The Funeral of Jamin Pugh
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Laurel High School
The service opened with the Pugh family processing into a packed auditorium of loved ones, family, and friends. Jay Lethal and Roderick Strong were called upon to toll the bell 10 times in memory of Jamin Pugh.
Pastor:
For those that are joining us around the world, we are here to remember and celebrate the life of Jamin Dale Pugh. We are going to laugh and we are going to cry over the next hour, but we are going to celebrate who he was, what he meant to us, and what he meant to this community. Jamin was born on January 25, 1984, and passed away on January 17, 2023, at the age of 38. His passing is tragic in so many different ways, can we just take a moment to pause in silence who all were impacted by his death. moment of silence Thank you. Jamin meant a lot to all of us, professionally he was known as Jay Briscoe along with his brother Mark they were the infamous Briscoe Brothers. 13x Ring of Honor Tag Team Champions, 2022 first ballot hall of farmers, he made us proud in Laurel. In his outstanding career, he had the chance to travel the world with his brother Mark, but here in Laurel, Jamin was a local legend. Not necessarily because of his status as a wrestler, but because he was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a friend, and a coach. Because of that, we join to celebrate his life. I want to say, Ashley, Gannon, Gracie, Jayleigh, Mike and Janna, Mark, and Jarra as a community we love you. All the extended family, we love you guys so much. Can we take a moment to bow and ask Jesus to be with us and help us today. Catholic Prayer
At this time I would like to ask a professional wrestler, who comes from North Carolina, who has been friends with Mark and Jay for over twenty years, Mr. Caprice Coleman.
Caprice Coleman:
Give honor to god, family friends, Ashley, Gracie, Jayleigh, Mamma Briscoe, and Mark. As the pastor said I am part of the wrestling community so I would like everyone who is a part of the Briscoe family wrestling community to please stand up. The people standing, the people that you see standing, came from different states, some from different countries to be here today, to support the person that Jay Briscoe, Jamin was. I for myself, my story, probably like many of the others who stood up before you because of the type of person Jamin was. I met Mark and Jay twenty years ago at a place in Cornelia Georgia, NWA Wildside. When I first met these guys I thought they were twins because at the time believe it or not they looked alike. Right then I remember seeing them and how could someone have the Briscoe name, but shortly after that they proved why, and years later I would have my stints at Ring of Honor and they would come right up to me as if they’d seen me yesterday and showed me a smile and treat me like everyone else.
In 2011, I was blessed to get a job at their mainstay company, Ring of Honor and if you were a wrestler, or know about the wrestling community, it’s a family. When you are signed to wrestle for a promotion you spend time with these people week in and week out you become family. You spend time with them in the ring, you spend time with them outside of the ring, you talk with them in hotel rooms, you talk with them about their families and most of the conversation Jay would have would be about his family. How proud he was of his son, his wife, his daughters, his brother, his mother, and his dad. And I think about that because that’s the type of man that Jay was. I would think that to be befriended by the Briscoes you had to be a part of some elite club and I shortly learned that that was just not the way it was. The Brisoces have a way of loving you for who you are, and where you are, and making you feel like somebody. It’s a smile that is not that just the come up shake your hands and you know someone is doing you a favor by speaking to you and before they are walking away they are looking away. It’s that genuine look in their eyes that does an impression not just sitting there impression. It was genuine it was never forced, and I had a lot of privileges to work with him, he would always say “let’s go baby let’s get to work” because he would never take a day off, he would always want to give 100% a 110% that the type of person that he was and I believe that everyone who stood up would have the same or deeper testimony about the person that Jamin was.
But also getting to know him, I learned that he was a man’s man. A man’s man is someone that people look up to, say that I want to be like him, I want to honor my parents like he honored his parents. The way you see Big Man coming, the way he talked about Big Man when Big Man come in the room you stood up, bow your head, because of the way he made Big Man sound, the respect, something that isn’t big in today’s world, the respect he had for his parents, his honor. And honor is what he had. When he talked about his brother, when he was with his brother, he wouldn’t go anywhere without his brother because he was his brother’s keeper. That’s a love that is in your family..a lot of families can’t say that. The Briscoes would say that if you got beef in your family squash that stuff because you never know when their last day is going to be. Family is family and you would hate to know that you missed them when they are gone, love them while they are here. He cherish his children, he was proud of his children, and he was a FAN of his children, he would talk about Gracie, Jayleigh, and Gannon, and he would talk about them like he was a fan of them. He would talk about cheerleading, the football, and you would think that he would be so busy because of this farm but yet he had time for not only for his family but everyone in the community.
