Mark Briscoe says that Ring Of Honor felt special in 2002.
In 2002, WWE was easily the top company in the industry, as they had bought WCW from Ted Turner just one year prior. At the time, other promotions like TNA and ROH were just getting started and had just a very small fraction of the buzz and fanbase that WWE did.
According to Mark Briscoe, Ring Of Honor felt very special at the time, mainly due to the fact that it was like the All Star Game of the independent scene.
"At the time, there was really one horse in the race, it was WWE. Everything else was the indies. Ring of Honor felt special when it started because it was just an indie show, but it ended up being the All Star Game of the indies. They are flying in people from across the country like Mike Modest, Chris Daniels is coming in from California for an indie show in Philly. Ring of Honor is one of the first things that felt special in that time period. CZW, my mindset was, when ECW was absorbed by WWE, the spirit of ECW in the northeast there was Ring of Honor, the work rate like (ECW having) Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and those guys, all the way up to RVD, Jerry Lynn, Tajiri, and Super Crazy. That branch of the (ECW) spirit went to Ring of Honor. The hardcore extreme branch went to CZW. That’s how I viewed that transition in wrestling history." Briscoe said while speaking to Fightful for a new interview.
Elsewhere in the interview, Briscoe reflected on matches between The Briscoes and FTR. Learn more about those comments here.
Furthemore, check out Fightful's full interview with Briscoe in the video linked at the top of this article.