ROH Final Battle 2023 Post-Show Media Scrum: Mark Briscoe on Jay Briscoe Tribute Match, Kenny Omega, WBD & WWE Talks Rumors, Attendance, Von Erichs

Ring of Honor held a post-show media scrum following Saturday’s Final Battle 2023 event at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas.

Some of the notable highlights included:

• During FTR and Mark Briscoe’s portion of the media call, Briscoe gave his thoughts about how the Jay Briscoe tribute match at the event was like “therapy” for him. Briscoe stated “This is our first holiday season, first Christmas without him. And I’m trying my best to hold it together for the family, for his wife and his kids, and mom and dad, and my sister. And so that’s kind of where I’m focusing that. And tonight, just like I said, therapy, man — the therapy that there just ain’t nothing like it. There’s nothing like it, just nothing like it. But yeah, man, it’s not easy. And we’re adjusting to this new normal. When I say we, me and the family, we’re adjusting to the new normal. It’s hard. But faith in God is what’s getting me through cuz I truly, truly believe that my brother’s in a better place. He’s doing better than me. He ain’t got worries about no bills, none of that bullshit…He’s doing good right now, man.“
• On the topic of his recent online reaction and comments over WWE on FOX Twitter accounting calling Bobby Lashley and The Street Profits as “Dem Boyz” which has been long associated with The Briscoes, Briscoe stated “I saw the tweet that I responded to that said “DEM BOYZ” with another tag team…And I thought it was made by somebody from the other company or at least had to be approved by somebody from the other company. And I thought, “Man, on the anniversary of this match that we had, they’re really gonna do that?” And I was like, “Man, that’s kind of disrespectful. I can’t just keep silent.” There’s only one Dem Boys. And now you talk about Dallas Cowboys, you can talk about, you know what I mean? Multiple songs of the hip-hop genre, you know what I mean? That’s all good, but in professional wrestling, it is only one Dem Boys, and that’s Mark and Jay Briscoe.“
• During his portion of the media call, Ethan Page gave his thoughts about working in ROH instead of AEW. Page stated that you should elevate the place you are in or else you shouldn’t be there for his reason why he is working in ROH.
• On the topic of reuniting with Scorpio Sky at Final Battle 2023, Page stated that he has a real genuine friendship with Sky now compared to the first time they were paired together in AEW.
• On the topic of his match against Kenny Omega at last week’s Collision show, Page praised Omega for being one of the best wrestlers in the world. Ring of Honor owner Tony Khan responded giving his well wishes to Omega for his current recovery. Khan stated “I know Kenny put out a statement of his own and I completely support it. I spoke to him today and of course we’ve been very concerned. It’s hard to focus on pro wrestling when it’s somebody you care about and somebody that is so responsible for all of this in so many ways. I don’t know if we could have launched AEW and this all been possible without Kenny Omega. Certainly, he’s as influential on the launch of AEW as anybody. He’s one of the greatest pro wrestlers in the world and an important figure in this promotion and this business. I think we’re all really concerned, but thankfully he’s communicating and we’re hoping for the best and it’s taken a turn for the better. The most important thing is he got help from the doctors at the right time and didn’t wait any longer because he’s in a lot of pain and I don’t think we knew how sick he was or nobody would have wanted him to…to be honest, I’ll leave it to him to get updates because he’s already been communicating and it’s his health and I don’t want to speak for him, but we’re all praying or Kenny Omega and thankfully there is good reason to be optimistic, but we were all worried about him, but it was honestly really hard the last 24 hours focusing on wrestling when somebody who is part of our wrestling family who has something happening that’s not wrestling like that. Whenever there is a real life situation, it always takes the most precedence. We’re thinking of Kenny Omega and hoping he gets well soon and wishing him the best, and sometimes it’s not about wrestling, even on a great night of wrestling like this.“
• During his portion of the media scrum, Kyle Fletcher gave his thoughts about how different being a singles wrestler is compared to him being more used to performing as a tag team wrestler. Fletcher stated that it has been a very challenging experience for him due to anything that goes wrong would be all on him and not having someone else to blame or help him out compared to tag matches.
• During her portion of the media call, Billie Starkz stated that her love of wrestling is what has driven her to become a pro wrestler at 19 years old. Starkz also stated that she lost friends and her childhood for it.
• During her portion of the media call, Athena stated that she enters the ring for every match she has acting as if it was her last because after her achilles surgery, she had thought that she might never be able to come back to wrestling.
• On the topic of Tony Khan’s trusting Athena to headline ROH shows, Athena stated that she does not know why Khan trusts her since its never-racking to follow the kind of matches that went down at Final Battle 2023. Athena stated that she will always deliver when given the opportunity to do so though. Khan responded praising Athena for being one of the best wrestlers currently in the world and stated that “it is very interesting” when asked about Athena making a return to AEW television.
