It's been a long while since I last watched a match involving a Briscoe. It must've been 2021 (going by the search function at Whiskey & Wrestling Towers), and even then what I watched was from 2004, a Low Ki v Mark Briscoe match on an ROH undercard, practically a lifetime ago. 22 years on and Mark is a little grayer around the temples, looking almost like the lovable rogue who I'd see in the pub every night when I'd go back to Scotland for the off-season. Both have maybe five teeth between them and definitely fell off a roof one time and both have mastered several of the martial arts, particularly the art of kung-fu. Mark is an enigma and even if Hechicero is a genius in the ring, early on he couldn't solve the Briscoe problem. Hechicero would try to wrangle him up, tie him in however many knots, but Briscoe would slip away or flip out of a snapmare, raise his arms in that redneck karate pose and Hechicero had no choice but to fall back, frustrated, maybe even FLUMMOXED! And who could blame him? He had his plan though, and sooner or later it would bear fruit. You wonder if Hechicero almost baited Mark in when he stopped him from hitting the Sabu dropkick, knew he'd still fly off the apron but in a way that carried a little less risk for Hechicero himself, and sure enough Hechicero caught him off the elbow drop and tried to snap his arm. There's a raw authenticity about Mark Briscoe that is kind of hard to explain but also maybe not if you actually look at the guy or listen to him talk for five seconds. Everything he does, I believe Mark Briscoe would do. Every reaction, I believe it to be a genuine one, or at least a genuine approximation of what his reaction would really be if someone was trying to twist his arm off. Mark Briscoe is in a fight and his right arm is useless? 100% I believe he would bite the other guy in the face or throw backhands with the left or boot them in the head. Absolutely I buy him going back to the well and jumping off that chair, even if he knows it might end even more badly than before. And there isn't a chance in hell he won't still go for the Jay Driller, even if that first attempt might fail when the arm gives out. Hechicero torturing a guy is always a good time but maybe you feel guilty about marveling at his ability to do so here because Mark Briscoe garners the most sympathy that a man who would throw a live chicken at you from the side of the road could possibly garner. When Hechicero hoists him up for the Jay Driller himself you wonder if he hasn't gone too far. When he decides against hitting the move the way Jay or now Mark would, instead turning it into another submission on that arm, you hope Mark escapes and makes him pay for it. If this were 1986 you would buy a ticket to the arena next Friday night. In 2026 you merely ask that these two get to wrestle each other four dozen times.
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