Impact Wrestling Executive & Internet Wrestling Pioneer Bob Ryder Passes Away

Impact Wrestling executive Bob Ryder has passed away, according to PWInsider.

Ryder, the founder of 1wrestling.com, fought a long battle with cancer for a number of years, living well beyond the 3-6 months he was initially told he had left. The cancer went into remission at one point, but it came back and Ryder had been undergoing weekly chemotherapy.

Ryder continued his work for Impact Wrestling from his home in Nashville, while doing chemotherapy. He worked as the Director of Travel Operations in recent years, but held other roles with the company. Ryder was found at home this morning, but had last been in contact with Impact last night, according to PWInsider.

Dave Meltzer of F4Wonline.com adds that Ryder was found at home by police this morning in Nashville. He noted that Impact officials were unable to reach Ryder after he fell at home on Tuesday.

"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," Meltzer tweeted.

Ryder was one of the longest-running employees for the company, if not the longest. He was also a pioneer of the Internet Wrestling Community, hosting the first-ever online WWE chat at WrestleMania 11, running Prodigy Wrestling for the internet service provider, and later founding 1wrestling.com with ECW Original Joey Styles. He would go on to work for WCW, helping with their website and hosting WCW Live with Jeremy Borash. Ryder and Borash were actually the last voices heard on any WCW broadcast on the show they hosted following the final WCW Nitro episode in March 2001.

Stay tuned for more on Ryder's passing.