Longtime Impact Wrestling Executive Bob Ryder Passes Away

PWInsider reports that longtime Impact Wrestling executive Bob Ryder passed away today. F4WOnline.com’s Dave Meltzer added that he was found dead by Nashville police and had suffered a fall yesterday (although it’s unknown if that was related). Ryder had been fighting cancer for years, much longer than the three-to-six month prognosis he was given. At one point, he was in remission, but it came back and he had been doing advanced chemotherapy while still working for Impact. He had been regularly in contact as recently as last night, however when they went to his home today, he never answered so they called police for a wellness check.

Impact is expected to release a statement soon.

Bob Ryder was found dead at his home in Nashville by police today. We don't know more but he had fallen yesterday and was on advanced chemo. Impact officials couldn't get in touch with him and went to his home and he never answered, police were called and found him dead,

— Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) November 25, 2020

Ryder served as the head of Prodigy Wrestling and then later founded 1wrestling.com with Joey Styles. He broke news stories such as Bret Hart leaving WWF for WCW. He also hosted the first online WWF chat for Wrestlemania 11 with Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash. He went to ECW and WCW events, paying for the ECW Arena to have a specific phone line installed so he could cover their events for Prodigy chat rooms. He also bought the domain for ECWWrestling.com when Paul Heyman wasn’t able to do so at the time.

He was eventually hired by WCW to work on their website and host WCW Live with Jeremy Borash online both before and after Nitro and Thunder. WCW Live was the final WCW-related content to air in any format, as it followed the final Nitro in March 2001. Ryder didn’t want a monopoly in pro wrestling after ECW and WCW closed, so he spoke with Jeff and Jerry Jarrett which led to the creation of TNA in June 2002. Ryder was the first and longest-serving employee, handling everything from contract negotiations, timing shows, travel and more.

411 would like to give our condolences to the family, friends and fans of Mr. Ryder.