AEW Rampage: Mark Briscoe’s friendship used against him

Several weeks ago on AEW Battle of the Belts, Mark Briscoe lost to Samoa Joe in a match for the ROH TV Championship. Afterwards, his longtime friend, Jay Lethal asked why they weren’t on the same side. The friends shook hands and seemingly solidified working together as a tag team. As soon as they shook hands, they were joined by Jeff Jarrett, Sonjay Dutt, and Satnam Singh. Briscoe seemed apprehensive of the others.

Since then, Briscoe always seems like the odd man out. He doesn’t fit in with the rest of the group. Then, there’s his friendship with FTR. This makes his relationship with Lethal and Company tenuous.

On this week’s episode of Dynamite, Jarrett faced Dax Harwood in a singles match. Jarrett’s friends were banned from ringside, much to their dismay. As Harwood was closing in on a win, Dutt tripped him and distracted him. This allowed Jarrett to hit “The Stroke” and steal the win.

This set up a match for Rampage with FTR taking on Jarrett and Lethal. To make things more interesting, Briscoe was made the special enforcer. During the match, Dutt attempted to get involved, but was interrupted by Briscoe when he pulled him off the apron.

Following a DDT to Lethal from Harwood, Lethal pushed Wheeler into Briscoe. With Briscoe down, he hit the Lethal Injection on Wheeler for the win. Unaware of what really happened, Briscoe started questioning Wheeler.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1652093772279185408?s=20

With each passing week, it becomes clear that Lethal had an agenda when aligning himself with Briscoe. He thought that his years-long friendship with Briscoe would be a benefit to him and that he could take advantage of his friend. Once Briscoe realizes what Lethal did on Rampage, he may finally move on from Lethal and Company. This could lead to a match between the friends at Double or Nothing next month.