It was actually decently entertaining at times from 08-10 when they dropped any sort of ECW nostalgia other than the name. But yeah it had too much fuckery to start with bringing in guys that had no business under contract with WWE in 2005 just for being ECW guys

 

Event: ROH Man Up
Date: Taped September 15, 2007 aired on November 30, 2007
Venue: Frontier Fieldhouse in Chicago Ridge, Illinois
Attendance: ~1200
Commentators: Dave Prazak & Lenny Leonard

ROH World Champion: Takeshi Morishima
ROH World Tag Team Champions: The Briscoe Brothers (Jay & Mark Briscoe)

​

It would be a disgrace to not acknowledge this fire event poster before I start reviewing. Naomichi Marufuji is already in the ring as these bland ass announcers welcome us to the show and hype up Danielson/Morishima tonight before Nigel McGuinness takes Leonard’s mic and says he’s going to be watching that match very closely bc his dream of holding the ROH title is not dead. They start to hype up the Ladder War main event too but some masked guy (sounds very Seth Rollinsy ) jumps the rail and starts yelling “AGE OF THE FALL!” before security takes him out and they panic cut to a video package to make it look like a shoot IT’S HAPPENING

We come back to the announcers interviewing Claudio Castagnoli who’s making his entrance and he says he’s coming straight for Chris Hero and he will get his hands on Larry Sweeney. Sweeney tries to cut a promo during Hero’s entrance but the crowd starts a loud “shut the fuck up” chant bc he could even work the smarks.

Four Corner Survival Match: Chris Hero (w/ Sweet ‘n’ Sour Inc. (Bobby Dempsey, Larry Sweeney, Sara Del Rey, & Tank Toland) vs Claudio Castagnoli vs Naomichi Marufuji vs Nigel McGuinness
So this is one of those ROH four-ways where only two guys are in at a time and the others have to tag in and out, but first pin wins it. Not the biggest fan of this concept, but it’s booked great here. Marufuji/McGuinness start off and they don’t miss a beat from their match last year. Hero tags in pretty quick though and starts doing all this flippy athletic shit to prove he’s a great athlete BRUH let him try and do one of those things today lmao Marufuji gets annoyed and tags in Castagnoli so Hero just stalls until he can tag out to Marufuji. Sweeney is hilarious at ringside just FYI and Castagnoli/Marufuji rules like you’d expect, we get some quick Castagnoli/Hero exchanges that have a lot of heat, but Hero is still mostly avoiding. McGuinness/Castagnoli have a great British-style exchange before Hero comes in to pick apart Castagnoli. They end up outside of the ring where Castagnoli gets some revenge until Marufuji comes over the ropes onto both of them, so the crowd starts chanting for Nigel and this fool gets on the top rope and dives INTO the crowd onto the former Kings of Wrestling Marufuji/McGuinness again have a great exchange in the ring that ends with Marufuji hitting a Shiranui, but Hero breaks up the pin and this is where tags stop meaning anything bc only two guys are up at a time anyway so each guy gets a false finish broken up by another until we’re back to McGuinness/Marufuji being awesome before the cycle starts repeating with Hero breaking up a pin attempt after Tower of London by McGuinness. Castagnoli breaks up a pin attempt by Hero after a double stomp with a deadlift German suplex Castagnoli does a super long giant swing on Hero that gets a huge pop, but I can’t believe the crowd didn’t count along. Marufuji is back in and takes it to Castagnoli and signals for the coast to coast dropkick, but McGuinness stops it and starts taking out everyone with lariats before Castagnoli comes back with a Ricola Bomb on Marufuji (see tags don’t matter) that would have won except Hero jumps on the ref to stop the count Todd Sinclair is PISSED and so is Castagnoli so he takes out Hero but McGuinness is back in and hits the rebound Lariat for the win. Good fucking shit even if that tag in and out of a four way concept is so stupid and never gets followed after 5 minutes anyway.

Backstage, pirate Bryan Danielson says that three weeks ago at Manhattan Mayhem II (AKA the MOTY I reviewed earlier in this thread), Morishima BROKE his eye (more or less) so that’s why he’s wearing an eyepatch for now. He brings up the KENTA match from last year too just to get me a little wet but he’s mostly talking about how wrestling takes a toll on your body and everything and how he was rethinking things but he talked to his dad about his options and his dad said “this was the life you always wanted.” BRUH I might just have to watch a Bryan ROH pack pretty soon, fucking GOAT!

So these next three matches are a singles series between the No Remorse Corp and The Resilience. The No Remorse Corp won the coin flip so they get to decide who’s wrestling after they already know who The Resilience picks.

Matt Cross (w/ Erick Stevens & Austin Aries) vs Rocky Romero (w/ Davey Richards & Roderick Strong)
Pretty fun fast-paced stuff to start off, both guys are super athletic so they try to be all flippy and flashy. Cross takes the advantage early until Romero is able to lock in a cross armbreaker, but then he doesn’t keep working the arm or anything. Cross comes back again with more flips and they have another fun exchange until Cross misses a corkscrew flippy moonsault and Romero capitalizes with a kick to the head for the first win of the series.

