AEW's Mark Briscoe Opens Up About Choosing ROH Over WWE NXT

During their years as a tag team, the Briscoe Brothers were heavily associated with Ring of Honor, winning almost every title ROH had to offer. When Jay Briscoe died in a car accident in 2023, his brother Mark continued wrestling and made the move from ROH to AEW, but the two never performed in WWE. However, appearing on "Busted Open Radio," Mark revealed that they nearly made the decision to sign there about a decade ago.

"There was another time, 2015-ish, that they wanted us to come down to NXT," Briscoe said. "They gave us a pretty good offer. I mean, more money than we were making in Ring of Honor. And we didn't want to leave Ring of Honor, we didn't want to have to move down to Florida with the family and all that, but they were offering, really, pretty good money."

The brothers reached out to ROH officials Hunter Johnson (AKA Delirious) and Joe Koff, sharing their dilemma. In a move that surprised Mark, ROH increased their offer to the Briscoes after the conversation. Jay and Mark took that offer back to WWE and expected the larger company to counter, but they declined.

"It was like, 'Oh, well, s**t. This makes it a really easy decision now, if we don't gotta move to Florida,'" Briscoe stated.

Mark also revealed that WWE reached out to the brothers at an earlier point. However, around that time, Jay made a social media post featuring homophobic language, causing WWE to retract their offer. This same issue later prevented Warner Bros. Discovery from allowing the Briscoe Brothers to appear regularly on AEW TV, though Jay was apologetic regarding his past comments.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.