Jonathan Gresham: We Have To Preserve And Take Care Of Cultures, Otherwise Wrestling Is Going To Be The Same Everywhere

Jonathan Gresham stresses the importance of culture in wrestling.

Gresham has always been outspoken about his vision of professional wrestling and how the sport has drifted from some of its best traits over the years. In a new interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, ‘The Octopus’ talked about the identity of lucha libre and how it is slowly fading away.

“That’s what I am, in my own way, fighting against right now. So I have this theory that professional wrestling is a form of entertainment, a lot like music and movies, right? Movies and music also have—underneath like movies and music—there’s different genres. So professional wrestling also has different genres, right? But these genres also had cultures around them. So let’s talk about lucha libre. In 2026 lucha libre is slowly fading away. The identity, the culture of it is being over ran. It is being pretty much manipulated by the American counterpart of wrestling and then we look to Japan puroresu, strong style, Lucharesu, Kings Road is all being pushed away by the American, the Western way coming into it, right? With the connection of NOAH with WWE and the connection of AEW with New Japan.”

Gresham praised the level of opportunity that wrestlers are receiving while also stating that these cultures have to be taken care of.

“It’s creating a lot of opportunities for wrestlers. But also one thing that I don’t think the higher ups are thinking about is the cultures that exist in these different countries. We have to preserve them, take care of them and nurture them and make sure they exist and still grow. Otherwise, wrestling is going to be the same everywhere. I think that’s unfair to the fan, it’s unfair to the boys and it’s unfair to the countries that these styles belong to.”

To finish off the topic, Gresham made a plea for people to help stop these issues.

“So with saying that, I think we have to bring it to the forefront and let people realize what’s happening and do whatever we can to stop that from happening. It already happened to Europe. Do we see British wrestling actually present itself as British wrestling? So in the next five years, Japanese wrestlers gonna look just like American wrestling. I don’t want that to be a thing. I go to Japan because I want to experience the culture. So when wrestlers go over, they want to experience the culture of Japanese wrestling. That makes sense, right?”

Elsewhere in the interview, Gresham spoke about Bloodsport shutting down. Check out his full comments by clicking here.

Fans can check out Fightful’s full interview with Jonathan Gresham in the video linked at the top of this interview.

Check out more of Fightful’s interviews by visiting our YouTube channel.