Jonathan Gresham has been a hot topic of conversation this weekend after reports surfaced that the now-former ROH World Champion cussed out AEW President Tony Khan at Death Before Dishonor and has requested to be released from his contract.
Prior to Saturday night’s ROH Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view event, Gresham spoke with WrestlePurists to discuss a variety of professional wrestling related topics.
During the interview, Gresham expressed his frustration over the top three wrestling companies in America (WWE, AEW and Impact Wrestling) all having a similar product and not separating themselves from the others.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On what he feels is different from the likes of WWE, AEW and IMPACT Wrestling: “Yeah man this is like what I believe. Like, you’ve got all these different genres of movies but now when I watch wrestling its like there really isn’t anything different. When you look from WWE, to AEW, to IMPACT, there’s really not a lot of real difference to me. Just the aesthetic of how its presented to you.”
On what each promotion could do to separate themselves from one another: “There’s not a different rule set, like when you look at the UFC and what K-1 was, they would go balls out in K-1, but a lot of that stuff isn’t allowed in UFC. So I think a change of rule set, even if its just a division or just a company as a whole, I just think something needs to change so that was a genuine thing that I was trying to push in Ring Of Honor to help differentiate Ring Of Honor from everything else. I truly believe that ROH had the potential to do that, but I just believe the people in charge are… I don’t know, too afraid to just try something different. It’s like, this thing works, keep doing it.”
On potentially changing up his character to fit a certain promotion or situation: “It definitely can. But the number one thing, well it’s two things that kinda’ go into it. One is just, to me, a fact that for something like that to get over, the individual has to be given the stage and oftentimes there is a lot of people in locker rooms that can do these different things but the promoters don’t really give them the stage to do it, so it’s best to just get in line and to be honest, a lot of guys are just happy with collecting a paycheck you know? A lot of guys can’t do anything else, or they spent so many years trying to become a wrestler, they finally got to TV and it’s like ‘I’m just gonna ride this out as long as possible, I might not be doing what I enjoy or love but I’m getting paid’ you know? Some people are okay with that, some people aren’t.”
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(h/t – Fightful)
