Mark Briscoe Says TNT Title Win Is Validating After Initially Not Being Able To Join AEW

Mark Briscoe spoke last night following AEW Full Gear about what it meant to win the TNT Championship when he initially couldn’t join the company due a Turner executive. Briscoe captured the title from Kyle Fletcher at last night’s show. It was a full circle moment for Briscoe, who initially was banned from AEW TV by a WBD executive. The ban was due to comments Briscoe made in 2013 that were homophobic.

The new TNT Champion reflected on the past matter during the post-show scrum. Tony Khan pointed out that the executive that banned Briscoe is no longer at WBD, and credited David Zaslav for allowing Briscoe to appear on TNT. You can see highlights below:

On Not Initially Being In AEW:

“It really is a crazy story where you know, allegedly, the reason that we couldn’t be here was because a TNT executive [refused to allow them on the show].

“Ever since I’ve been here, every single individual from Turner — TNT, TBS — that I’ve met has been amazing. Amazing. Yeah I mean, it’s soo cool. But to answer your question, it’s just crazy. Because so many years ago, we didn’t know — there was a point where the trajectory of the Briscoe brothers was all up, up, up, up, up. And then some unfortunate comments were made by my bighead brother [laughs]. It’s one of those things where you live and you learn. And we’re so grateful that people have seen and acknowledged that you know, we did learn from our mistakes. And now it’s like, okay, like you said, the full circle aspect of it. It really is — it’s mind-blowing. It’s hard to put into words.”

On Continuing On Without His Brother:

“To put a little bow on it — when my brother passed, the first thing that popped into my head was, ‘I never want to wrestle again.’ And it was a very short amount of time, I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ It was almost like he was like, ‘What are you talking about? No, no, no, no no! That’s now how we do this. We’re not quitting.’ Of course, I didn’t. But it was like I felt him, ‘Keep on keeping on, brother. Keep on keeping on. Make us proud.’ It was quite a validation.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit AEW with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.