The wrestling world sadly lost Jay Briscoe (Jaymin Pugh) on January 17 in a car accident. The Briscoes (Jay & Mark Briscoe) were one of the most beloved and successful tag teams in wrestling and legends in Ring of Honor.
Though they were signed to ROH, which was under ownership of Tony Khan, who also owns AEW, the duo reportedly could not appear on AEW programming due to past homophobic comments made by Jay in 2013, which he apologized for multiple times.
After Jay's passing, Khan received permission from Warner Brothers Discovery to pay tribute to Jay and book Mark on television. Mark made his AEW debut on the January 25 episode of AEW Dynamite, facing Jay Lethal.
Speaking to Chris Jericho on Talk is Jericho, Mark reflected on his debut.
"It was cool. Jay passed on January 17. January 18 was my birthday. One week later, January 25, was Jay's birthday. To me, that's one of those things where, Jay had such guilt that we never made it to TV. He thought it was his fault. It's so weird that, the first night, it was his birthday. It was like his gift to me. His gift to us. He wanted us to know how strong he was in his faith and his perspective, and his thoughts on God and eternity. I know that he was not afraid to die. He didn't want to leave any of us, especially his kids and family, he would never want to leave them without him, but I know that he did not fear death. I, even more so than my mom or a lot of other people that were so close to him, me and him spent more time riding the road and had that connection where we had that same mindset, the same brain. Here we are, on his birthday, a week after he passed, [Speaking as Jay], 'Here you go. Go head, baby. Do we what we do,'" recalled Mark.
Mark noted that many people asked him how he was able to wrestle so quickly after his brother's passing.
"I told everybody, 'If I went and balled up in a corner and cried and was sad and couldn't function, Jaymin would do whatever he could do in his afterlife to hawk my ass in the ring.' [Speaking as Jay,] 'What the hell are you doing? Come on, dawg.' For that to happen and the timing that it happened, 'Well, this is the next step. I'm carrying on. I'm carrying on for me and him. Let's role with it.' Until there is an obvious sign of obvious indication that this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing, let's keep rocking and rolling," said Mark.
Mark has become a staple on AEW television and is currently involved in a storyline with Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett, Sonjay Dutt, Satnam Singh, and FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler).
Mark still competes on ROH television, and he will face Shane Taylor on Thursday's episode of ROH TV. Fans can find the current lineup for the show by clicking here.
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