ROH Manhattan Mayhem II Review

Match 1: Jigsaw/Mike Quackenbush vs Matt Cross/Erick Stevens
Nice wrestling confrontations to begin, nice abilities by all 4 men. After Jigsaw got beatdown by Stevens and Cross, he got the hot tag to Quack and then the pace really picked up. Some great team moves and really believable nearfalls and a great ending sequence. No botched spots and it was a really nice opener to get the crowd hot.
MATCH RATING: ***1/2

Match 2: Jimmy Jacobs vs Micth Franklin
Jacbos is back in ROH and he faces the rookie Mitch Franklin. Nice short match to get Jacobs back on track. Some good moves by Micth Franklin, maybe forced a bit sometimes but good wrestling anyway by Franklin. Jacobs wins via submission.
MATCH RATING: **

Match 3: BJ Whitmer/Brent Albright/Adam Pearce vs Delirious/Nigel McGuiness/Pelle Primeau
The match starts with The Hangman 3 keeping Delirious away from his partners, it’s the slow part of the match and it’s good to build the part where Delirious tags in McGuiness. He does lots of Lariats and the action is just non-stop for 4-5 minutes and the match finishes when Whitmer does an impressive sit out Tombstone Piledriver on Primeau for the pin. The Hangman 3 team beats down Primeau after the match until Nigel comes in the ring and makes the save.
MATCH RATING: ***1/4

Match 4: Davey Richards vs PAC
Great match between those two. It started slow with mat wrestling but the pace picked up with non-stop action after that mat wrestling bout. Some nice high flying moves by PAC. It was a nice mix of styles between the aggressive style of Davey and high flying style of PAC. They build a nice finish and it was a really nice ending sequence where both man got close nearfalls until Davey makes PAC tap out with the Kamura.
MATCH RATING: ***3/4

Match 5: Jack Evans vs Roderick Strong vs Austin Aires
What an awesome contest. An epic triple threat and what else can you expect from 3 guys with so much ring talent. There was really innovative stuff done and it wasn’t too much forced to be a glorified spotfest, an amazing athletic contest. There The nearfalls were really well done and the ending saw every member of the match get help from his team and finally Aires winning with help from the resilience. It was really good to set up the “tag team war” in ROH.
MATCH RATING: ****1/4

Match 6: Ruckus vs Eddie Edwards
Nice debut for Ruckus, he showed really acrobatic offence. Not a bad match.
MATCH RATING: **1/4

Match 7: Claudio Castignoli vs Chris Hero
This match had been built for a while with Hero and Castignoli being tag partners before. Hero does his usual cocky stuff and that’s just an awesome gimmick. This match is really intense and we feel that both men hate each other. It wasn’t the best wrestling contest, but it was a good wrestling match with both man hitting their signature moves and Claudio winning with the Ricola Bomb.
MATCH RATING: ***

Match 8: Bryan Danielson vs Tekashi Morashima
ROH World Title
An absolute classic. The match is absolutely fantastic, great psychology from Bryan Danielson to go at Morashima’s leg during the match. Danielson comes in the match with that strategy but then, there’s the injury to his eye that puts this match on another level. Danielson tried to fight from this injury as much as he could and it gave the match more emotion than it already had. The crowd atmosphere was just amazing. Morashima targeted the injured eye making him look like a real monster. This epic battle was really stiff and looked like those two guys wanted to kill each other. Morashima finally won with the backdrop driver after many close nearfalls. My favourite match of 2007
MATCH RATING: *****

Match 9: The Briscoes vs Kevin Steen/El Generico
2 out of 3 falls for the ROH Tag Team Championship
Great tag team battle. The Briscoes are probably the best team in the world and they showed it again in this match. They have great chemistry with Generico and Steen. It started really hot with until it started in the ring where it slowed a bit and looked more like a “traditional” tag team match. Good tag team work by both teams. The first fall came after a great series of moves by the Briscoes on Generico and Steen. Jay pinned Generico after a big frog splash. I didn’t like the fact though that Jay looked totally fresh after taking a real beating a minute earlier from Steenerico. But the first fall wasn’t a great match but it was good.

The second fall was awesome. Non stop action to build a big finish. Again there was a little “no sell” by Mark Briscoe but it was better placed than Jay in the first fall. Every team hit every move they could but it’s again a combination of moves by the Briscoes that got them the win. Great action and saves by all 4 men. I think they could have done the same finish by giving Kevin Steen and El Generico a fall and it would have been better but awesome match overall.
MATCH RATING: ****1/2

Final Review: Awesome show. The Danielson-Morashima is the highlight of the card but there was other fine one on one matches and awesome tag team contests. ROH proves again why they are the best WRESTLING company in the world.