The Bible says you should know them by their fruit. The type of fruit that we can see here today, people who flew far and near to come to pay respects to a man who gave his life to his community, and family in the ring, and around the world. But to be honest with you, if I know Jay well enough he would probably say something like this. “Man I appreciate all this, I do, but yall talking about the wrong man! Look at all these people, Yall need to be telling them about Jesus, they need to come here. The good Lord knows what he was doing, you need to be talking about him. We all gonna die one day, that’s why we here, I aint about this, it aint about that, it’s about this afterlife, man yall better get up here, shoooot. They got me up here looking spiffy. And my house, man you aint gonna believe this. Hey Chicken, those streets, Gold, I aint hurtin no mo, Papp Briscoe, Mama, I’ve met that man yall telling me about, he’s real and he loves me and he loves you. We did it, time up here is a little different, I’ll see yall soon, but for yall it’ll be a while yall here, yall got to know the father, and the only way is accepting him as part of your life. I’m a man just like you, talk about me all day, we aren’t going to get anything out of this, but there is an afterlife, and one day I was down on myself, I knew I couldn’t go on with the way I was living and I had to bow to the Father and I asked him to come inside my life and change my heart, and after I did that, there were a lot of mistakes I made but I believe I did right. I loved my neighbor, I loved my family, I loved my friends because that’s what the good Lord told me to do. Good Lord knows what he was doing, and when you think about that, everybody in here, your funeral has started. {P{eop[le know when you’re born, they know what you did, they know who you married, they know what school you went to, they know your hobbies, the only thing that is missing is that date. When you left, God commended his love towards us, yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, that means he didn’t wait for us to get our act together, he didn’t wait for us to become perfect men, he waited for us to cement ourselves to him and say Christ I can do nothing without you, take my heart, take my mind, take my soul, I yield it to you. Use me as a beacon for you, If it’s to draw 1,000 people in here to give me accolades, tell them about you. To let them know that gift to live in Heaven is nothing I paid for, it was free, it was freely given, it was freely received.
So Pastor is going to talk to you, Mark is going to talk to you, Papa is going to talk to you, they gonna talk to you about Jay but they are going to talk to you about Jesus too. This peace that they have when they are comforting we went in to comfort Mark, but he was comforting us, I don’t know why I feel good but I feel good because I know he gave his life to the man who created this Earth. He’s in a better place now and there is no better comfort to give your family than giving your life to Christ. When you die, and when they die, they will see you again. You only have two choices, there’s heaven and there’s hell, you can only choose one, Jamin wants to see you again because he’s in Heaven. I love you but I love you enough to tell you the truth because I fear God, and Jamin feared too. I love you, God Bless you Briscoe family, and your love and support will go on, Mark I love and admire your faith *Catholic Prayer*
Mr. and Mrs. Pugh:
Wow glory to god, hallelujah, wow, he is who he says he is, I am going to share some scripture with you Catholic Prayer I was born and raised in West Virginia and moved to Laurel, Delaware when I was 12 years old, my brother and sister are somewhere here, waves So we are 12 years old, and my brother Phil and I lived in a tent with my dad all summer long and when the school year started we moved into town and moved into a house, so we got into the house there right in the middle of the town. One bright sunny Sunday afternoon, there was a church right around the corner and they were having an ice cream festival as a 12-year-old boy I thought Ice Cream Festival well that’s where I’m going so I go down and that’s where I saw her, the most beautiful woman, the crowd laughs man she was only 12 years old but she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Long black hair, cut-off jeans shorts, barefooted, aye people say love at first sight, it was love at first sight, awe from the crowd, they clap, Papa and Mama Briscoe hug. It was love at first sight and we were twelve years old moving forward we go through Junior High, we go through High School, and we were sweethearts, it comes, graduation day from high school and my sweetheart was going to Salisbury State, I enlisted in the Army, two years, to go to West Point Prep, then going to West Point. So we did that, we were on and off, I’d come to see her some, and she’d come to see me some, but we knew, that there was as love, that we loved each other, we knew. When God does something you know in your heart that’s right and I’m assuming I’m speaking for you to the o, the crowd laughs, Mama Briscoe says yes honey we knew, we knew that it was us, that it was us so I went back to West Point and realized I wanted to be with