Ex-ROH Star Says They Shouldn’t Have “Yelled & Cursed” At Tony Khan

Jonathan Gresham was Ring of Honor World Champion when Tony Khan bought the promotion in the spring of 2022 but his time in the company came to an inauspicious end after an ill-tempered encounter with his boss.

In an interview with Haus of Wrestling, Jonathan Gresham gives his side of the story on how his time working for ROH and AEW came to an end but he began by explaining the state of his relationship with AEW management before Death before Dishonor in July 2022 – his last match in the promotion:

“I was pretty much conversating with Christopher Daniels back and forth. I forget the timeline but I was signed with AEW for a while. There was a time that I was going back and forth with Progress and then WXW, and I believe I was under contract with them at the time. TK, AEW, could have completely decided to pull me from those events and they allowed me to continue what I was doing and to honor those commitments that I already had after Ring of Honor initially went down.

“So, I was already in contact with Christopher Daniels, not so much with TK, so I thank them a lot because I have built, over the years, really good relationships with all these companies all over the world and I wanted to keep it that way. I knew canceling on them last second would have put a sour taste in our relationship and I didn’t want to do that. So, I really am grateful to them for allowing me to honor those commitments that I made.

“So, that is why I was gone, I would like to think I probably would have been seen on TV at the time because I know a lot of people were asking, ‘Why isn’t that person here?’ Blah blah blah. So, that’s pretty much why, because I was honoring those commitments. I was, to be honest, overseas the entire time between Germany and Ireland, and stuff, I was always gone.

“Fast forward to when I am finally back and finished up with Progress and WXW and everyone. For the most part, I think I really need to say that I am a very passionate person. I believe everyone that knows me and has trained with me at seminars and worked with me in the ring would agree. Along with that is the on-screen persona that I play as ‘The Foundation.’ This character and the character’s message is very close to how I actually view wrestling. This character also took years for me to develop and I am very protective and passionate about it.

“I can admit that I was acting very unprofessionally while trying and failing to convey the message to my former employer. After weeks of feeling like I wasn’t being heard or blown off, I was frustrated, to be honest. All I wanted was to be heard and for the communication to be had. If they had agreed and liked my ideas and what I wanted to say, great, if not, I would have appreciated the time and just accepted the outcome.”

At Death Before Dishonor, Gresham had his ill-fated meeting with Tony Khan and explained that he thought the AEW boss was walking away from him moments after finally meeting him, leading to him feeling disrespected:

“Now, speaking about the actual meeting, leading up to it, I felt like I was blown off in different ways. I had made contact with my employer and me coming from, like I mentioned before, under the last regime with Ring of Honor, I had a really good relationship where we could talk over the phone. If I texted them, they would get back to me relatively quickly. It was just a really good back-and-forth communication. So, I think, for me, I was expecting the same thing and maybe I shouldn’t have.

“I know TK is a very busy guy, owning a lot of different businesses, and I am a very small gear in this machine. That just came after so much time thinking about it through therapy and things of that nature. I felt like I was blown off, we made contact, and I was flown into a show.”

“I showed up, this is a new environment for me. I wasn’t really used to these big shows and so much going on. I arrived, I’m waiting and I never really got a time or anything about when we were going to meet. I just figured, ‘Hey, I know how wrestling is so I’ll just wait until he has time.’ I was there pretty much the entire two days, the fly-in day and then the day of the event where everything is filmed and then the next day.

“The gist of this is, I never got the chance to see him. Even when I went to a, say, Sonjay or QT to ask, ‘Hey, man, I’m supposed to have a meeting with Tony. Can I get it?’ I didn’t get it. So, the first time I felt like, ‘Okay, the dude is busy, whatever.’ I think I messaged him or he messaged me but I remember him saying something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry we didn’t get together. Let’s meet another time.’ Something like that.

“So, I fly out again and the same thing kinda happens. I’m not sure if I should say this part but this is what made me kinda feel like I was being blown off. I had to, for lack of a better word, hunt him down. When I finally get a chance to have a face-to-face with him, he introduces me to someone he is close with and as I go to shake her hand, I turn around and TK, from the way it looked to me, was walking away from me.

“So, at this point, I am thinking to myself, ‘This guy must not respect me at all.’ I just started having things roll around in my mind and I think, at the time, I was my own worst enemy with this. There was a lot of stuff going on personally with me. Nobody but the Progress guys know that my Mom had a really bad incident, she was in the hospital for like a week and it was the first time I had ever seen my Mom so vulnerable with tubes going through her face and stuff. A lot of this was just me under a lot of stress, I believe. But, I really felt I was disrespected.”

Gresham admitted that he shouldn’t have “yelled or cursed” and says he regrets how he behaved but confirms he didn’t want to leave the promotion because he lost the ROH World Title to Claudio Castagnoli:

“I shouldn’t have yelled or cursed in a professional environment and I deeply regret my behavior. Since then, I’ve gained some introspection through therapy, like I was saying before, and self-reflection and I just want to set the record straight. That day at the meeting, I wasn’t supposed to have that meeting, actually. Like I told you before, I’d been asking for meetings with TK and it was finally where we were both at a Ring of Honor show and he was like, ‘Oh, let me talk to Gresham.’ When he finally had time, I imagine.

“I remember getting a text from Sonjay and I was sitting with one of my buddies in the bleachers and, at that time, I had already checked out. I knew I was going to leave. I knew that I was going to ask for my release. The other thing that really bothered me was, a lot of people were under the impression that I left because I lost the Ring of Honor title and that’s not true. I’ve been wrestling for a long time and I’ve won championships and had to lose championships, that’s just part of business and life in general. You can’t be the champion forever, so, that’s not what it was.

“It was everything I had mentioned before so, I had already kinda checked out and I had told myself that I was going to ask for my release and leave. I already kinda knew what was going to happen and I was okay with that. Like I said before, I shouldn’t have yelled or cursed in a professional environment. The whole meeting just kind of got away from me, I was really emotional. That’s pretty much the gist of it.”

Jonathan Gresham finished by saying that after his title match with Castagnoli the new ROH World Champion and William Regal both had words with him but Tony Khan wished him well and assured him no bridges were burned:

“After my match with Claudio, I was kinda booking it out of there, I couldn’t be there. Claudio did come up to me and say some things, along with Mr. Regal, who was there at the time. But, before I did get out of there completely, my wife had my bags and stuff, and TK, he didn’t have to, but he came over to me and said some really nice things. He told me that no bridges were burned, he shook my hand and he said he knows that I am not a bad person.

“I can only imagine him dealing with athletes for so long. He kinda understands how things are, how people are. He deals with people from all different backgrounds. I’m pretty sure he probably saw where I was coming from and he just granted me my release. That was it.”

Tony Khan has confirmed that former ROH star Nigel McGuinness has signed with AEW after he returned to Ring of Honor at Supercard of Honor.