Mark Briscoe hasn’t found his footing as a singles wrestler yet.
This Saturday, the former ROH World Champion is scheduled to have his biggest match on AEW pay-per-view as Mark will go one-on-one against MJF in a Tables and Thumbtacks match. Since the unfortunate passing of his brother Jay, Mark has worked solo on AEW and ROH.
On the surface, Mark seems like a natural who’s adjusted to wrestling solo nicely, but according to the 40-year-old during an interview with Fightful, Mark still hasn’t fully figured out how to be a singles wrestler.
“I’m feeling better every day. I’m getting my footing underneath me as a singles guy. Starting to learn how to pace and tempo. Tag wrestling, I go in there guns blazing until I’m out of ammo and then I tag out, Jay comes in guns blazing while I reload until he needs to tag out. You don’t have that option in a singles match You have to pace yourself and the tempo has to be different. It’s almost more of a strategic approach just being a tag guy for so long and having that ingrained into me as wrestler, it’s a whole different ballgame.“
For the most part, Mark has been tagging with his brother throughout his career. Jay is a former two-time ROH World Champion, so there were periods where the duo weren’t working as a team regularly, but this is the longest that Mark has been wrestling without his brother by his side.
There was a point where Mark was going to quit wrestling. He actually revealed this back in July during the Player’s Tribune special, that he was going to leave the business following the death of his brother.
“When he passed, at first I thought I was going to just quit wrestling. It didn’t take long, you know, maybe a matter of a few hours when I was like, I can’t quit wrestling. Jamin would, he would be p***** if I quit wrestling. He wants me to carry on and to keep on doing my thing and to even do more and do better.”
Thankfully he didn’t. Of course, many would’ve understood why he opted to hang up the boots for good if he did. From an outside perspective, Mark is doing an excellent job as a singles guy. He’s really tapped into his babyface persona and emerged as one of the top names in AEW. Hopefully, he finally gets his footing so he can be elevated beyond the mid card.