Roderick Strong teases being the next guy in so Aries officially announces he’s next to get revenge on Strong and then Strong and Richards switch last minute

Austin Aries (w/ Erick Stevens) vs Davey Richards (w/ Rocky Romero & Roderick Strong)
Fun technical exchange to start, Richards has improved a lot since last year and really holds his own against Aries technically, then it breaks down to more of a brawl and Richards wins that too with his kicks, but tries to mock Aries’s swinging elbow and this lets Aries make a comeback and do all the moves I’d assign to my CAWs as regular moves that probably shouldn’t be. They end up on the turnbuckle and Aries falls to the floor so Richards regains control outside the ring. Richards again gets too cocky and they end up trading forearms and Aries is able to hit this crazy suicide dive through the fucking bottom two ropes. He can’t get any sustained offense though as Richards takes back control in the ring and goes for the DR Driver but Aries is able to fight back and goes up top but Richards is able to come at him with super german suplex from the top for two They have this awesome back and forth counter exchange that Aries wins with a Brainbuster and then a 450 Splash for the win. That was really good for the most part, it just felt like Aries was getting wrecked all match until he won, but I guess the story was Richards not being able to finish despite having control.

Roderick Strong (w/ Rocky Romero) vs Erick Stevens (w/ Austin Aries)
It’s crazy that Roddy is already viewed and acts like a veteran here, he’s just about to start his 10 year run of most consistent wrestler. Stevens comes out on fire and Strong sells great to make him look awesome whatever happened to this dude anyway? Stevens doesn’t let Strong breathe until he finally makes the mistake of taunting to the crowd on the apron so Strong comes up and hits this sick back suplex on the apron and then Strong starts doing his awesome offense targeting the back, really good rookie vs vet matchup so far. After a bit Stevens is able to make a comeback hitting a sweet TKO, but he can’t cover in time bc he sells his back. Strong gets distracted by the crowd to lose his next advantage pretty quick and they have this fun back and forth, Stevens is taking some pretty harsh bumps on his neck maybe that’s what happened to him. They have a sweet chop battle that progresses into some big moves for Stevens, but Strong is able to kick out. Strong takes control again and ends up hitting a superplex and some backbreakers but Stevens keeps kicking out too, so Strong gets frustrated and goes for a Super Gibson Driver but Stevens counters and hits this awesome Super Exploder that he floats over into the pin Strong just kicks at two so Stevens goes for a Super Doctor Bomb, but Strong counters this time and hits some sick elbows to the back of the head and goes for a Splash Mountain powerbomb that was alright, impact was nice but Roddy wasn’t quite strong enough, he transitions that into a Gibson Driver though which was super nice and gets the win off that, good shit, that was my favorite of those three matches for sure.

We cut to a match from Hartford, CT recently between Adam Pearce, Delirious, Nigel McGuinness, and BJ Whitmer. Nigel won after hitting Whitmer with a lariat. Afterwards, Delirious was attacked by Pearce, Shane Hagadorn, and Brent Albright and Pearce threatens to staple his mask to his face, but Whitmer comes back in and SWERVE turns on Delirious and lets Pearce staple the mask which they don’t show bc I guess it was too graphic.

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN Pirate Bryan's entrance

ROH World Championship: Takeshi Morishima (c) vs Bryan Danielson
Danielson comes out on FIRE bc he’s PISSED but Morishima goes right for the injured eye with some SICK forearms, the heat to start this is AMAZING This dumbass announcer talks about how Morishima says he wouldn’t go after the eye right as he’s facewashing Danielson on it Morishima fucks with his eyepatch more as they start brawling on the outside and Danielson is really taking a beating, but as soon as Morishima lets up for one second he’s coming at him with a suicide dive He doesn’t do any of his usual technical offense, but shows that he can strike. He gets caught coming off the top rope in a powerbomb, but counters that into a triangle choke and he makes sure the ref knows he has UNTIL FIVE He goes for the surfboard, but can’t get Morishima’s fatass over so he jumps down on his knees instead and locks on a bow and arrow instead. Morishima wins a striking battle with some sick elbows, but Danielson comes back with a rear naked choke and they really work this for a couple minutes before they go into a back and forth until Danielson hits a huge super back suplex for two. Danielson transitions into his signature repeated elbows before somehow hitting a Tiger Suplex that he transitions into Cattle Mutilation He has to let go of it but is able to get a Triangle locked on again only to be powerbombed by Morishima and both guys are down. Morishima nails this sick lariat that almost knocks the eyepatch off before hitting the Backdrop Driver but Danielson gets his foot on the ropes Morishima goes full heel and rips off Danielson’s eye patch but almost gets caught with a Small Package for the CLOSEST fucking near fall, and ends up hitting a second Backdrop Driver and then just starts raining down elbows to Danielson’s injured eye until the ref finally has to stop it. Really good rematch, they knew they wouldn’t top the Manhattan Mayhem match, plus Danielson was injured so they worked a much shorter but way faster paced match with a lot of heat to it.

