Joey Ryan was drawing interest from companies like AEW and WWE in 2019 but he chose to stick with independent wrestling and later signed a contract with Impact Wrestling.

His signing with Impact turned many heads due to the other offers he had and during the media scrum ahead of the Hard To Kill PPV, the indie star explained the reason behind his signing with the promotion.

Ryan first explained that he ‘loves’ independent wrestling and the fact that Impact offered him a non-exclusive deal was probably the most appealing part of their offer:

“The fact that Impact offered me a deal that was non-exclusive, and I could still do the independent scene, that was probably the most appealing part to it. I don’t think I ever want to give that up. I’m exclusive, as far as national television … which meant I can still do a lot of the independents that I really, really enjoy.”

Later in the interview, Joey Ryan was also asked about his dream opponents in Impact and while he didn’t take any names, the Impact star showed interest in wrestling some knockouts.

He explained that he has done a lot of intergender wrestling and since Impact really embraces intergender wrestling, he would like to do some stuff with Knockouts in the Knockouts Division.