Mark Briscoe Opens Up On Legacy Of The Briscoe Brothers, FTR, And Chris Jericho

Zack Heydorn | Oct 22, 2024

AEW

Mark Briscoe is currently the ROH World Champion and has a title defense against Chris Jericho in a Ladder War on this week's episode of AEW Dynamite. Briscoe is ready for the match, but also reflective as a veteran on what is a a storied career in professional wrestling.

In a wide-ranging interview with Adam Barnard at Foundation, Briscoe talked about defeating Chris Jericho on Wednesday, the classic trilogy of matches between The Briscoes and FTR, the legacy of his tag team with his late brother Jay Briscoe, and much more.

“We started all the way at the bottom," Briscoe said of he and his brother Jay. "I'm not trying to toot my own horn or toot our own horn, but we started at the bottom and we grinded, man. We grinded. We didn't have any multimillionaire corporations backing us. We made our names. Now, here we are all these years later. It's like everybody who knows about wrestling here in the 2000s, who really knows what they're talking about, knows that the Briscoe Brothers could get down with anybody in any type of match.

"If we're talking athletic, spot fest, we're talking hardcore death match, bleeding ladder match, whatever it may be. We could do it all, man. There was no style that was out of our range. We had, in my opinion, and like I said, I'm trying to say this with as much humility as I can, had more range than any tag team in the history of professional wrestling from being able to put on technical tagging masterpieces, if you will, to bloody violent wars, I feel like we were able to cover those bases better than anybody else could. It's crazy how we never, as a unit, never made it mainstream because of different circumstances and different situations.”

Mark and Jay Briscoe began tagging together in 2000 and had a home in the Ring of Honor promotion for nearly 20 years. Mark and Jay as The Briscoe Brothers wrestled on the first ROH show ever in 2002. 20 years after that debut, they wrestled a classic series of matches against FTR that Mark looks back on fondly.

“The trilogy with FTR is something that -- I don't think it never is going to stand on its own for eternity, man," Briscoe said. "It's like there will never be anything else like it. It was like me and Jay were… We were thankful to be with Ring of Honor in the 2010s because they really took us as family men, as fathers and husbands, we really got financially secure working for a Ring of Honor when Sinclair Broadcasting owned the company. It was such a necessary season and such a necessary step in our lives just as family men because we needed to get a little bit of financial footing, if you know what I mean. But at the same time, it's almost like we were caged in. We were locked in because we were exclusive Ring of Honor (talent), and we couldn't really dabble here and there. We got to do some New Japan stuff because Ring of Honor was working with New Japan with a working agreement or whatever.

"But then somehow we snuck out and we wrestled the Hardy Boys down in Omega, I don't know how we pulled that off. I think there was a little bit of strategic wording of when we brought it up to the brass at Sinclair. But either way, it was like that, basically that whole decade we were locked down as far as where we can go and who we can wrestle. Then the minute that it becomes a thing where the cage door is open again, we can go here, there, and we can go elsewhere. Then it's like, man, one of the first things that started to materialize -- the universe just started to materialize it -- was FTR, Dax called out Briscoes on his Twitter page. From there, it's like one thing after another after another.”

Looking back is fun, but looking ahead is important with a brewing Ladder War looming with Chris Jericho on AEW Dynamite this week.

Chris Jericho demands his rematch!

Watch #AEWDynamite LIVE on TBS!@ReneePaquette | @IAmJericho pic.twitter.com/akzQC5VKNC

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) October 17, 2024

"Jericho, he just don't know when to shut up, man," Briscoe said. "He don't know when to quit running his mouth. And I know he's made a career of recreating himself and reinventing himself and all these different personas and all these different characters. Well, his new character is going to be the guy that gets his ass woke by Mark Briscoe on a damn near weekly or bi-weekly basis. And he's real slick with it. What do they call it? Passive aggressive. He'll say something like, ‘I'm going to be a two-time Ring of Honor champion, just like Jay Briscoe’. If you should so happen to win, then okay, I get it. You will be a two-time Ring of Honor champion, just like Jay Briscoe. But the shittiness that it just comes forth, it just comes from a shitty place. And it's like, you're barking up the wrong tree, man. You're playing with fire.

"To me, it's not even about the title on Wednesday because I think I proved my point in a one-on-one wrestling match at WrestleDream, even when his boys tried to get involved. I had my backup, but I beat him, pinning him one, two, three in the middle of the ring. Now, he just wants to keep running his mouth. I think he's just trying his best to stay relevant. But I'm the wrong one. I'm the wrong one. You understand what I'm saying? I'm the wrong one. I'm not the one that you want to do that with because I'll put you out of the game."

This week's episode of AEW Dynamite will also feature The Elite vs. Private Party, Shelton Benjamin vs. Sammy Guevara, an appearance from Jon Moxley, and much more.

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