Jonathan Gresham Wants To Bring ROH’s Pure Wrestling To Bigger Audiences, Drew Inspiration From ‘Daredevil’
Photo Credit: Ring Of Honor
If Ring of Honor gets involved with the collaboration that’s been taking over the wrestling industry recently, Jonathan Gresham wants to use the opportunity to showcase pure wrestling.
In a recent appearance on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Gresham explained that as the ROH Pure Champion, he’d want to bring the pure wrestling style to a larger audience on a show like AEW Dynamite or IMPACT Wrestling.
“As far as Ring of Honor [getting involved], I’m not sure,” said Gresham. “I’d really like to. I can only just keep my fingers crossed and hope so man. I don’t know anything that’s happening, but I haven’t heard anything.
“I think for the most part, just bringing the Ring of Honor style of pure wrestling to a big television audience like that, whether it’s with IMPACT or AEW, is something I would really enjoy being a part of.”
Gresham also discussed the evolution of his on-screen persona. He explained that whereas he once focused on his in-ring skills, he has actively worked on crafting his character. “The Octopus” then pointed to Kingpin, the antagonist in “Daredevil,” as one source of inspiration.
“I was never really into promos,” said Gresham. “I never really gave it any time. I had like a generic deal that I would always say, and I was doing a lot of spotshows for years, so I never really had to do a lot, so it was easy for to ignore it. But now that I’m in Ring of Honor and I’m noticing like, okay, if I wanna start doing more, I gotta start talking, okay. What do I talk about?
“And I kinda found my gimmick from watching different movies, and I think I watched “Daredevil,” and I was watching Kingpin talk. And then I was like, ‘Yo, that’d be dope, like an evil underground boss,’ but how could I do that? Because of course, I’m smaller than everybody else. I was like, how can I make that look like I can control these people? [So] like [I] talk a big game and people believe it. So I kinda got my idea off of that.”
Read more: Jonathan Gresham: If You Take Rules Away From Pro Wrestling, There’s No Story
The full episode is available here: