AEW President Tony Khan addressed the long-standing ban that kept the Briscoe Brothers off Warner Bros. Discovery networks following Mark Briscoe’s TNT Championship victory on Saturday. During the AEW Full Gear press conference, Khan confirmed that the executive responsible for preventing the team from appearing on television is no longer employed by the company.
Mark Briscoe captured the TNT Championship earlier in the night, marking his first singles title in AEW. He was presented with a custom camouflage title belt to commemorate the win. When asked about the journey from being banned to holding the network’s signature title, Khan spoke bluntly about the past regime.
Khan said: “Someone who’s long gone, long departed. Somebody who is long gone and, you know, we’ll leave it at that.” Khan mentioned the positive relationship with the current management team. Khan continued: “This place is the best. This is the absolute greatest. It’s a great place. And again, that is not somebody that is part of the family of the network or part of this family now.”
Mark Briscoe reflected on the moment, acknowledging the specific controversy involving his late brother, Jay Briscoe. In 2013, Jay posted homophobic comments on Twitter that resulted in a high-ranking Warner official blocking the duo from AEW programming. Mark spoke about learning from those mistakes.
Mark said: “It’s just crazy because, so many years ago, it was, you know, we didn’t know there was a point where the trajectory of the Briscoe brothers, it was just all up, up, up. And then, you know, some unfortunate comments were made by my big head brother. But, you know, it’s one of the things where you live and you learn. And we’re just so grateful that people have seen and acknowledged that we did learn from our mistakes.”
Khan noted that he tried “every day” to overturn the decision while Jay was alive, but the executive “would not budge.” He credited current WBD CEO David Zaslav for the regime change that allowed Mark to be featured on the network.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit the AEW Full Gear Press Conference with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Check out the full press conference on the AEW YouTube channel.
