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TNT Championship
Mark Briscoe versus Kyle Fletcher (c)
The other day I was talking with someone and we discussed Maxwell Jacob Friedman giving Mark Briscoe the big win at All Out Toronto. Briscoe at the time was trying to get a shot at the AEW Men’s World Championship. Part of his feud with MJF centered around MJF stealing the pin in the Casino Gauntlet to get the shot. I talked about at the time that Mark should win that shot off of MJF and have a big match with Hangman Adam Page with it. It never happened.
What did happen was Mark Briscoe beating MJF and MJF going away for a while after, and you’d think that would open him up to trying to get back into title contention. Instead he’s been in a feud with TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher, and I understand the logic. Fletcher is the next top heel in the company next to Kazuchika Okada, and we’ve already seen Okada and Briscoe. If he can’t go right to the top? You have him face the next top heel. Briscoe even mucked it up with the Death Riders and Jon Moxley, so he’s absolutely in the mix.
The problem is that Mark already lost. Kyle Fletcher defeated him at WrestleDream. So to roll this back, they had to add a stipulation. If Mark Briscoe loses this time? He has to join the Don Callis Family. It’s an interesting twist, and I was pleasantly surprised when Don Callis talked about how nonsensical it would be to ask for his career. Callis is a manager. He makes money off his clients. He can’t make money off of a retired Mark Briscoe, and he’s already made pretty good money having clients beat him up.
So is this the point you have Kyle Fletcher drop the TNT Championship? Fletcher has been a very good, if not, great TNT Champion. He’s at eight defences, Briscoe his ninth, which puts him ahead of Jack Perry and Daniel Garcia in recent history. No TNT Champion has got to a 10th defence. Cody, Darby Allin, and Miro all lost on their ninth. If Fletcher beats Briscoe here he becomes the first to have a 10th defence.
The only issue with Fletcher’s TNT run is the same issue that happens often with the TNT Championship. Because of its nature as a fighting champion title, you often have repeat defences and repeat opponents. It’s just the way Tony Khan books. So Cody had Orange Cassidy twice in his second run, and lost to Darby who he beat in his first run. Miro faced Fuego twice to build up the Sammy Guevara title change. Sammy and Scorpio Sky famously passed the belt back and forth which really ruined its reputation. Samoa Joe beat Darby Allin then lost to him, only to beat Darby later back for it. Most recently you had Daniel Garcia unable to get away from Adam Cole, having a no contest and time limit draw before ultimately losing to him.
Fletcher is now sort of in that vortex with Mark Briscoe, with his title reign made up of beating The Conglomeration. He’s defeated Tomohiro Ishii, Orange Cassidy, and Kyle O’Reilly during this run. He could complete the set if he defends here and faces Roderick Strong later.
It would make sense for Fletcher to win here as he’s the best choice to be TNT Champion, but it leaves you with Mark Briscoe now having to join the DCF, which would be unfortunate. You then have Mark Briscoe winning, which stops Fletcher in the same spot everyone else has been, and at least opens him up to be in the Continental Classic without losing matches while TNT Champion. It also drives the idea of Fletcher being ready to move up to the main event.
It wouldn’t be the worst idea, and it gives Briscoe some sort of reward for beating MJF back at All Out Toronto. There’s a lot of options in this. I just wish it didn’t feel so much like a rerun. It would have helped had Briscoe and Fletcher did more in this feud against each other, instead of all the focus being on stopping the Death Riders for the Conglomeration, and all the focus on Don Callis Family being the drama between Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada.
