ROH Manhattan Mayhem II Review

Mayhem takes Manhattan for a second time as the World Title & World Tag Team Titles are on the line.

ROH Manhattan Mayhem II

Manhattan, New York 8/25/07

1.) Matt Cross & Erick Stevens vs. Jigsaw & Mike Quackenbush: ***1/4

The show starts off with a clash between The Resilience & CHIKARA. This was a very fun opening match to watch. Both teams looked good in this one.

2.) Jimmy Jacobs vs. Mitch Franklin: *3/4

Nothing really much here....just a squash for Jacobs. I know this was probably to get the ring rust off after his injury, but Jacobs (In my opinion) should not have shown up in an ROH ring until the debut of the Age of the Fall (Excluding of course that series of dates he had with Lacey since those were important to the story of Jacobs).

3.) BJ Whitmer, Adam Pearce & Brent Albright vs. Nigel McGuinness, Delirious & Pelle Primeau: ***

Weird seeing McGuinness in a match like this but I'm not going to complain. This was an fun Six-Man Tag. I was mostly a wild brawl. If this was what is was going to be all along, then it should have been a No DQ or Scramble Tag from the start. 

Cary Silkin & a representative from NOAH come out to announce that Wrestling Legend Mitsuharu Misawa with be wrestling in ROH later in the year.

4.) Davey Richards vs. Pac: **3/4

Heard this match has gained somewhat of a reputation for being.....bad? I think? Well after watching it, I thought it was a decent match. Obviously when you look at Pac now & his work in Dragon Gate USA, he's much better. Here...not so much.

Before the next match, Jack Evans introduces his new manager, Julius Smokes. They dud their new group The Vulture Squad.

5.) Three-Way Match - Roderick Strong vs. Austin Aries vs. Jack Evans: ***1/2

Here we get the battle of former members of Generation Next. This match was going good....then Mayhem took control of things as Davey Richards, Erick Stevens, Matt Cross, and the debuting Ruckus all got involved to help their respective sides. This match was fun and wild. Reminiscent of the Wild Brawls in the ECW Days.

6.) Ruckus vs. Eddie Edwards: **

Ruckus follows up his ROH Debut with his first official match against future ROH World Champion Eddie Edwards. This was just ok. The only real purpose was to get Ruckus over.

7.) Chris Hero vs. Claudio Castagnoli: ***1/4

This was a good match. Obviously you got the vibe that this is just the first match of many they will be involved in against each other, as Claudio goes after Sweet 'n' Sour Inc.

8.) ROH World Title Match - Takeshi Morishima vs. Bryan Danielson: ****1/4

This is the infamous match where Danielson got his eye injury (orbital bone/detached retina) after being hit in the face by Morishima. This was a very good World Title Match otherwise. Heard this was voted Match of the Year 2007 by The Wrestling Observer. Although I agree this was good, I wouldn't say this was Match of the Year 2007.

9.) ROH World Tag Team Titles - 2/3 Falls - The Briscoe Brothers vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico: ***3/4

The show closed out with a very good World Tag Team Title Match. The Briscoes continued their streak of winning 2/3 Falls Match 2 Falls to 0. After the match Kevin Steen attacks The Briscoes with a Ladder, and El Generico reluctantly attacks also.

Overall: 8.25/10

This was definitely a very good show, and worthy of the Manhattan Mayhem name, but I don't get all the praise this show gets from some people. It was a great show, one of a large number that ROH put on in 2007, but it was by no means the best of all those were great shows. There are shows from 2007 were better than this (Does it surprise you that a number of them were PPV's?) and had matches that were more worthy Matches of the Year. Not trying to bash this show at all, it was very good. I just think it's held in too high of a regard.