my sweetheart, I went to Salisbury, crosstalk We got engaged right before we graduated, fast forward we get married and we are running wild and free and then we met the man Caprice was talking about, we met Jesus. Jana wasn’t supposed to have children, she was having some sort of female issue, right? the crowd laughs So one day she tells me, I’m pregnant, I said thought you weren’t supposed to get pregnant and 9 months later a bull of a strapping man came barreling out at almost 10 lbs. Jana cried and I’d never heard her say a bad word but she cursed a little bit, he came blaring out of there and we named him Jamin. Jamin is a Biblical name. Alright can’t get pregnant, alright, and wouldn’t you know 51 weeks later pause to look at Mark, the crowd laughs Jana was standing at her mom and dad, and her dad calls and says Mike you have to come right over Jana is bleeding and we can’t get it to stop, I go there, the ambulance had her loaded up and they were headed to the hospital Jana’s dad and I followed them, we got to the hospital and everything was just a blur, just a blur. They were not concerned about this one (Mark) because they figured he wasn’t going to make it anyways, they were worried about saving Jana. They worked so feverishly, her dad a mighty man of God, a mighty man of God. We prayed and waited and finally, the doctor came out and said that we got Jana in stable condition, she’s stable, I asked about the baby and they said it was born dead but they were able to resuscitate him, they said that they have to airlift him but I asked to go see him, then when I walked up in the room and looked at Chicken, man I looked at him and man I’m telling you he was white as a sheet. All of a sudden, this lady comes in the room, has anyone seen the movie The Shack? Remember when God manifested himself in a big black lady and she was kind of singing and dancing around? That was this doctor that came into the room! It looked exactly like her! And she comes in the room, doesn’t say anything to anybody, and just kind of comes in the room and floated around, and when I looked at Jana I said was that the janitor? She said I don’t know, so she left and we went over to look at Mark and the life was pumping through his body! Applause And we knew that he was going to be fine. So the Briscoe Brothers are now on planet Earth. So no more kids, no more kids then God blessed us with a beautiful just like her father, and daughter. So we got all of our kids at home, I was looking for this and I found it this morning, it’s a page out of one of my BIbiles it says “Saturday night, February 17, 1990, Mark and Jamin accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior”, and then it says, “Sunday, August 4, 1991, Jamin and Mark are Baptised” then it says “On February 19, 1995, Jara accepts Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.” then it says “On Sunday, June 27, 1999, Jara was Baptised.” So we went from the plan of God, me being in West Virginia at 12 years old, to meeting her (Jana) to what we see today. Jamin had scripture tattooed on his arm and it was Joshua 24 and 15 Joshua has gathered the nation of Israel as one and he’s challenging them and tells them ‘Choose this day who you will serve, choose this day, who you will serve’ As Caprice said, it’s our choice, it’s our choice to commit our lives to the sacrifice of Jesus and to commit our lives into his hands; then he will lead, he will guide, and he will direct. The last part of that scripture said, and Jamin proclaimed it his whole life, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’
Mark Pugh:
Ahhh it’s a good-looking crowd here, aha, helluva house ahahaha, but yea, I mean first and foremost, when it happened it was a blur, I was at home, mom and dad was calling me and saying it aint looking good man, it aint looking good and I damn near shut down you know but between then and when I seen them at the hospital, God was just telling me, I’m on the Throne, I’m on the Throne. starts to cry So I seen Big Man and I say hey God is on the Throne Dad, God is on the Throne. Then God asked me, Do you believe what you say you believe? He got me with that one, I was like yah, he said Do you believe what you say you believe, I said yes Lord, then he said, then you already know, your brother is with me and he’s good, carry on, carry on. But ya me and Jamin were born down in Salisbury, then moved down to Lawrel, Laurel, sorry you have to forgive me, I’m not the best with the speaking of the English, me and my wife and my crew we moved down to Willard because we need some more space and kind of reminds me when we first moved down there, I was talking a little bike ride, right, around the block and there was this little cemetery, with little country graveyards on the side of the road there and I see this guy, and he was over there, he was kind down like this squatting and so I ride by there and I said Mornin and the guy said nope just talking a shit crowd laughs applause break Jamin liked that one, Jamin liked that one. Well now I’ll talk about my boy, and you know I aint prepared nothing, aint written anything down you know just gonna roll with it baby, just gonna roll with it. Aint calling no spots, we are just going on the fly, going on the fly boys.
