Matt Hardy discusses the tragic passing of Jay Briscoe.
The wrestling world was devastated when the news of Jay Briscoe's tragic passing broke on January 17, 2023. Jay, who was one half of the ROH World Tag Team Champions alongside his brother Mark, was killed in a head on collision with another vehicle. Jay's two daughters, Gracie & Jayleigh, were also injured in the accident.
Since the news broke, there has been a massive outpour of love and support for Jay's friends, family, and fans across the world of social media.
On the latest episode of his The Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy spoke about the devastating news in length and recalled where he was when he found out about Briscoe's sudden passing.
“Uhm, I’m holding up, you know but it’s just heartbreaking. It was devastating. I’ll go ahead and recall this for you, I’m in Fresno, California right now as we speak. We have Elevation, Dynamite, and Rampage tonight in Fresno. I was on the flight here and I was on about a four and a half hour flight from Raleigh to Phoenix, Arizona, then I connected to Fresno. So the last fifty minutes of the flight maybe, I dosed off, I fell asleep. Whenever I woke up, I woke up to twenty text messages from different people. You were one of them, Jon. My wife, my brother, so many of my friends. The news was then broken to me about Jay Briscoe. It was devastating, it didn’t feel real. Once I thought about it and I looked and I saw like a RIP and an obituary… he was born in 1984. [He was] ten years younger [than me]. Someone who should be here now, someone who more than anything loved his wife and kids and that was probably our strongest bond. We became pretty close friends. We didn’t talk every day or every week, but we talked pretty often via text or whatever and it was mainly just about kids and family. He was so big on that. Me, having four young kids myself, I know how important it is for those kids to have parents. The fact that he is gone is devastating. It hit me even harder from the perspective of him being so legendary and iconic as a performer and as a wrestler, and as a father and a man.”
Hardy also went on to talk about how valuable life is and how Jay was at a peak point in his tenured career.
“I’ve done this for a while now and I’m grateful for every single day I have. You almost have to live every day like it’s your last because in theory, it could be. This is a very cruel reminder of how fragile life is and how precious life is. Once again, you have a guy who had been working so long to get his big break and he had finally signed a contract with Tony Khan and the AEW/Ring Of Honor and he had this amazing trilogy of matches with his brother versus FTR, these guys like stole the whole tag team scene this year with these matches. He was finally in a position to make the most money and have the most opportunities and provide the best he could for his family and in a snap, it’s all gone, which is tragic.”
Hardy then circled back and discussed the world of wrestling's response to Briscoe's death and how despite his past mistakes, he was still an amazing human being.
“It was an overwhelming response to his passion and it made me very proud of him. It really speaks to the quality of human being that he was to those who knew him personally. Once again Jon, we live in such a strange time with social media because there’s so many people commenting on people that they don’t know, or what makes them tick, or the content of their character. Jay was a great guy, an amazing human being. Did he make mistakes? Of course he did. Have I made mistakes? Of course I have. Jon, have you made mistakes? Of course you have. We all make mistakes. It’s one of those things where he always was striving to be better and to correct those mistakes if there was mistakes he made in the past. He was a good human being. Everyone he had ever interacted with, everyone he had ever met or touched is going to have great things to say about him because he was a selfless human being. When it came to pro wrestling, he was incredible. He was in top tier of pro wrestlers, especially with the believability and the credibility of his character and his persona and just the way he worked and his athleticism. Him and his brother, they were ground breakers in many, many ways. Myself and my brother, we admired them from afar when they started to become a big deal and we definitely wanted to have a match with them one day down the road and it was so cool that we eventually got to have that match with them and it was an OMEGA show the very first time we did it, which was so so cool because it was such a cool setting. I can’t believe I’m not going to see him at another AEW or ROH taping, I can’t believe that him and his brother aren’t gonna be a tag team anymore. It’s really hard to accept that he’s gone, especially when I think about how much younger he is. I feel like it’s one of the hardest things for me to accept as I get older is when you see people that are so young that do pass away because of some unforeseen tragedy, it’s just sadness to the highest degree for me.”
Jay Briscoe's wife, Ashley, provided an update on the couple's daughters earlier this morning, noting that Gracie was set to undergo surgery on her back, while Jayleigh is currently stable and resting despite having injuries.
The Delaware State Police Department recently issued a statement regarding their investigation into the accident. To learn more, click here.
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