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Ring of Honor's Jonathan Gresham proving doubters wrong on his way to Global Wars: Chicago

Back in April, Jonathan Gresham fulfilled a decade-long dream of signing a contract with Ring of Honor.

At Ring of Honor's Global Wars: Chicago pay-per-view Sunday, he adds another milestone to his resume, as he will participate in the main event.

He will join Alex Shelley, Chris Saban and Jay White — collectively known as Search and Destroy — in an eight-man tag team match against the Ring of Honor World champion Cody Rhodes, Adam Page and the Young Bucks — collectively known as Bullet Club.

Gresham's journey from being a fan seeing Ring of Honor for the first time back in 2005 to the main event of Global Wars: Chicago was not only long, but it was also filled with its share of doubters.

People doubted that the 5-foot 4-inch Atlanta native would make it in the business being a more technical, mat-based wrestler, as grapplers his size are usually high flyers.

Gresham can fly around the ring like a typical cruiserweight, but he also seamlessly blends that style with his amateur wrestling background to create a style unique to him.

Although the shadow of doubt cast over him was bigger than he was, Gresham has persevered, and his persistence has paid off.

"A lot of people looked at my size as a big disadvantage for me, but I looked at it as a way to tell a different story and to allow myself to stand out in a land of high flyers and bigger guys," Gresham told philly.com

"While I've always enjoyed the high-flying style of professional wrestling, I've always looked at the other parts of wrestling that not a lot of guys utilize, so I decided some time ago to incorporate those two styles and I try to make my own style," he added.

"I always told myself that I wanted to be a pioneer of a style in professional wrestling and that's what I'm trying to do."

It was hard for Gresham to pioneer his own style wrestling in the South, which according to Gresham, catered more to bigger wrestlers during his early years in the business.

"I was always told it's an upper-body business down south, so if you're not a jacked dude then you're not really taken serious down in the Georgia/Florida area at that time," he said.

Wrestlers of Gresham's stature were typically boxed into specific roles.

For example, Gresham recalled a time when he wrestled in Alabama every week during the early days of his career. On those shows, Gresham would always wrestle in the opening match.

When he sought advice on what he had to do in order to move up the card, he was told that being in the opening match was his spot and that was essentially as far as he was going to get.

"I realized then that I had to get out and there has to be somewhere and someone in the United States or around the world that sees what I see in myself, so that's when I hooked up with a buddy and started hitting more shows in the Carolinas," Gresham said.

According to Gresham, he has not performed on a show in his home state of Georgia since 2007. He estimates he has only had five matches in the Peach State in his entire career to date.

Gresham believes that stigma of cruiserweight wrestlers only being high flyers that open the show still exists in certain pockets of the South, but believes it is starting to change.

Regardless of whether it is changing or not, Gresham would rather continue what he is doing now, which is building his name from one side of the world to the other.

In his mind, he is following in the footsteps of his idols Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerreo, who all wrestled all over the world before performing on the big stage of World Championship Wrestling and WWE.

Because of their plethora of experience, Jericho, Malenko and Guerrero already had name recognition before WCW and WWE. Therefore, it didn't make sense for either promotion to change them. That's what Gresham wants for himself.

"I call it being undeniable," he said. "I wanted to be somebody that an office couldn't just look at and say, 'Hey, we want to change you.' I want you to accept me as what I want to be."

In Ring of Honor, Gresham believes he will have the chance to be who he wants to be, and in doing so, will continue to add milestones to his growing resume.

Vaughn Johnson has a podcast with Nick Piccone called the Straight Shooters on WildfireRadio.com. Check it out here HERE.