Jay and Mark Briscoe sign with ..
Ring of Honor announced today that ROH champion Jay Briscoe and his brother Mark have each signed new two-year deals with the company. While the signings were announced this afternoon, I believe they were actually signed about a month ago. I heard rumblings among ROH talents the second week of March that The Briscoes had agreed to new deals but could not confirm it.
WWE sources indicate that the company made a "top flight NXT level offer" in their attempt to sign the brothers but a number of factors led the pair to instead sign new deals with Ring of Honor.
For one, the Briscoes have each had a big part in growing ROH and have been there since the first show and there was an extreme sense of loyalty to the company. Secondly, each of The Briscoes have a big family (Jay has three children while Mark has three children and a fourth on the way) and uprooting all of them from their family in Delaware and moving them down to Florida was not going to be an easy transition for any involved, especially given what a strong family bond the Briscoe family has. The way the family is portrayed on TV (in terms of being such a strong family unit) is 100% legitimate to who they are as a family. Third, the brothers have outside business prospects in Delaware, including their family's farm and like ROH, they did not want to walk away and abandon something they have worked on their entire lives to build for an NXT deal. Fourth, obviously ROH made the brothers an offer that was to their liking.
My gut feeling is that if WWE had offered The Briscoes something that would have sent them right onto TV on the main roster for main roster money, we'd have seen The Briscoes leave, but them to walk away from ROH and their entire family's lifestyle for the promise of just NXT, it wasn't going to happen....and who knows, it might happen one day, but it won't be at least for several years, but it also might never happen.
Online rumors that Jay Briscoe was offered the ROH booking position in an attempt to get The Briscoes to stay is great science fiction, but nothing of that sort was ever discussed.
ROH's official announcement reads as follows:
Briscoes Stay Home in ROH –
Jay & Mark Sign new 2 Year Contracts!
The Briscoe Brothers have been with Ring of Honor "since day one," and now, ROH can confirm that the Briscoes are here to stay!
Jay and Mark have nearly thirty years of combined experience between the ropes , have traveled the world, and have earned many championships along the way. Jay Briscoe is in the midst of an incredible second run as World Champion, a feat accomplished by only two men in the entire history of ROH, and together, the Briscoes hold the record for ROH Tag Team Championships with eight amazing reigns.
The Briscoes built their legacies in Ring of Honor and for Dem Boys from Sandy Fork, there's no place like home...and no place like Ring of Honor.