Passion, good Lord, if there was ever a passionate human it was Jamin Pugh, if there ever was a passionate professional wrestler, it was Jay Briscoe. If it was something he chose to do, he was going to do it full force, 100mph, with no if ands, or buts it was going to be if he was going to do it. When it came to Landscaping I know there are some landscaping customers in here, man, that boy, shoot, I and dad called him John Henry, you know that old story of that old boy John Henry who told that he was going to dig through the mountain before the machine was going get through it. Man that was Jamin, and I swear to you, he was the head of Pugh lawncare, he was the lawncare entrepreneur, and he would’ve been much better off if, he he he he wasn’t very organized that wasn’t one of his top priorities, and he wasn’t very good at telling someone no or nah that’s not enough money, it was always, ‘ah yea we’ll do it. Come on Chicken we got blah blah blah, I’d be like what are you charging them? He would say blah blah blah and I would say MAN YOU CRAZY? No, but uh it was passion it was passionate about his pool, good Lord, that was the funniest place to be, they got that heated pool, and they out there swimming in December. The pool, the family, his kids, and just his passion were amazing for anything. Coaching Pop Warner, Middle School whatever, just so passionate about everything he did.
But his love and his passion were Pro Wrestling, when we were kids we were not just a regular feeling of oh we want to be pro wrestlers, it was all we thought about, it was all we talked about. We had a million little songs, jokes, and jingles, and we’d be eleven years old watching TV on opposite sides of the room. Jamin would be over on the side, I don’t think I was chicken at the time, I think that was about High School, he’d sing “hey Mark, let’s go wrestle on a trampoline.” At first, we’d have it wasn’t me vs. him, we know that we would be wrestling and for example, he’d be waiting for building that tension, he knew who’d he does immitates of Steve Austin’s music and ring announcer and he comes down the trampoline do his entrance, then it would be my turn imitates Shawn Michaels Music. So we would have the whole wrestling card, whole wrestling card and sometimes it was rare, the main event would’ve been booked on a previous card, well we knew Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold might be the main event but it was always the surprise of who’s next, who’s next? I would always get him with it’s Vader Time Baby *IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME, IT’S VADER TIME time time time” You know that’s what we did, if it wasn’t a sports season that’s what we did until it was time to go to bed, that’s what we did. From there, we created our characters and we started taping it, we had one of those things they had from Home Alone 2, we’d find whatever music we wanted and we would hold that thingy and play the music right next to the camera as we made our entrances. His name was just Dick and me and Patrick Bell, God rest his soul, he’s up there with Jamin right now feeling no pain, but Pat, me, and Pat, we were a unit, we were a team, we were FBH, the Full Blooded Haitians. Ask me why, I don’t know. So I was Cleff short for Wyclef, so it was Dick and Cleff and we used to battle. That was when we built the ring frame on top of the trampoline, and that’s when we started taping, taping the matches and we are still 13/14 years old doesn’t matter what it may be. Jara would help out and she’d do some camera work, Big Man would do some reffing for us but now we got to step it up to the Indys you know, so we are sending our tapes to every fed and every wrestling promotion up, and down the East Coast. We send one down somewhere in North Carolina, South Carolina, I don’t know which one but they hit us back, they said you have a lot of potential but you’re too young, it’s a liability blah blah blah blah however, does your referee want to come work for us? But then we did start wrestling, Jim Kettner up at ECWA, he took us in, the year 2000 we were 15 16 years old and you know the rest is history; it’s crazy, it’s crazy man.
You know 2022 was a pretty crazy year for us, since Ring of Honor was bought by Sinclair Broadcasting we didn’t have a lot of Indy dates, just doing Ring of Honor stuff. I mean before that, we are going every weekend, going crazy, since 2021 in October when Sinclair said that Ring of Honor as we know it was going to end, we got to do Indys again. I, Big Man, and Jay called it the guns blazing tour because every weekend, I mean Friday night we’d be in Portland, and then Saturday, it was just like being back in 2002 2003 doing our thing with the SAT and shoot boy, it was just, it was just, a crazy feeling like awe man we started back then now here we are back doing the indies, guns blazing, every weekend boom boom boom. Then uh, Tony bought Ring of Honor and so it settle back down into not doing the whole guns blazing but that little window there was amazing, 2022, you know was an amazing year you know for The Briscoe Brothers, we had that three matches with FTR, boy those were just so special, then that dog collar match where man Jay Briscoe, boy I tell you not many of them get color like Jay Briscoe.
There were times because of his passion, Jamin would torture himself because he was a perfectionist for something that he was passionate about he was a perfectionist. Like if we are doing mulch or landscaping, I swear that joker would touch every little giblet of Mulch in the entire yard with his hands. I’m like man you know you can do that with a rake, it’s a whole lot quicker with a rake, you’re sitting there touching every piece of mulch, taking way too much time but that’s how he was. To me, like, he went out like Jimi Hendrix, he went out the greatest to ever do it and that’s always a subjective thing when it comes to wrestling but hey for my money, that’s the greatest to ever do it right there applause break and went out at the top of his game, at his prime, I mean that dog collar match, it wasn’t for Jay and the buckets of blood that he bled and the evil faces he would make, the hug he gave me after that match, there was something about it that was like damn this is special. Now here we are, a month later, celebrating the life, we celebrating my boy’s live.
