The professional wrestling world mourned the loss of a decorated tag team champion following his passing Tuesday evening.
Reports indicated that current ROH Tag Team Champion Jay Briscoe — real name Jamin Pugh — was involved in a tragic car accident near his home in Laurel, Delaware. AEW President Tony Khan later confirmed Briscoe’s untimely death via Twitter, promising to do whatever he could to support his family.
After news of Briscoe’s passing surfaced, several wrestling promotions sent out their condolences, including IMPACT, AEW, GCW, and WWE. On last night’s edition of WWE NXT, commentators Vic Joseph and Booker T paid tribute to the fallen wrestler, informing the audience of Briscoe’s death.
The tragic event also resulted in the scrapping of a segment at the last minute. According to John Pollock of POST Wrestling, NXT Tag Team Champions The New Day planned to hold a “funeral” segment, but ultimately, Shawn Michaels and New Day nixed those plans in the wake of the passing of Jay Briscoe. Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp later noted the original spot penciled in New Day to hold a funeral for Pretty Deadly’s title shot — now eradicated after their previous loss to Gallus in a tag team gauntlet.
New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods still appeared in suits last night, confronted by the former champions, Pretty Deadly. Elton Prince and Kit Wilson stated their case as number contenders, but their case was denied by the actual number one contenders, Gallus. The New Day then teamed with Gallus to take down Pretty Deadly, before turning on each other. WWE officials then pulled apart Gallus and New Day to end the segment.
RELATED: NXT Results (1/17/23)
