2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes vs. Dinastia Munoz

36. Rush/Dragon Lee vs. The Briscoes ROH 6/29

PAS: I watch the Briscoes like once every couple of years, and always wonder why I don't watch more Briscoes. I remember them as clean cut kids killing each other at CZW Best of the Best and am always a little taken back at their current Fentanyl dealer on work release look. This was a 2019 tag match, with lots of big spots and near falls, and not much traditional face in peril. These are four guys who can do a fun 2019 tag match, and we also got Mark Briscoe spewing blood. Rush may not work with blood in CMLL, but he is still a luchadore, and is great using Mark's plasma as body paint and doing a Pirata blood spray. Rush really comes off like a big star in ROH and I need to check out some of his singles stuff.  We got fun dives, big throws and a surprisingly conclusive finish.

ER: Our treatment of the Briscoes is kind of odd. We write up a LOT of guys but there are certain guys we love who also don't get a lot of print from us (like when I noticed recently that we had only written up our second James Mason match, even though both of us have been into that guy since first seeing him practically 20 years ago), and Briscoes clearly fit that bill. I think they easily rank as a top 5 tag team this decade, but they've also been stuck in a promotion that hasn't been interesting since Necro Butcher left a decade ago, shown on a TV channel with rightly zero affiliates anywhere near my state. They're undeniably great, just not on any streaming services or feeds that will cross my eyes, out of sight out of mind.

And this match was great. The Briscoes are a combination of The Moondogs and The Usos, except they're easily the best versions of both The Moondogs and The Usos. Briscoes are trucker's crank cut with bleach. And my god Rush. Rush looked like as much of a damn boss as he did a few years ago in CMLL, when he was first becoming a "do you know who I am" guy in his ring attitude and in real life. This thing was totally breathless, made my heart beat a little faster just sitting in a recliner watching it. Everything in it was done quickly, and with force, like a high speed prime Rock n Roll Express vs. a high speed prime Rock n Roll Express. Everybody in this match was throwing hard dropkicks to chests, with Rush laying them in like his family owned the fucking fed. Briscoes always do everything dialed to 10, yet they have a chawlip Fuck It vibe about it with a crazy eyed intensity that you avoid at a bar. Mark gets busted open, Rush body paints with his blood, Dragon Lee hits a wild rana to the floor, Mark hits a great lariat, both teams pop off quick as hell double teams, several of them fly into the guardrails harder than you'd want to hit a guardrail (Lee hits the hardest and sending them wedging into the front rows. It was great bell to bell. This 12 minute tag match (the first and only ROH match I've watched this year) was so good that just knowing it happened in this promotion made me more interested in seeking out recommended current ROH stuff. They employ the Briscoes and Dinastia Munoz, how bad could they be?


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST