Tragically, earlier this year we lost one of the good ones as Jay Briscoe passed away after a fatal car crash.
This left the pro wrestling world in mourning, no one more so than Mark Briscoe. However, his form of mourning was to be happy that he knew his brother and to step back into a wrestling ring, for Jay.
The Briscoe’s were banned from AEW TV for quite some time, but the ban was lifted amidst the horrible tragedy. Speaking to Chris Jericho on Talk is Jericho, Mark reflected on his debut with the promotion.
“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,'”
“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,”
Mark Briscoe
Briscoe would defeat Jay Lethal in the main event of AEW Dynamite, with both men in visible tears after a hard fought contest between the two.
H/T to Fightful
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