Another thing that he was passionate about was God and wanting to be used by God and wanting to be available for God, he was so passionate, he was so willing that there were times that he went full speed 100mph but with his own strength, his ability but that’s not how it works when you’re doing God’s work, you’ve got to be 100% willing to let God do it, you have to be 100% available Jay and he would be the first one to tell you, he tried to do it his way. Good Lord, I tell you, that boy, he willing, his desire, the way in which God took him from who he was, to who he became it was just, how he softened his heart, how he just, just breathed the Grace and Mercy and gave him a whole, whole new outlook, whole other understanding about who He, he being God, who he was and how he loves every single one of us, how he died on the cross for every single one of us and how it’s not a matter of, go head change then you can come to be a Christian, it’s come to me and if I want to change you, I’ll change you and I’ll do it on my time that’s how God works, It’s not oh I can’t be a Christian because I’m fill in the blank, no Jesus is here for you right here right now no matter how you are. I’ll tell you another thing that Jamin was passionate about, passionate against, and this is going to throw yall for a loop, he was passionate against religion, against religion. When Jesus walked this Earth, he had one opponent, the Religious, the Hedren, the Pharisees, the same ones who say do this, do that, doesn’t do this, don’t do that then you may come to God. Hey, that’s Bullshit, you understand what I’m saying. Shoot, Jesus wants you right now, how you are and the thing that’s been giving me comfort, for one I don’t think Jamin went to Heaven, know I know, and it’s like people who don’t have a relationship with God don’t understand, don’t or haven’t given God a chance or whatever it may be, they don’t understand they are like ‘oh he is using his faith to keep himself strong, isn’t that sweet’ nah people don’t get it man, when you experience it, when you live it, when you know God, when you feel God, when you talk to God, when he talks to YOU and that that’s when it’s real, that’s when it’s real, it aint no shadow of a doubt, aint no ‘I hope.’ But I thought if Jamin was gone, that I was not going to see him again then I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be able to do freakin anything, I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. But it’s that peace that surpasses understanding, I know that he is there, I know that he is already there, in the upper room with Jesus. I know he there, he went before us, and when we get there when we get there, we gonna look over our shoulder and there’s going to be a whole rack of people 100, 1,000, 10,000, I don’t know, that’s also going to be there because of what’s going on right now, because of what’s going on right now, because of what’s going on right now, this is a drop in the ocean, a drop in the ocean of eternity is what this life is. A mist, one little spray from a spray bottle, vapor in the wind. That’s what life is, I mean in 100 years, who’s still going to be alive in 100 years? I mean I’m not saying no one’s going to pull it out, I see Uncle Bobby over there, Uncle Bobby might pull it out laughs. In 100 years where we all going to be, I plan on being in the ground I mean Jesus comes back before then and we go up before then. That’s the crazy thing about the Bible says the end times and hey folks, we are in the fourth quarter, the fourth quarter of humanity, and that’s not always a pleasant thought but in this situation it helps, we all going to the same place, we all going to the same place. We all going to the afterlife, like Caprice said there are a couple of places you can go. Here’s another thing religion has wrong man, like people say, the only way you’re going to heaven is if you say the sinner’s prayer and you know and hey I tell you one thing, confess and believe that I believe that that’s a stamped ticket, but what about the people who never heard of Jesus in the south in the jungles, that’s not fair, they aint going to hell, that’s not what the Bible says, that’s what religion says. Man when I first read this verse, I read it and then took a nap, Britt will tell you, it made me jump out of my chair when it hit me what it meant. It says catholic prayer I love you all, I love my brother, he did not live in vain, he did not die in vain and I’m going to leave you with some scripture.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This is all part of a bigger plan man, if we could see, it’s like standing on a street corner watching a parade as it passes, you’ve got the fancy cars, you see the marching band, and you see the floats, but if you’re looking at it from a blimp and you can see the beginning of it and the end of it. Think of that perspective, that’s eternity, that’s eternity man, talking about eternity here, don’t miss out, don’t miss out, it’s a free gift, it could be the most delicious biggest cake you’ve ever seen and it’s sitting right on the table but it aint getting in your belly unless you going to eat it, you know what I’m saying. I love all of yall.
