NMM #12 - JONATHAN GRESHAM

[RIPPA 27,829]

JONATHAN GRESHAM

CAGEMATCH

Octopus University (Gresham's YT channel were he demonstrates holds)

 

MATCHES

vs. Jay White (IWC)

vs. MJF (Limitless)

vs. Tracy Williams (Beyond)

vs. Jeremy Wyatt (St. Louis Anarchy)

vs. Josh Woods (ROH)

vs. Jeff Cobb vs. Rhett Titus vs. Shane Taylor (ROH)

MATCHES (w/o links) - Ring of Honor

Two different Jay Lethal matches

vs. Zack Sabre Jr (Final Battle 2018)

MATCHES (w/o links) - Non ROH

w/ Jushin Liger vs. Robbie Eagles/Taiji Ishimori

Anytime CCK wrestled Ringkampf

 

[Morganti 441]

Man i remember when he was Egyptian for a while in Chikara.

[Web Conn 2,336]

6 minutes ago, Morganti said:

Man i remember when he was Egyptian for a while in Chikara.

I had no idea about this until today, here he is vs The Big Rig Brodie Lee

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 17,789]

3 hours ago, Morganti said:

Man i remember when he was Egyptian for a while in Chikara.

Same here

Thinking back to Ricochet as Helios is a trip as well.

Edited March 19 by Nice Guy Eddie

[Nice Guy Eddie 17,789]

I want to see more of Gresham in New Japan. I hope he'd be in this year's Best of the Super Juniors, plus making the card for the MSG.

Edited March 19 by Nice Guy Eddie

[caley 2,834]

I don’t care for Gresham.  

 

There.  I said it.  I’d say it again.  

Just don’t find his matches all that engaging or enjoyable.  He almost always looks sort of slow  and like he really doesn’t care what the crowd wants, he’s just going to do his thing.  Maybe I haven’t seen the right matches but he just doesn’t turn my crank.  

[Marty Sugar 1,918]

12 minutes ago, caley said:

I don’t care for Gresham.  

 

There.  I said it.  I’d say it again.  

Just don’t find his matches all that engaging or enjoyable.  He almost always looks sort of slow  and like he really doesn’t care what the crowd wants, he’s just going to do his thing.  Maybe I haven’t seen the right matches but he just doesn’t turn my crank.  

That's indicative of a lot of North American indie wrestling, though. Guys go out with their preset plan and ignore the crowd. It's maddening. I enjoy working guys like that simply to aggravate them and completely scrap their little script as soon as I get to the ring and start working the crowd.

[Edwin 3,240]

Gresham rules. He doesn't have loads of personality, but he is an extremely skilled grappler. Not sure if he has a Catch background or not, but he does come across as someone who does.

I'm baffled he worked in CHIKARA under a hood. I had no idea.

I searched for them on YouTube, but couldn't find them -- but I would recommend watching his 2/3 falls match with ZSJ from Beyond, his tournament match with Riddle from Beyond and his title match against Lawlor from BLP all of which are up on Independent Wrestling TV.

Edited March 20 by Edwin

[Brian Fowler 12,647]

Love Gresham. Great mat work and technical grappling, with just the right amount of spectacular high spots.

[Nice Guy Eddie 17,789]

If Zack Sabre, Jr. isn't winning the New Japan Cup (I don't think he is), I'd totally be up for another ZSJ/Gresham match at MSG.

[thee Reverend Axl Future 940]

Gresham is great. I remember seeing him at a CZW Best of the Best (2015?) and he worked three times, and did a different match each time AND blew the squiddy inks. He worked the crowd in an olde tyme stalling way countered with super high spots. One of my fave rave indie dudes...

