Wrestling lost a good one last week. Jamin Pugh, better known as Jay Briscoe, passed away in a horrific car accident in Laurel, Delaware. Thankfully, Pugh’s two daughters, who were also in the same accident, survived and are doing much better. That’s phenomenal news after such a tragedy.
Excellence Personified
But to honor Jay, I’ve spent the better part of the past week doing a deep dive through the annals of AEW’s new HonorClub service and Youtube in search of numerous Jay Briscoe tag and singles matches. I found his first ROH match against Amazing Red, multiple battles against Kevin Steen and El Generico, Ladder Wars in droves, and even the amazing Briscoe vs. Briscoe from London. Prior to their Final Battle 2021 match against OGK, I had never seen a Briscoe match.
Ring of Honor’s huge popularity came and went during my major lapsed fan time period during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Even when I was watching, however, Ring of Honor was much more difficult to find than WWE.
A huge mistake on my part, because the Briscoes are amazing. Every single match I’ve watched was fantastic. They might be overlooked as one of the greatest tag teams ever, but they shouldn’t be. Every match is clean, precise, and perfectly paced. They aren’t flashy or flippy, which is probably why they meshed so perfectly with FTR. The Top Guys might have had the moniker of “no flips, just fists,” but that fit the Briscoes too. Nothing more needs to be said about the quality of the FTR/Briscoes trilogy either. It’s perfect.
Ultimately, I have a much better picture of who the Briscoes were. They were awesome. Conversely, my opinion wasn’t always that rosy.
Books, not Covers
I wasn’t introduced to Ring of Honor until The Elite took the world by storm. Kenny, Cody, and the Young Bucks were doing a rare Ring of Honor tour near me in late 2017, which my loving wife bought me tickets to see. I didn’t care about Ring of Honor; only the Elite. It could have been backyard wrestling, for all I cared. In 2017 I wasn’t as versed in the wrestling sphere as I am now. Most of the Ring of Honor roster was foreign, including the Briscoes.
And when “Reach for the Sky” played to open a segment, I had no idea what to expect. My opinions of what I saw were unfortunate, though. I judged them to the ends of the Earth and back. The Briscoes didn’t wrestle that night, but they had a small promo segment, and I just wanted it to end. Their mannerisms, voices, and looks were all judged by this newbie wrestling fan. It’s not fair, but it happened. I still fight my judgmental side every single day.
But the point is I was completely wrong to do that. It’s nothing the Briscoes haven’t heard before surely, but that doesn’t make it right. I look back on that night with sadness that I judged someone without knowing anything about them. Walking through life without judgment is difficult, but love and kindness are easy. One can disagree with someone and still show them kindness.
“Maturity is something that you bring to your life-it comes out of awareness.”
Osho
Additionally, The Briscoes had been labeled because of poor judgment a long time ago. Jay Briscoe sent out some poor taste tweets about gay marriage that forever labeled him and his brother as homophobes in the eyes of some, including the people in charge of distributing AEW. It’s not the tweets that matter anymore, it’s what Jamin Pugh learned from that bad situation.
And The Briscoes have said time and time again that tweet isn’t them. They love everybody and everybody loved Jay Briscoe. The wrestling world came out in droves to honor the man and establish that he was not those tweets. I saw hundreds of tweets from various sources talking about how Jay Briscoe bettered their lives.
That’s not a bad person. That’s a man with honor. Jay Briscoe owned his mistakes and I commend him for it. He wasn’t someone I personally knew or had a lot of wrestling history with, but something small like owning up to dumb mistakes is something to help me relate to him if only a fraction of the similarity. Hell, I’ve made so many mistakes over the years, and I’ve tried to own up to them with honor.
Living in History
It’s been incredible to watch old Ring of Honor matches. The inception of Ring of Honor was a special moment in wrestling history. The Code of Honor is the spirit that sparked the AEW revolution. Yes, WCW was the model of a mainstream WWE alternative, but Ring of Honor kept the alternative attitude.
There have been a lot of mainstream wrestling stars that have walked through the Ring of Honor curtains. The likes of CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, Kevin Owens, and Jay Lethal. But there is only one person that is synonymous with the Ring of Honor brand.
Jay Briscoe bled Ring of Honor from the beginning until the end. The wrestling world wouldn’t have looked the same without him. I wish I could shake his hand and give my gratitude.
Rest in Peace, Jay Briscoe.