IMPACT was looking for possible new heels and I came up with this, obviously it’s a take on Right To Censor and originally, my initial pitch was Right To Cancel. It’s more contemporary with social media and they tweaked it to Cancel Culture. We presented the idea and I know Katie Forbes is dealing with a lot of internet backlash, same as me and that was the initial pitch for the turn. Now, me getting a stable and bringing new names on has been cool and different for me.”
The interview is available in full at this link.