Alex Marvez's weekly look at professional wrestling

By ALEX MARVEZ
Scripps Howard News Service
Thursday, November 22, 2007

They were named after one of pro wrestling's most famous brother tandems, but that's where the similarities end between Jay and Mark Briscoe and Jack and Jerry Brisco.

Jack, a storied former world champion, and Jerry Brisco had their heyday in the 1970s with a mat-based style of grappling. The Briscoes are the absolute opposite, with their eye-popping maneuvers making them the industry's top young tag team.

Ring of Honor will showcase that innovative style with a wild ladder match pitting the Briscoes vs. Kevin Steen and El Generico headlining the "Man Up" pay-per-view show that begins airing Nov. 30 on InDemand, The Dish Network and TVN cable outlets.

"I think we're a little mix of everything," Jay Briscoe said Monday in a telephone interview. "We can adapt if we wrestle with brawlers and can run if we're in with high-fliers. What we're trying to do is bring a whole different style to the table than what other people are doing."

Jay -- whose real last name is Pugh -- said he still isn't quite sure why he and his brother were given the Briscoe moniker in 2000 by a trainer in Delaware. Having already perfected wrestling moves in their back yard by then, Jay and Mark made their pro debuts at the respective ages of 16 and 15.

They didn't have a problem working in Delaware while underage. But to skirt the state athletic commission in Pennsylvania, the Briscoes worked under masks as the Midnight Outlaws on the independent circuit.

"There was one main guy the commission sent to the shows and we would just avoid him at all costs," a laughing Jay Briscoe said. "Right before we went out, we would throw masks on and the guy never said nothing. I don't know if he was paid off or what."

Ring of Honor didn't want to take that risk on its debut show in 2002, which is why an 18-yaear-old Jay Briscoe wrestled while 17-year-old Mark had to serve as his second. But it wasn't long before Mark reached legal working age and the brothers were establishing themselves as ROH's premier tag team.

In mid-2004, Mark Briscoe suffered serious injuries in a motorcycle accident that led to the brothers taking a sabbatical. During that time away from wrestling, the Briscoes went to junior college, helped on their father's chicken farm, bred pit bulls (which is still a hobby) and worked as day laborers.

The Briscoes returned to ROH in February 2006.

"The accident was kind of good timing," said Jay Briscoe, whose brother suffered shoulder and skin damage in the wreck. "We had been doing this every weekend since we were (teenagers) and getting burnt out. We experimented with a whole bunch of different things while we were still young and not sure what we wanted to do. After a while, it was like, 'Man, we were meant to be wrestlers.' "

Having raided standouts like CM Punk, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels from ROH, it seems inevitable that World Wrestling Entertainment and/or Total Nonstop Action Wrestling will make a run at the Briscoes. But Jay said the duo has no strong interest in making that jump. In fact, Jay says he prefers watching sports instead of WWE's "Monday Night Raw" or TNA's "Impact!" on Thursdays.

"Our goal is just to help Ring of Honor keep growing, getting more exposure and just making a good living at doing what we're doing," said Jay Briscoe, who is only 23. "We would really have to change our style up if we went to WWE or TNA, and we don't want to do that. If the opportunity presented itself, the timing was right and everything was where it needed to be, we might consider it. But we're happy where we're at right now."

Other matches on "Man Up," which was taped Sept. 15 in Chicago Ridge, Ill., include an ROH title bout pitting Takeshi Morishima vs. Bryan Danielson and a four-corner survival match with Claudio Castagnoli vs. Nigel McGuinness vs. Naomichi Marufuji vs. Chris Hero. For more information, visit www.rohwrestling.com.

For more information on the Briscoes, visit www.briscoebrothers.com.

(Alex Marvez writes a syndicated pro wrestling column for Scripps-Howard News Service. Contact him at alex1marv(at)aol.com.)