• During his portion of the media call, Tony Khan gave his thoughts about the current rumors about Warner Brothers Discovery & WWE being in talks for a potential television deal for WWE’s RAW brand and AEW’s current standing with WBD. Khan stated “We’ve had really good conversations about AEW, even in recent days. I’ve had really good talks with Warner Brothers Discovery. We’ve been with them for several years. It’s a really exciting time for AEW. We were the number one show on cable on Wednesday in really what are considered both of the key demographics in TV, which are 18-49 and 25-54. So it was a great week for AEW. I think we’ve been putting out some of the best shows we’ve ever done. We’ve performed incredibly well for Warner Brothers Discovery and we’re very, very strong relationship. I think with media rights and all the things coming up, everyone has to do their due diligence. It’s just part of the TV business. I think where we stand, we stand in a position for AEW to have a huge growth year in 2024. There’s a lot of really exciting things happening that I know Warner Brothers is really excited about that we’ve talked about. The advance for All In just being a massive success as we’re approaching a $5 million gate for a show that is eight and a half months away. And we’re so far ahead of where we were, we didn’t put the tickets on sale last year until spring. I think part of the TV business for both sides is gonna be doing their due diligence, and that’s just a part of sports and television really. And being a part of the NFL and the Premier League, I’ve seen that process play out with certainly different TV networks looking at different sports. And the sports themselves looking at different TV networks. We’ve been a part of this multiple times in the NFL.“
• Khan also stated that to be in AEW means to be constantly attacked due to the fact that everyone who has tried to compete against WWE until now has gone out of buisness. Khan stated “For AEW, and I think Ring of Honor because it falls under my ownership, to be AEW is to be under constant attack. You do a great show and the next day somebody’s saying something negative. You do five great shows in a row. Somebody says something negative. You break the ticket record for the most tickets ever sold for any wrestling show in the history of the world, and somebody has something bad to say about it. I just, at this point, I don’t worry about it. We just need to go out and do great shows week after week, like we did. We were the number-one show on cable this week. On Wednesday, we beat every single show on TV on Wednesday out of hundreds and hundreds of shows across hundreds of networks. And we’ll continue doing it, and everybody who works here is gonna be in good position.”
• Khan continued stating “I think it’s challenging because I’ve never seen anything quite like wrestling when it comes to such a large percentage of the business spending such a large percentage of their time on one platform, which is X, formerly Twitter. It’s amazing how many people in the wrestling business are on Twitter all the time. And to be honest, I understand it because it’s a good reason; because it’s engagement; because there’s such a large percentage of the wrestling fans and you, the wrestling media, and opinion makers, and the wrestlers themselves — and the companies, so many people are on this one platform. It’s pretty unique, because in other sports, it’s more evenly distributed. What I’ve seen is sometimes is a bit of an echo chamber. And also there’s a lot of bad faith. There’s a lot of bad faith posting on it. And you can have a great day in the business, like do the number one show and people try and tell you you didn’t do something great. Or you can break the world record for the most tickets ever sold to any wrestling show ever and have this massive, huge success on pay-per-view. And just hit a home run and the wrestling’s great and everything’s great. And still people are trying to tell you there’s some problem with it or something detrimental. There’s a reason that every single person who stepped into my position until now has gone out of business. I’m the only one left. Everybody who has stepped up and put millions of dollars into this and done it week after week, and there’s no off-season, you do it 52 weeks a year. It’s a fight, and that’s a credit to the fans. I know what it is to be a wrestling fan 52 weeks a year, it’s hard. But it’s also the most rewarding thing. That’s why you can’t get away from it for too long. That’s why we always come back to it. We’re addicted. And it’s worth the fight, and I love the fight. I’m never gonna stop fighting it, no matter what happens. No matter how things change, it’s worth it. It’s the fight Jim Crockett fought and Verne Gagne and Ted Turner and so many other people that have tried. And God bless them all, and I’m doing this for all of you. And I know all of you are here in spirit, so thank you very much.“
• On the topic of ticket sales for Final Battle 2023, Khan stated that they had sold over 2,000 tickets for the event and generated one of the largest ever live gates for a ROH event in ROH history. Khan also stated that that the ticket sales was in line with the crowds that they have had for other ROH pay-per-view events.
• On the topic of HonorClub, Khan stated that he is currently considering the idea of potentially adding more ROH PPV events in the future and it might make more sense for ROH shows to be exclusive to HonorClub in the future.
• On the topic of The Von Erichs appearance at Final Battle 2023, Khan stated “I was really interested in the Von Erichs and using them. I think they had a representative months ago reach out to Sonjay, and Sonjay called me and said, ‘Would you have interest in the Von Erichs in Dallas?’ I said, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ I think the timing with Iron Claw would work out well for everybody and it would make sense. We have a presence in that movie, MJF is an executive producer, MJF and Ryan Nemeth are in the film as actors. We also have a partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery and they have a partnership with A24. There was a lot of reasons why I thought they collaboration would make sense, but the biggest reason is, Dallas Metroplex is Von Erich country, this is their territory. When I saw them, the first thing I said to Kevin Von Erich was, ‘Thank you for letting us do the show in your territory.’ It was really great working with Ross and Marshall these last few days, and they’re going to be back with us tomorrow. It’s been tremendous having them the whole week. I really liked getting them out there. I tried to set them up to succeed and they’re two for two. I wanted to give them opponents that were perfect opponents for them. I think they did great on Rampage and on ROH.” Khan also stated that he would love to use the Von Erichs again in the future for shows. Khan stated “I would love to use them again in the future, not only exclusively in Dallas. They are tremendous, Ross and Marshall it was my first time working with them and they did a great job. Kevin is tremendous. It was something I wanted to do and I’m glad they reached out. When Sonjay called me and said, ‘would you have interest in the Von Erichs in Dallas,’ I said, ‘Yes, absolutely.“

ROH Final Battle 2023 post-show media scrum full video:

Source: F4WOnline.com, PostWrestling.com 1, 2, & 3, Fightful.com 1 & 2