Jonathan Gresham Reflects On AEW & ROH Exit, His Frustrations At the Time

Jonathan Gresham had only a few months in AEW before he requested and was granted his release, something he recently opened up about. Gresham exited AEW & ROH in July of 2022, only three months after Tony Khan bought the latter company. Gresham was ROH World Champion and it was reported at the time that he had a heated meeting with Khan before ROH Death Before Dishonor about his creative direction, which led to Gresham asking for his release. Gresham lost the World Championship to Claudio Castagnoli at that PPV.

Gresham spoke with Grapsody for a new interview and spoke about his time in the company and exit. He said his exit was not about losing to Castagnoli, which he had no problem with, and acknowledged that he tried to “make [his] argument in the worst way.” He also spoke about how his reputation tanked after the incident and he had issues getting booked. You can see the highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:

On How He Approached the Matter:

“I was trying to make my argument in the worst way. I will admit that. Let me go ahead and say upfront, the way I reacted to things was not right. If I could change anything, I would change the way that I tried to express myself.”

On His Frustrations Over His Character At the Time:

“What was told to me is, ‘You will have creative input on everything you do going forward.’ So, in my mind, I am ‘The Foundation’ Jonathan Gresham. I have a story going on in this company that is pretty successful… I was part of a faction that was doing pretty well.

“So I arrive at television and there’s T-shirts of me created with people that I don’t work with. They said I have creative input on everything that I do. So let me ask for a meeting because I don’t think I should be doing this [changes to his character and presentation]. I had a successful voice, successful persona. Why not have this successful persona and voice on your national worldwide program? Why are we deleting it when it was working? It didn’t make sense to me.”

On Trying & Failing To Get a Meeting With Tony Khan:

“Now I’m kind of bothered. On the third time I was like, you know what? I’m going to take the initiative and find this dude and talk to him… So then I meet him at Gorilla and I start trying to talk to him. He turns to me and goes, ‘Hey, this is my girlfriend,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, nice to meet you.’ As I turn around, this dude is walking down the corridor away from me.”

On the Meeting Ahead Of His World Title Loss:

“I don’t know what else I can do to get your attention to give me five minute of your time,” he said. “And when I, this is one really big thing that was left out that nobody wants to talk about, I brought up the situation during the time of elephant in the room; there wasn’t people that looked like me as a champion. So I brought that up… I just want my side to be understood to why I decided to go off the way that I did. I was laughed at when I brought that up [his PWI 500 Ranking]. He looked at me and he laughed at me.”

On Developing a Reputation After That:

“Promoters stopped working with me after that. My way of living changed dramatically. If it wasn’t for the money I had saved and my wife [Jordynne Grace] being who she is, I would have been f**ked. The only people that kept me on and kept me relevant and kept me moving, that made me feel like I can still be a wrestler, was Brett Lauderdale from GCW and Adam Abdalla from PRODUCE.”