- RAF

[Tromatagon 7,622]

His YouTube channel, Octopus University, where he showcases grappling techniques is really cool.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxgsJ0H0vZ7vbgAyYVciAqg

Edited March 20 by Tromatagon

[Goodear 2,029]

Watched the Jay White match and its let down by a lack of character work and neither figure being compelling.  I thought when Jay put Gresham on the middle rope and patted him on the head that the match was going to go somewhere but they didn't have the range to have one of the guys actually demonstrate an emotion or a facial expression.  There is no emotional core to the match as the story seems to be that Gresham works the arm one spot at a time (because White never lets him roll or sell in a meaningful way) and White has him 'well scouted' which can work only if you have a super well defined and known moveset.  The finishing stretch if you want to call it that depended on White staying still after Gresham flipped out of a German suplex and it fails because there's no reason for White to be hurt there.  All in all, watching this match on mute which how I tend to scout, there is no one to cheer for here and the match is a failure as a result.

[Goodear 2,029]

Turned on the sound for MJF and Gresham because the heel was doing heel work to be delighted to hear chants of 'Pee Pee Sucker" which... yeah.  MJF does the bit where he gets the announcer to give him a bit of arrogant shine for Gresham to follow up the bit to call himself the best technical wrestler in the world and that he will make MJF cry like a little bitch.  Which gets a pop but is a misstep for me because you've a) now overrated yourself more than the heel did and b) fed into the homophobia kind of sort of.  They kind of dick around at that point with missing and dodging Three Stooges eye pokes which Roddy Piper could pull off but these guys cannot.  Some hammerlock jockeying gets us into a dumb tie yourself into a ball spot that sucks because MJF is forced to make himself look stupid to get the match to move along.  The idiocy continues as MJF puts himself into the same dumb position and gets slapped for it.  We have a moment immediately afterward where MJF spits on Johnathan but the referee literally gets in the way so we cannot possibly have any real emotion because its his job to make sure THE WRESTLERS DON'T FIGHT.  Thanks referee!   They go immediately into more hah hah which is just what you want to do after a guy spits on you and fail at executing it.  I'm done.  This sucks.  

Gresham to me seems to be someone who may know holds but doesn't know how to use them and doesn't have any way of drawing on emotion to move his matches forward from a narrative standpoint.  He's too passive when he should be righteously angry and is too self assured to be cast as the underdog.  He's another technically proficient indy guy in a sea of them so I'm left with no reason to care about him.

[Edwin 3,240]

 

These are pretty neat. This maybe a hot take, but I prefer Gresham to ZSJ. Gresham seems much more efficient when it comes to the ground game and is much more entertaining to me than ZSJ.

There's a match with Thatcher from NOVA Pro that @RIPPA didn't tell us about and one from Beyond... Think I may need to go out of my way to watch them.

[Ace 4,291]

From what little Gresham I've seen in the past year, he's more fun than ZSJ (which isn't a knock, because I love ZSJ's work). His tag match with Liger last month was ridiculously joyful.

 

[Ryan 4,472]

 

That's indicative of a lot of North American indie wrestling, though. Guys go out with their preset plan and ignore the crowd. It's maddening. I enjoy working guys like that simply to aggravate them and completely scrap their little script as soon as I get to the ring and start working the crowd.

Gresham has worked all over the planet and can do basically any style, I doubt you'd mess him up at all.

[Marty Sugar 1,918]

Because that's totally what I meant, of course.

[quackhell 347]

 

Because that's totally what I meant, of course.

I think you are both right in that yes a lot of guys don't read or play the crowd and just want to run their match, but also Gresham could probably be able to adapt and hang if Marty threw the script out the window and go in whatever direction you wanted him to go in. I am biased however because I do dig his work a great deal.

[Tromatagon 7,622]

Marty Rousey over here going off script

Edited March 22 by Tromatagon

[Marty Sugar 1,918]

2 hours ago, Tromatagon said:

Marty Rousey over here going off script

I ain't doing that fake John Gresham shit, him holding my arm like it's my fucking dick.

Edited March 22 by Marty Sugar

[Brian Fowler 12,647]

 

[Ryan 4,472]

She turned into an old image of Ellen? Wow, must have been harsh.

[Tromatagon 7,622]

I take back everything I said.  If you don't like octopuses in real life you're garbage

[thee Reverend Axl Future 940]

Way to kill the gimmick, JG...and my dreams.

- RAF