Matt Taven wants the world to know what type of person Jay Briscoe was in and out of the ring.
Speaking with James Stewart on the Stick to Wrestling podcast, Taven was asked who he wants to face at Death Before Dishonor.* Taven stated that he previously wanted to win the championship at ROH Supercard of Honor to pay tribute to Jay.
“It’s really difficult to kind of put into words how much The Briscoes have helped me and what they’ve meant to me,” Matt Taven said. “I first got into Ring of Honor in 2010 and was one of those guys looking for a shot. [I was helping] set up chairs and just hoping that someone would recognize me.
“The locker room was very tough. It was a very tight-knit locker room. You would look around and kind of see, ‘Oh, these guys are such good friends. How do I make my way here? How do I kind of find my place here?’ I gotta say, Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe, you would think from afar when you saw them that these are gonna be some tough nuts to crack.
“Out of all the people in the locker room, maybe they might be the ones with the biggest guards up, the ones that would be the hardest to become friends with. It was the complete opposite. Jay and Mark were so welcoming and so helping. Me and Mike and Maria always say that The Kingdom kind of became The Kingdom once we started to get into a program with The Briscoe Brothers.
“From our Armageddon match in Atlanta in 2015 to the stuff we did, six-person tags with ODB. That Armageddon match is funny because I have this giant scar on my head from Jay Briscoe throwing a chair at me and making me end up in the Atlanta hospital until six in the morning, almost missing my flight the next day. I had to get six staples across my head.
“But it’s one of those things now that I look at that scar as almost like I cherish it because I remember my friend. As the years went on and we really kind of took so much pride, myself, Jay, Mark, Lethal, Dalton Castle, we took so much pride in holding the Ring of Honor banner as our own, as our home and our family that we became so close and we traveled the world together.
“I have such great memories of me and Jay in Mexico, just figuring out the lay of the land. One time, we were down there doing Mexican Independence Day, and we were just trying to find food in the middle of the night. The next thing you know, Jay’s making friends with the local kids, setting off fireworks in the middle of the street. Those are the memories that I’ll cherish forever.”
As much as The Briscoes helped Matt Taven in his career, he was unaware of just how big of an impact Jay Briscoe had on his local community before he passed away.
“Myself as well, knowing how good of a person Jay Briscoe was. I didn’t realize the impact he had on his local community until after Jay tragically passed,” Matt Taven said. “We went up to Sandy Fork, and we spent time with the family. We were staying up there with The Briscoes. Everywhere we went, someone brought up Jay Briscoe to me. We went to the local convenience store, and they could just tell. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re a wrestler? You must know Jay.’ He’s on the local commercials for a pool company, and just wow.
“I hear stories that I kind of knew of, but I didn’t know completely. Jay going around town and picking up the local kids, throwing them in the back of the truck, and letting them jump in his pool on a hot day and stuff like that. Just doing little stuff like that. His presence is so missed. It’s a big hole to fill in the wrestling community and obviously the community in Delaware as a whole. He’s in my thoughts constantly. It’s little things now where I’ll run into situations that I’ve been in before with The Briscoes. I’ll think about, ‘Oh, man, remember when Jay did this or that?'”
*At the time of the interview, the tag team title match hadn’t been announced yet.
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What do you make of Matt Taven’s comments? Do you think Jay Briscoe’s absence is still being felt in Ring of Honor today? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
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