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When it was announced that the then Ring of Honor World Champion Jonathan Gresham was one of the few ROH performers to remain under contract with the promotion when Tony Khan purchased the brand from Sinclair Broadcasting, it drew heavy speculation from fans of AEW about his future. Would “The Octopus” perform a regular role on AEW television, as was initially the case in the lead-up to Death Before Dishonor, or would he fade into the background and have to instead continue to defend the strap across the indies and in his own promotion, Terminus?
Fortunately, or not, depending on your preference, fans never quite found out; Khan turned Gresham heel, aligned him with Tully Blanchard, and by the end of the first match of Death Before Dishonor, he was gone in no small reason to his decision to “cuss out” the booker for trying to job him out. Though some wondered what the future held for Gresham and if he would remain under contract with AEW despite their clear disconnect, for the better part of six months, fans were largely held in the dark about his status… at least until mid-December, when “The Octopus” showed up on Impact Wrestling, and it was announced that he was signing with the promotion.
Asked about how things shook out with Gresham in an interview with Grapsody, Khan complemented the performer for his in-ring work.
“I think Jonathan Gresham signed with IMPACT recently,” Khan said via Fightful. “I can’t speak to that, but I believe that was the news. I would be remised if I didn’t say that I like Jonathan Gresham and I like IMPACT, I think that’s great. It’s good for him to have a great opportunity there and it’s good for them, they have a great wrestler there. It’s great when wrestlers get opportunities and Jonathan Gresham is somebody who I had a good amount of experience with, I like Jonathan Gresham, he’s very talented and that’s a great place for him to go and hopefully have a really successful run as a wrestler.”
To his credit, Gresham sounds pretty excited to be in Impact, too, as he detailed to Gia Miller.
“I’m back here at Impact Wrestling because I feel like I have unfinished business with Eddie Edwards,” Gresham said. “Now, I know Eddie is trying to move on from this Honor No More stuff, and I would too, to be honest, so I get it. But last time I was here, I had a match scheduled with Eddie. A match that never happened. And like Eddie, I’m trying to move on, too. But, to be honest with you, it’s very difficult for me to do that when I know I have to put this to bed with him. So at some point, Eddie is going to have to deal with me. I can say that with confidence because I just signed a contract here with Impact Wrestling today, so I’m not going anywhere.”
Edwards, too, sounds pretty excited for Gresham to be back in Impact, as their previous bout at Rebellion was called off, and they can now pick right back up where they left off.
“Yeah, you know this was a match that was supposed to happen back in April at Rebellion in Poughkeepsie,” Edwards said via Fightful. “It didn’t end up happening, you know in this business things come up. Gresham, he was injured, he was concussed and he wasn’t able to make the show. He wasn’t able to make the event. It kinda went on the back burner for a little while until luckily the chips fell the right way and Gresham is back, he’s now signed with Impact Wrestling and we get to do it now. It’s nice to sometimes tease it for a while, it’s a match that I’ve wanted for quite a while now so it’s really been building up on me and I’m ready to go out in Atlanta at Center Stage and kill it and show Gresham just what he’s in for in IMPACT Wrestling.”
Will Gresham succeed in Impact? Only time will tell, but as Khan pointed out elsewhere in his interview with Grapsody, you can't please everyone in professional wrestling, even former WWE Champions who once had a day of the year named after them.
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.@TheJonGresham has UNFINISHED business with @TheEddieEdwards!#IMPACTonAXSTV pic.twitter.com/MTqrJ0vqMS
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) December 21, 2022
Tony Khan knows he can't make everyone happy in AEW.
Asked about the comments performers like Miro and Andrade made about their booking, Khan conceded that it's impossible to make everyone happy and that he tries his best to keep people happy.
“You’re never going to keep everybody happy. Really, you have to focus on that,” Khan said via Fightful. “You have people that are going to be focused week to week. Eddie is a big part of [December 23 AEW Rampage]. There are dozens of wrestlers featured on Dynamite and Rampage every week. Throughout those three hours, you see lots of names, but there are also dozens of names you aren’t seeing every week, and sometimes, they are silent about that, and sometimes there is a reason. Somebody is hurt, somebody is working on another project, they are being repackaged, or frankly, there are not enough slots in three hours. On other sports teams, you don’t see it as much. It’s not common in the NFL for the backup quarterback to slight the coach because he’s not playing. It’s not common in the NBA for the backup point guard to slight the coach because he’s not getting minutes. I take it, and I take it with a smile and I’ll keep taking it with a smile. It’s okay, I understand everyone wants to wrestle and everyone wants to do things. Everyone is coming from a different perspective. I don’t want to compare one person’s situation to another because it’s apples and oranges, but we have a lot of great wrestlers here and when they’re here, and when we can get everyone involved, I love that,” he said.
While some fans will continue to poo-poo the prospects of performers wrestling on Dark and Dark Elevation, Khan's willingness to produce angles for the YouTube broadcasted show and bring them up to Rampage or Dynamite when appropriate – The Acclaimed, Athena, Matt Hardy, and The Firm – has kept AEW from getting stagnant, even if the presence of a weekly Ring of Honor show would ease the burden substantially.
