Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryder Wood
Hi Ryder, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Pro wrestling has always been a huge part of our family. I am starting back with Ryder’s great-grandfather, Les. It’s one of those things passed down from generation to generation. The Wood family’s love for pro wrestling runs deep! I (Ryder’s dad, Chad) never remember not watching wrestling. It’s always been one of those things that my dad (Clark) and I bonded over. Thankfully, things are trending in the same direction for myself and Ryder. Ryder got into wrestling at a very young age. I remember standing in front of a tiny hospital tv screen, holding my 6-hour-old newborn son and watching the latest episode of WWE Smackdown as he was ironically born on one of their show days.
Ryder grew up playing with toys, but many of those toys were WWE figures from my collection as a child. After we noticed him only playing with my wrestling figures over anything else, we bought him figures to start his collection. As many kids go in and out of trends growing up, my wife (Angela) and I thought that it would be a trend for a bit and then he’d move onto something else, but as time went on, his collection kept growing. As I said earlier, wrestling has always been a huge deal for my dad and me. If wrestling was on tv, you could bet that we would be watching it, and that’s where Ryder’s collection would begin to grow. Ryder would see a certain WWE superstar on tv, run to his small pile of figures, search out whatever wrestler was currently on tv, and then run to the tv with the figure in hand, showing my wife and me that he had a figure of the wrestler on tv. This would also pose a problem. When a wrestler would be on tv that Ryder didn’t have a figure of, that would always mean that Ryder and I would soon embark on a journey of hitting all of the local retail stores and flea markets in search of the figure he was missing. On your hunts, he and I would always blast our favorite WWE superstar’s entrance music on our way to search for our missing plastic friends. Upon finding Ryders missing pieces, we would always hurry home and tear them into the box like a child on early Christmas morning, regardless of the season.
When Ryder got a little older, he would learn how to pose his figures in their signature WWE stances and then evolve to figure out how to do the same with their signature moves. It was late one night. Ryder and I were waiting for my wife to make it home from her shift at work. As usual, Ryder was sitting on the floor with his WWE ring and figures making his WWE dream matches come to life. At this time, Ryan’s Toy Review was taking over Youtube. I remember it being all the craze. Ryder had even often requested that we turn it to Ryan’s channel so that he could watch.
I remember thinking, “Why do you want to watch this kid play with toys?” I didn’t get it, but I complied as any trying parent does. As Ryder sat on the floor that night waiting for Angela to walk through the door, I said, “Hey dude, I wonder if there are any Youtube channels like Ryan’s Toy Review, but they only focus on WWE figures?” He and I punched “WWE action figure set-up” into the search bar, and Rowdy Ryder Reviews was born unbeknownst to us with the search results. The first channel in this niche we saw was a channel by the name of “Brett-O Live.” Brett-O would take iconic WWE moments and recreate them by using his WWE figures. It was exactly what Ryder was looking for!
Much like Ryan from “Ryan’s Toy Review,” Ryder looked at me and said, “I wanna do that!” As we scrolled through Brett-O’s videos, Angela walked through the door from work. Ryder jumps up excitedly and immediately shows her what we have stumbled upon on Youtube, and for the next three weeks, our watch history was flooded by this Brett-O Live kid. Ryder would keep telling his mom and me, “I wanna do a review!” He would grab our phones, turn on the camera and conduct mock WWE toy reviews and set-ups as if he was filming for an actual YouTube channel. She and I were both very hesitant about it, being that Ryder was only four years old at the time and because of the dangerous place that the internet can be. After weeks and weeks of his asking us to make him a channel, she and I came up with the idea of him having a channel to do reviews on, my wife and I has to be in the videos and have control over his account.
A few days later, Ryder asked us again, “Can I film a review, please?” I wasn’t feeling well on this day, but my wife, at six months pregnant, decided to take on the tall task of making this vision of Ryder’s become a reality. They sat at our tiny kitchen table in our dining room and filmed a dual review on the newly released Hot Topic Exclusive Young Bucks and the regular version of Young Bucks Funko Pops. Ryder and Angela had no clue what they were doing, but their laughs and conversation during that review said otherwise. Seeing the joy this brought Ryder, seeing the fun my wife had just talking about a toy with our child. It was truly something special. Ryder would go back over and over again, watching his review. He was so proud of this. In the following weeks, instead of tearing into the boxes as usual, we decided to film Ryder’s unboxing as he had been requesting, and as they say, the rest is history.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For Ryder, from the very beginning, my wife and I made it clear that we only wanted him to start a channel because it brought him joy and something he was passionate about. We ask him all the time, ‘Are you still having fun?’ ‘Do you still want to do this?’ If the answers are always ‘yes,’ we’ll keep going. As for me, I face many technical challenges and obstacles, but they’re usually related to editing, managing his social media accounts, and other behind-the-scenes stuff. But when it’s something your child loves and relies on you for, it makes those challenges much easier to overcome.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
There are many different things i’m proud of when it comes to what Ryder and I do but Ryders want to inspire others is right there at the top of the list. From time to time, Ryder will receive comments on his YouTube channel from some random viewer explaining how they found inspiration in Ryders video and now they are going to start up a channel because of him. Anytime Ryder hears that he is the reason behind someone taking the leap into content creation, it fires him up! Creating content requires guts and not just a little. You’re putting yourself out there for the world to see and you have no idea about how it’s going to be received. To know that your kid is inspiring others to do something so bold, it really warms my heart.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
One story in particular comes to mind. When I was in the second grade, my dad took me to my very first live wrestling event. World Championship Wrestling was coming to our local school gym and I was BEYOND excited! I recall telling anyone and everyone at school the day of the event, how stoked I was about the show. Before I knew it, I was out of school and dad and I were on our way to the show. When we arrived, I remember seeing the ring in person for the first time and thinking, “WOAH, that’s a real life wrestling ring.” I was in awe. Bell time finally hits and the show is officially underway. I was over the moon getting to see these larger than life characters duke it out in front of me. Well, I WAS until a man by the name of Sid Justice starts making his way to the ring. If you don’t know, Sid stood at almost 7ft tall and weighed over 300lbs and without a doubt, the biggest man I had ever seen in my young life. Now, my dad LOVED Sid. He was always my dad’s favorite wrestler and dad always love to pick at me and say that Sid could easily take out any of my favorite wrestlers. It would always drive me crazy when my dad would say that but it was all in good fun. I figured, what better night to stick it to my dad and start firing back at him about his beloved Sid Justice. Sids opponent that night was a former FSU football player named, Ron Simmons. This was sure to be an outstanding match as Ron Simmons was no kind of slouch! During Sid and Simmons match, I remember Simmons getting the better of Sid during a part of the match and turning to my dad, laughing and asking him “I thought Sid was the best?” “Who’s getting whooped now dad?” I just had to keep going and nagging him about it because getting one over on my dad is an impossible task. During my excitement, I told my dad, “If Sid comes over here next to me, I’m gonna stomp his head in like Ron Simmons is doing!” Then almost immediately, Simmons dumps Sid outside of the ring, landing right at my feet. With piss streaming down my legs, I stood up, grabbed my chair and took off running, putting as much distance between myself and Sid as humanly possible. I look at my dad and he is doubled over laughing. When I made my way back over to my dad he asked me “Why didn’t you stomp him in the head?” As I said earlier, trying to get the last laugh in on my pops is just something you don’t do. To this day, he and I often revisit this story and he still has a laugh at my expense haha.
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