Reach for the sky boy.This was the Jay Briscoe tribute match between his brother and one of his closest friends after Warner Bros. Discovery finally saw sense and gave permission for AEW Dynamite to acknowledge The Briscoe Brothers and honour the life of Jay.
There’s elements of Jay Briscoes passing that have hit me differently to any other wrestling death I’ve experienced as a fan. Along with Brodie Lee, Jay Briscoe is one of the first wrestlers of 'our generation' to pass away. He's someone we've seen grown from teenager to man and that hits a little harder than a wrestler from the 1980s passing away. There's then the nature of the death and how we’re all susceptible to being in a car accident. This isn’t a wrestler dying from an overdose or what have you; This is something that could happen to anyone of us on any given day suddenly. Tell people you love them before you leave the house everyday, because there's no guarantee you'll be returning. There’s also the gutting sting in the tail that this happened on the eve of what could have been Jay Briscoe’s biggest mainstream run of his career. Jay’s career was already a huge ‘what if’ but now there’s another ‘what if’ to throw onto that pile with how the relaunch of ROH weekly programming on the back of a historic trilogy of matches with FTR could have taken his career to the next level. I think as much as the wrestling business offered Jay and his family, it also failed him. It should not have taken his death to get his name mentioned on national television, and there should be room in our society for people to learn from their mistakes and their ignorance and not be ostracised forever because of a horrible tweet nearly a decade ago.
How can you not be impressed by Mark Briscoe this week with the strength and peace he is showing in the aftermath of a tragedy? There’s not a bone in his body that is angry about what has happened, not visibly anyway. I'm not about to turn this review into an Evangelist sermon, but as a lifelong Christian myself I'm still floored when I see this level of faith from people and how their faith helps pull them through the tough times in life. Caprice Coleman put it best in a video with Mark about how he thought everyone was coming to the arena to comfort Mark, but in the end it was Mark that comforted all of them and let them know everything was gonna be ok. Jay Lethal comes out to this match visibly choked up and fighting off the tears, probably how I expect most people would feel in his shoes, but then Mark comes out, fired up, holding up both original ROH tag team titles ready to put on a show for 'his boy'. Mark not only stole the show this week on Dynamite, his Eulogy at Jaymin's funeral was a sight to behold as well. What a guy.
I know this is secondary to everything else, but the match rocked too. You can bet your house that an episode of Dynamite in 2023 will produce a very good match, and Mark and Lethal took the honour of match of the night this week. It shouldn’t go understated either that this would have been (to my knowledge) the first time Mark would have wrestled on live television in his career.
For the first minute of this match everything was very respectful, textbook wrestling drill stuff. But then Lethal threw in a cheapshot chop when backing out of the corner, and Mark responded with 'lets do this' and fired back with a chop of his own. The match then turned into a hard hitting scrap, something more befitting of a tribute to Jay Briscoe. Any newcomers to Mark Briscoe's work were treated to his Chicken style of Kung Fu. Don't let the squawking fool you, Mark chops just as hard as anyone in the business. I loved that Mark rolling out of the ring after the Lethal Injection gave the commentators the perfect excuse to bring out the classic story of Mark having the highest IQ of the ROH lockeroom. The froggy bow through the table was a great high spot that put over that this ain't your regular tribute match, this ain't Bret Hart having the sort of match he would have had with Owen against Benoit on Nitro. This is Mark Briscoe having the sort of match he did have Jay as kids wrestling on their trampoline in their backyard.
Mark winning with the Jay Driller was the obvious finish, but I loved how Mark had to go for it 4 or 5 times before it worked so that the payoff was even more satisfying. It came off like Mark was stubborn and fully committed to winning only via his brother's finisher, sometimes to his detriment when Lethal always had a counter for it.
Before I finish up, I want to give some praise on Ian and Caprice on commentary who I think masterfully nailed the tone of the evening while still calling the action as if it was just as important as their heart-felt tributes and stories about their friend Jay. I always enjoy those two guys together in ROH but here they were a perfect accompaniment for this match and they did Jay proud just as Mark did. I watched this match right after watching some of the Royal Rumble where I had to endure Pat McAfee ruining the event by bringing Michael Cole down to his childish, distracting, look at me everybody level, so I was in even more of an appreciative mood for good commentary and how it can enhance the work of the wrestlers in the ring.
I've nothing else to say but God Bless The Briscoe Brothers.
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