There are few people in professional wrestling who have had a more tumultuous two and a half years as Mark Briscoe. The AEW superstar has been forced to adjust to the tragic death of his tag team partner and real-life brother Jay, to become a singles star in his own right — now entering one of the biggest matches of his career at All In: Texas, where he will kick off the men’s “Casino Gauntlet Match” against MJF, with a chance to earn a shot at the AEW World Championship.
A humble Briscoe spoke to SB Nation earlier this week about how he’s preparing for the match, the need to channel a more serious version of himself, and why he’d love to climb in the ring with Genghis Khan.
Championship gold is nothing new to Briscoe, who has held tag team championships in almost every independent company in wrestling, as well as the Ring of Honor World Championship as a singles wrestler, but the match on Saturday has a special significance to Briscoe.
“I said I’m smelling gold in them there hills and you know, I was able to capture the Ring of Honor world title, which I’m extremely proud of that, but I need to get some AEW gold around my waist.”
Briscoe said the Casino Gauntlet Match is the only thing he’s concentrating on right now, with it being the culmination of 25 years in the ring. Saturday will be the first time AEW had run a stadium show in the United States, with wrestling taking over Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers in front of 20,000-plus fans.
It’s easy to get lost in a match this big, but to kick things off there’s only one man on Briscoe’s mind.
“MJF is gonna start things off with me, and I damn sure hope that that’s the man I pin his shoulders to the mat 1-2-3, because, I just about had had enough of him. We’ve only been only been interacting for a couple of weeks now, but, it’s just that it’s something about MJF, he just irks me. He just got such a punchable face, and it’s just his whole personality type, his whole demeanor. I mean, he really needs an ass whooping that’s really just gonna knock him down off his pedestal.”
When it comes to background and styles MJF and Briscoe couldn’t be more dissimilar, and that’s part of what makes the Casino Gauntlet Match so fascinating. When asked about the edge he has over the competition there’s a clear, chaotic answer from Mark Briscoe.
“I’ve been scouting everybody who doesn’t already have a match. I’ve been scouting people who might show up that ain’t been around a while. I’m ready for anything and everything, and I just think that I bring the element of surprise where you don’t know if I’m gonna punch you in the mouth, I’m gonna come on that top rope. You don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
All In: Texas is going to be a wholly unique event inside a baseball stadium and often the venue can be as important to a match as the action in the ring itself. With a career spanning 25 years and working around the globe, Briscoe has worked in almost every iconic arena in wrestling. When asked about his favorite place to wrestling there were two that really stood out.
“There’s nothing that compares to Arena Mexico. I mean, you can almost just feel the history in that place and the atmosphere is unlike any other building I’ve ever been in in my entire life. I would say arena 1A and 1B are Arena Mexico, and the old ECW arena because that’s where me and my brother fell in love with pro wrestling when we were in South Philly, in the old tattered bingo hall, it was, it’s filled with smoke and and beer and man …”
It’s impossible to tell the Mark Briscoe story without Jay Briscoe. The brothers were the most unique, heralded tag team to exist outside of large, mainstream companies and were correctly regarded as one of the best in the business. When I ask Mark about the matches that meant the most to him obviously it includes those with his brother, and he treasures the feud the Briscoes had with FTR prior to Jay’s passing.
“I loved all three of the FTR matches, but just the fact now that, you know the accident happened just barely over a month later when we lost my brother, and so it was already probably already my favorite match in my career, but just the fact that that was kind of me and Jay’s like, our last, our last hurrah.”
There’s never been a gimmick in wrestling quite like The Briscoe’s. One part country rednecks, and one part inner city thugs, they modified traditional expectations of the “country” stereotype in wrestling because they lived it. Growing up on a chicken farm and still having family who life the farm life I had to ask Mark the best way to prepare chicken in his mind. In a word: Grilled, but there’s more to it than that.
“This is top secret information that I’m just now divulging for the first time, but you take some A1, you take some honey, and you take some Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce and you mess around with it and you get just that right ratio. You brush that on some chicken and man, look, man, I’m telling you. I just recently found Kinders brand seasoning. You know, got that handsome old gentleman on the front of the container, but yeah, you got this buttery poultry seasoning. You sitting here, got my mouth water sitting here talking to you on the phone. But yeah, so yeah, get you a little Kinder buttery poultry, get you a little A1, honey, Sweet Baby Ray barbecue sauce blend and hold on the grill, man, can’t go wrong.”
Briscoe has had an incredible career so far, and it’s only getting stronger. With over 950 matches rated on Cagematch he’s worked with just about everyone in the business. Instead of asking him who he wants to wrestle right now, I asked him to dig back through history and give me the names of historical figures he would love to get in the ring with.
“Genghis Khan. The ancient Mongolian warlord, I believe, if I’m, if I’m not mistaken because he was, apparently he was quite the warlord and did a quite a bit of conquering, you know, throughout the, known world. The thing about that is if I would be able to beat Genghis Khan I’d have more, bragging rights.”
The next one shocked me.
“Baby face, baby face match then, you know, I probably I’m gonna say Moses, I’m gonna say Moses, you know, Moses, he got a pretty good reputation of being pretty tough. He had pretty good, longevity in his career. So, you know, just as long as he don’t try to hit me in the head with his staff. I mean, that would be an instantaneous heel turn for Moses.”
Finally without any explanation needed “Teddy Roosevelt,” I think that one goes without saying really.
For the past year Mark Briscoe has been working alongside The Conglomeration in AEW, which has largely put him in more of a comedy role, having more fun in the ring and tapping into the joy of wrestling. While this has been one of Briscoe’s more memorable runs, I asked him whether or not that lead up to All In: Texas has him prepared for a martch as serious, as with as much on the line as the Casino Gauntlet Match.
Briscoe paused for a moment to reflect.
“It’s a heck of a good question you just asked because now that here we are, two years into my singles career, two years into my pro wrestling career 2.0, and it’s like, all right, now, I really do honestly think like you. It’s time to lock in. I’m always gonna have fun. Don’t get me wrong, if I ain’t having fun out there, I might as well quit, but I’m always gonna have fun, but yes, it is time to, time to kind of lock in time to bring that intensity, put the comedy in its place, you know what I mean, because it does have its place, of course it has its place, but man, I, yeah, I gotta, gotta crank that intensity up. I gotta bring out more Jay Briscoe if that makes sense.”
As always I closed talking to Briscoe about his Mt. Rushmore of professional wrestling. Not the people who he thinks are quote-unquote the “best,” but rather the people who have meant the most to him, and who have inspired his work as a wrestler.
“We’re gonna go with Terry Funk. We’re gonna go with Sabu. We’re gonna go with… It’s all the same place, you’re going down the same aisle at the grocery store if you know what I mean, but we’re going with Cactus Jack. Let’s see, who gonna put in the number four slot … Stan Hansen, gonna say Stan Hansen number four.”
Briscoe will face his biggest test on Saturday night as he enters the ring first in the Casino Gauntlet match as part of AEW’s All In: Texas. The show kicks off a 3 p.m. ET live from Globe Life Field, with All In: Zero Hour beginning at 2 p.m. free on YouTube.
