Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryder Wood.
Hi Ryder, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Ryder has pretty much always loved toys, but WWE figures were the ones that really stuck with him. A lot of the first figures he played with actually came from my old wrestling collection from when I was a kid. Once my wife, Angela and I realized those were the toys he kept going back to more than anything else, we started buying him some WWE figures of his own.
At first, we figured it would probably be one of those phases kids go through. They love something for a while, then move on to the next thing. That definitely wasn’t the case with Ryder.
Wrestling had already been a huge part of my life because it was something my dad and I always watched together. So naturally, if wrestling was on TV, Ryder was usually right there with me watching. As his figure collection started growing, he would see a wrestler come on TV, run over to his little pile of figures, find that wrestler, and come running back to show Angela and me.
The problem started when somebody came on TV that he DIDN’T have.
That usually meant Ryder and I were going on a hunt.
We’d hit Walmart, Target, flea markets, wherever we thought we might find the wrestler he was looking for. We’d play WWE entrance themes in the car while we were out hunting and make a whole thing out of it. Then when we finally found whoever we were looking for, we’d rush home and open the figure like it was Christmas morning.
As Ryder got a little older, he started doing more than just playing with the figures. He learned how to pose them like the actual wrestlers, recreate their moves and eventually started putting together his own matches and setups.
Then one night, everything kind of changed.
We were waiting for Angela to get home from work and Ryder was sitting in the floor playing with his WWE ring and figures like he always did. Around that time, Ryan’s Toy Review was HUGE on YouTube, and Ryder loved watching it.
I never really understood it.
I remember thinking, “Why do you want to sit here and watch another kid play with toys?” But he loved it, so we watched it.
That night I asked him, “I wonder if there are YouTube channels like this, but with WWE figures?”
So we searched something along the lines of “WWE action figure setup,” and one of the first channels we found was BrettO Live. He was recreating WWE moments, making setups and doing all kinds of stuff with wrestling figures.
Ryder was hooked immediately.
He looked at me and said, “I wanna do that!”
When Angela got home, Ryder couldn’t wait to show her what we had found. From that point on, our YouTube history was basically nothing but BrettO Live for the next few weeks.
And Ryder would NOT stop asking us to let him make a review.
He’d take our phones, turn the camera on and pretend he was filming WWE figure reviews and setups for his own YouTube channel. Angela and I were hesitant because he was only four years old, and obviously we had concerns about putting a four-year-old on the internet.
Eventually, we agreed that he could do it, but only if we were involved in the videos with him and we controlled everything that was posted.
A few days later, Ryder asked again if he could film a review.
I happened to be sick that day, so Angela, who was six months pregnant at the time, stepped up and helped him film his first one. They sat down at our little kitchen table and reviewed the Hot Topic Exclusive Young Bucks Funko Pops along with the regular versions.
Neither one of them really knew what they were doing yet, but that honestly made it even better.
They laughed, talked about the figures and just had fun together.
I remember watching it and thinking about how cool it was seeing Ryder that excited about something, and seeing Angela have just as much fun doing it with him.
Ryder kept going back and watching that first review over and over because he was so proud of it.
After that, instead of opening new figures as soon as we bought them like we normally did, we started saving some of them so Ryder could open them on camera.
And that was really the beginning of Rowdy Ryder Reviews.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Like anything else, it has its ups and downs.
For Ryder, he’s got the smooth part. He’s the boss and I’m his employee haha. Ryder tells me what he wants to do and it’s up to me to get it done. His role in everything, is to just be the face of the channel.
I handle everything behind the scenes. I help come up with ideas, research and plan the videos, film and edit everything, manage all of the social media pages, handle emails and brand deals, work on titles, thumbnails and SEO, watch the analytics and basically make sure everything keeps moving.
It feels like trying to find your way out of a hurricane while blindfolded. But to me, it also serves as a measuring stick for how much this thing has grown since it all started.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What Ryder and I do is pretty simple at it’s core. We make pro wrestling content together.
Our main focus is WWE, especially action figure reviews, toy hunts, live event vlogs, predictions, reactions, and other videos built around just being a wrestling fan. Over time, the channel has grown into more than just figure reviews. We try to make content that feels fun, genuine, and like you’re hanging out with us instead of watching something overly produced.
I think what we’re probably most known for is Ryder being completely himself on camera. He’s funny, opinionated, unpredictable, and he’ll definitely tell you if he doesn’t like something. Some of our biggest videos have come from those completely natural reactions and moments that we never could have planned.
What I’m most proud of, though, is the impact the channel has had outside of views and numbers. Ryder has dealt with a stutter for years, and there was a time when he wanted me to edit it out of his videos. I would always try to fulfill his request but that wasn’t always the case. That changed after I told Ryder about a comment he had received online. The comment came from another kid and he had said that seeing Ryder on YouTube with a stutter gave him the confidence to start his own channel despite having a stutter too. Since then, Ryder has wanted it left in because he wants other kids to know they don’t have to hide something like that.
I think what sets us apart is that the channel really is just Ryder and his dad doing something they love together. We’re not trying to act like wrestling experts or be something we’re not. We’re fans first. The wrestling, figures, events, and videos are the fun part, but the memories we’re making together and the people we get to connect with because of it are what make it special.
Any big plans?
The biggest plan for the future is to just keep growing and see how far we can take this.
Ryder’s goal is still to reach 100,000 YouTube subscribers and earn that YouTube Play Button, so we want to continue improving the content, trying new ideas, and creating bigger videos while still keeping the channel true to what it has always been.
One thing we’re especially excited about, Ryder recently filmed a video with “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes from WWE. That was something we never could have imagined when he first started making WWE figure reviews at home, and it really showed us how much this little channel has grown and where it could possibly lead next.
Going forward, we’d love to do more unique wrestling experiences like that, work with more people in the wrestling world, attend more events, and continue creating videos that Ryder can look back on years from now and remember everything this journey allowed him to experience.
We don’t have some massive change planned where we want to completely reinvent the channel. We just want to keep building on what we’re already doing, make the videos better, reach more wrestling fans, and hopefully keep creating opportunities that we never thought would be possible when Ryder started.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/rowdyryderreviews
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/rowdyryderreviews
- Twitter: https://x.com/ryderreviews14
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@rowdyryderreviews
- Other: https://tiktok.com/@rowdyryderreviews
