Jonathan Gresham: My Goal Is To Help Create Platforms For The Next Generation Of Indie Wrestlers

Jonathan Gresham wants to save independent wrestling.

Despite being propped up by a select number of successful companies, indie wrestling as a whole is undoubtedly struggling across the board. With the recent loss of promotions like Deadlock and Prestige, there is a group of talent that are still looking for the place to call home as they build their careers.

Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp for a new interview, Jonathan Gresham came to the realization that the old indie blueprint isn’t applicable anymore.

“I’m going to tell you what I see from my perspective. When I started wrestling in 2005, there was a clear blueprint of how to get from point A to point B. I do a lot of seminars now with younger talents. The number one question I’m asked from everyone is, ‘How do I get from here to here?’ So when I started looking at the current landscape, I realized that there’s not a blueprint anymore like it was for me. So for me, coming up in Georgia, it goes you would have to work hard to get to NWA Anarchy or Wildside, whatever it was at the time. Going there, you would be exposed to talents that work for FIP and Ring of Honor and then from there, you would hopefully migrate to FIP or Ring of Honor. From there you have the opportunity to showcase your talents and possibly get into Chikara, IWA Mid-South, CZW and so on and so on. Eventually, you know, maybe you’re one of the guys that end up in PWG. So that was kind of the blueprint I had and that’s pretty much what I took, taking away the Wildside / Anarchy bit. I went straight to IWA Mid-South, which helped me get to CZW, which helped me get to Chikara and then so on and so on. Now there’s no independent blueprint like that anymore.”

Speaking about his relationship with Adam Abdalla, Gresham talked about bringing back indie platforms for specific types of styles.

“That’s my thought process when I’m working with Adam is to create those platforms again that help individuals see where they need to go. At one point we had a Lucha Libre company that was very heavy in characters. We had a death match company and then we had a pure wrestling company. With those platforms, people would gravitate towards those platforms based off of what they subscribe to. I’d like to believe that we wouldn’t have a lot of characters on national television today if it wasn’t for these platforms on the independent level. If you look at the landscape today, those platforms no longer exist. So everyone at the bottom is looking up and trying to figure out how they get to the next level. There’s no platforms to help these characters exist and build upon what they already have.”

Gresham rounded off the topic by stressing that his goal is to ensure stability for future indie wrestlers.

“After I won the Ring of Honor World Championship, a lot of people messaged me. I remember sitting in my hotel room with my wife and they were saying, ‘Are you on top of the world?’ and all this and that. I believe at the time I was 28 years old and I realized it was like, ‘Okay, I literally accomplished exactly what I wanted to accomplish with my career.’ Thought it would take a little bit longer and my thought process was, ‘What’s next?’ So I’ve been asking myself that for years. I think I finally figured it out. My goal now is to help create these platforms again for the next generation to stand on to show the world that I am good at this or this or this.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Gresham talked more about his relationship with Adam Abdalla. 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.