Jonathan Gresham: I Was Really Disappointed With The Cancellation Of Bloodsport Considering What It Stood For

Jonathan Gresham is going to miss Bloodsport.

Despite only wrestling in three matches for the promotion over the years, Gresham’s impact on Bloodsport is much larger than many realize. While chatting with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful for a new interview, Gresham talked about working those shows and with Josh Barnett.

“I loved working at Bloodsport. It gave me an opportunity to really dive in to other things that I wouldn’t be able to showcase in normal shows. I love talking to Josh Barnett. He’s so knowledgeable on so many things, but most definitely the history of catch wrestling and just combat sports in general. I’ve went out and I trained with him a little while back. Unbeknownst to me, I chose a week that was like fight week and all the guys were getting ready to perform. I went out there thinking it was going to be like a nice open gym, open mat thing. I got dragged for a week. Absolutely dragged. I was like, ‘I’m not getting anything. I’m not getting any takedowns. I’m not getting nothing.’ But it was really fun to be out there. He’s a really cool guy. I learned a lot from him every time we sit down and talk. But the experience, I think it was Takeda and then Sabre and then Pete Dunne. I think I’ve only done three Bloodsports. All those are really fun. There’s just elements of mixed martial arts and like catch and amateur wrestling that doesn’t really translate, to me, in a normal pro wrestling universe.”

Gresham went on to say that he was disappointed with Barnett’s recent decision to stop doing Bloodsport events.

“Hate to jump, but talking about that, I was really disappointed. Obviously, Barnett has his reasons, but I was really disappointed with the cancellation of Bloodsport considering what it stood for. Because similar to I was talking about before, those platforms that existed before, Bloodsport was a platform that gave—I call them shooty boys—a platform to stand on to go, ‘Hey, we are good at this.’ Now that Barnett’s Bloodsport is in question, where do the shooty boys go?”

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.