“Dem Boys” and the Legacy That Hit Like a Lariat
If professional wrestling were a family affair soaked in sweat, blood, and barbed wire, then Jay Briscoe was its tattooed patriarch. Born Jamin Pugh in the wrestling wilds of Delaware, Jay was one half of the Briscoe Brothers—Ring of Honor’s juggernaut tag team that bulldozed through every division like a couple of angry combine harvesters.
Jay didn’t just wrestle. He convulsed with conviction. Whether he was screaming about honor, God, or the price of bad parenting, he brought the type of intensity to promos that made you wonder whether someone’s kneecaps were about to become collateral damage.
For two decades, Jay Briscoe and his brother Mark defined ROH tag team wrestling. But Jay himself? Jay was something more: a southern-fried bruiser with a preacher’s cadence and a street-fighter’s soul.
From Chicken Coops to Crimson Canvas
Jay debuted in 2000 at the age of sixteen, a time when most boys are figuring out how to talk to girls or sneak into R-rated movies. Jay was instead learning how to land a frog splash on plywood in front of twelve angry men in a fire hall. Raised on the Delaware independent scene and trained by folks like Eddie Valentine and Glen Osbourne, Jay’s first chapters were inked in blood and elbow grease.
He broke into Combat Zone Wrestling—where light tubes are legal tender—and immediately caught fire. The Briscoes didn’t just “get over.” They violated ordinances against cruelty in several states.
His singles run in early ROH saw him bloody Samoa Joe in a cage and challenge for the World Title long before he’d grown his beard to lumberjack proportions. Eventually, the Briscoes reunited and began carving their names into every ringpost on the East Coast.
Ring of Honor Royalty
Thirteen ROH Tag Team Championships. Read that again. Thirteen. That’s not dominance. That’s dynastic. That’s walking into any locker room in North America and saying, “Y’all can go ahead and be second best.”
Jay’s biggest solo moment came in 2013 when he captured the ROH World Championship from Kevin Steen (a.k.a. Kevin Owens). The match was a declaration of independence, a reminder that Jay was more than just one-half of a hillbilly wrecking crew—he was main event material, too. He would win the title again in 2014, making him one of the few two-time ROH World Champions and one of even fewer to cut promos that sounded like Old Testament verses screamed through a diesel engine.
His matches with Adam Cole, Michael Elgin, and Jay Lethal weren’t just five-star outings—they were spiritual warfare. Jay wasn’t a “wrestler.” He was a blunt instrument wielded by destiny.
The Dog Collar Eulogy
December 2022. ROH Final Battle. Jay and Mark faced FTR in what might be the greatest dog collar match of all time. Blood, chains, and brotherhood. It wasn’t a match. It was a tribute to the art of pain. A full-circle moment for two men who had been throwing fists since the Bush administration. The Briscoes won their thirteenth—and final—ROH Tag Titles that night.
A month later, Jay Briscoe was gone.
A car crash on January 17, 2023, took his life just shy of his 39th birthday. He was driving his daughters home from cheer practice. The wrestling world collapsed inward, like the ring apron after a moonsault from the heavens.
A Complicated Man in a Simple World
Jay Briscoe was not without controversy. His 2011 and 2013 homophobic tweets cost him mainstream opportunities—WWE never called, and AEW couldn’t feature him on TV while owned by WarnerMedia. But in the decade that followed, Jay apologized, donated to LGBTQ causes, and earned the respect of queer wrestlers like Effy and Ian Riccaboni. Those who knew him backstage vouched for the man he had become: generous, inclusive, and—ironically enough—an advocate for those once hurt by his words.
He was, in many ways, the classic redemption story wrestling never stops producing. A man shaped by the ropes and saved by the people he suplexed.
The Last Bell
At his funeral in Laurel High School—because of course it was in a high school gym—friends, family, and fellow wrestlers gathered not to mourn but to witness. They spoke of Jay the father, Jay the farmer, Jay the mentor. Caprice Coleman delivered a eulogy that wasn’t so much a send-off as it was a sermon. “Dem Boys” wasn’t just a catchphrase anymore. It was scripture.
Jay Briscoe leaves behind a wife, three children, a legacy written in bruises, and a brother who now carries their name in every match he fights alone.
Final Words
Jay Briscoe didn’t wear suits. He wore scars. He didn’t chase titles. He dragged them home like trophies from a battlefield. And when it was all said and done, he left behind more than belts or busted turnbuckles—he left behind an era.
Jay Briscoe wasn’t just ROH’s beating heart.
He was ROH. And wrestling is emptier without him.