Joey Ryan On His Lucha Underground Contract, His Lollipop Gimmick And His YouPorn Sponsorship

Lucha Underground and independent star Joey Ryan recently appeared on Sean Waltman's "X-Pac 1,2,360" podcast.

You can watch the interview above. Here are some submitted highlights.

Where Joey’s lollipop gimmick came from:

"The only restriction I was given [at WSX] was I wanted to smoke a cigarette to the ring. But they told me that I couldn’t have a lit cigarette around the pyro. So that’s why I came out with a cigarette that wasn’t lit. Later on through evolution I changed the oral fixation from being a cigarette to being a lollipop, because a lot of buildings won’t let you smoke in them, or if you get in a situation where there’s pyro around you definitely can’t have a lit cigarette. So the lollipop came out of the cigarette which was just me feeling like my character needed some sort of oral fixation."

Was he ever concerned that his YouPorn sponsorship would limit his future opportunities:

"One initial check that YouPorn gave me paid me more than all of the dark matches and SmackDown job matches I did in WWE combined. So I’m going to go with the money. There’s part of every wrestler that wants to be presented in a light that looks favorable to WWE, because obviously they’re the top of the industry. But at this point I was like, I’m just going to do what makes sense for me."

His response to Jim Cornette’s criticism:

"You have to put that in perspective. Jim Cornette says a lot of things to try to get attention on himself. Guys like that do. I don’t think I’m for everybody. Not everybody’s going to be a fan of mine, and I’m OK with that."

Joey says that yes, his Lucha Underground contract is for seven seasons:

"The initial deal I did was the long term deal, which I’m happy with…Seven seasons, I think that’s the standard deal. I hope it’s OK that I say that. That’s not really private information. I think that’s well known now. A couple of the guys got different deals. The more established guys maybe got a little different deal. But the standard deal is for seven seasons. It’s a TV contract, because Lucha Underground is not a wrestling promotion, it’s a TV show."

You can also download the podcast on iTunes.