Classic Review: ROH Bound By Hate 2008

The ninth of 10 Classic Reviews for November, and I decided to toss in another “something different” choice. I wanted to do something that wasn’t WWE or WCW or even ECW, and the reason I don’t do AEW “Classic Reviews” is they’ve only existed for, like, five years, and that’s just not enough time to get a “looking back” perspective for me; I mean, in some ways, but not full shows.

Also all their big shows are 113 hours long.

So! Ring of Honor it is. But I didn’t want to watch anything had a 20-minute Christopher Daniels match. And then I kinda wanted to watch something I’ve never seen.

So there is this one. This is the second show of Adam Pearce’s ROH booking career, and let me lay out some notes here:

• I do not remember this period, I wasn’t watching ROH at all at that time. I was pretty much not watching much wrestling at all, I was in my 2007-2013 semi-hiatus from wrestling, where I was keeping tabs on some stuff and other stuff I just wasn’t even doing that, and ROH was in the latter pile.

• I will not be going out of my way here to learn much context, honestly, because it’s a 16-year-old show from a dead company that now exists as a brand name only.¹ Basically, we’re watching this bad boy to Star Rate Matches and Say Shit. This is not my preferred way nor do I think it’s the right way to watch stuff, but whatever. It’s Ring of Honor.

Let’s go!

ROH Bound By Hate
November 8, 2008
Markham Fair - Markham, Ontario, Canada

An international flavor!²

• It’s announced that ROH matches will now have a 20-count on the floor. A crawl runs across the screen telling me to “Wait!!!” and “watch the ROH Video Wire on the Main Menu before I view this event!!!” First of all that’s a lot of exclamation points. Second of all I’m sorry but I do not have that option right now.

Jerry Lynn vs Davey Richards

Richards has Shane Hagadorn and Bobby Dempsey in his corner. Larry Sweeney isn’t here. We’ve got Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard on commentary.

Technical start, but Richards drops Lynn with a swift kick to the chest and then talks some mess and spits in Lynn’s face. I tell ya, that’s not honorable. Lynn with a little dive off the apron. Richards takes over the offense and dominates for a good bit.