A video package plays for the Ladder War between pre-KAMI and The Briscoes, feud looked so fire but I haven’t seen much of it other than this match and like one other PPV one.

Ladder War for the ROH World Tag Team Championship: The Briscoe Brothers (Jay & Mark Briscoe) (c) vs El Generico & Kevin Steen
This starts with the Briscoess just throwing a ladder dangerously into the ring and an all-out brawl on the floor. This shit gets like 27 minutes and there’s no way I’m gonna be able to call anything but the big spots, but just know it’s all fun af, they fight into the crowd and just kill each other with weapons early on, fucking all four guys gotta have concussions from these chair shots. Every time I see a shot of security trying to hold fans back while these guys are brawling 2 inches from them they look STRESSED It looks like Jay is the first guy to get busted open unless Generico is bleeding under his mask. They finally end up in the ring and Generico goes for the belts for like 2 seconds until the ladder gets turned into a weapon instead lol. This ladder has a little step that folds out to put things on bc it was purchased at whatever hardware store was near this arena I’m assuming lol We actually get a really fun wrestling exchange between Steen and Jay for a bit before Steen goes for the belts and Mark has to stop him with a springboard dropkick. These belts are way too high Mark could barely reach them if he was on the very top. The Briscoess are able to hit a double biel on Generico that sends him THROUGH the fucking ladder, that thing bent terribly. Jay tries to fix it but Mark just goes out and gets a taller ladder instead Jay tries to climb it, but Steen sends him into the same ladder to just fully destroy it. The ladders start really being used as a weapon now, shit looks so painful. A ladder gets set up between the barricade and the ring like a table, but it doesn’t get used yet so remember Chekhov's ladder. Generico comes running with a sick fucking Yakuza Kick onto the ladder which was between Mark and then Steen is able to hit this sick Awesome Bomb on Jay THROUGH THE FUCKING LADDER OUTSIDE Steen takes a sick bump off the ladder as he was reaching for the belts, the crowd was chanting “please don’t die” earlier and I’m kinda feeling that now. Jay then hits a Jay Driver onto the side of a ladder on Steen BRUH that had to have hurt so bad. Someone really should have gotten these streamers out of the ring, seems like a big safety hazard in a ladder match :hm: Mark ends up hitting a Shooting Star Press onto a ladder on Generico as Jay dives on Steen through a table on the outside. Mark then tries to climb this wobbly fucking ladder which wasn’t going well but then Generico just runs out and pushes THE LADDER HARD AF SO MARK GOES FLYING TO THE GROUND BRO THEY DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THEIR LIVES HE ALMOST LANDED ON THE GODDAM LADDER! Jay starts yelling at them to bring this giant maintenance Ladder from the crowd and THE CROWD SURFS THE LADDER TO JAY SO HE DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO GO GET IT They get it set up in the ring right when Generico recovers and the Briscoes are able to hit a Springboard Doomsday Device where Jay dives THROUGH the standing ladder Steen finally comes back in to stop The Briscoes from winning and drapes that ladder between the turnbuckle and the big ladder like another table and both he and Mark end up on top of it for Steen to hit a PACKAGE PILEDRIVER THROUGH THE LADDER JESUS CHRIST I think Generico is actually the first guy to touch the belts, but Jay is able to stop him and sets up another ladder on the other side like how Steen did and hits the Jay Driller through this one RIP Generico. Steen and Jay start climbing now and each guy grabs a belt before Steen ends up falling into one of the broken ladders but Jay can’t get the belts off bc he got the straps tangled up so Steen audibles and climbs back up and takes a couple more shots until Jay gets the belts down That ending really didn’t hurt anything even though it was obviously a fuck up, good little save by Steen to make that less awkward, plus the crowd was still hot af the whole time anyway.

This dumbass crowd chants “match of the year” and while yes this was great, you motherfuckers already had it in Morishima/Danielson like a month or two ago. After the match, Steen pushes Generico even though his big heel turn isn’t until two months later but this is solid continuity for their on again off again relationship this early.

Anyway the announcers do all the usual “signing off stuff” and you expect it to fade to black at any second but then some masked fans like that guy from the top of the show start yelling in the front row and Tyler Black and Jimmy Jacobs come into the ring as the Necro Butcher attacks The Briscoes from behind with barbed wire as that thot Lacey joins them. Butcher and Black take out The Briscoes and they use thing that held the belts to raise Jay upside down, but the PPV ends before anything else happens bc Jay starts dripping blood all over Jacobs during his promo announcing the AGE OF THE FALL and ROH was worried about that being shown on PPV, fucking pussies. You guys should look up the promo though, it's pretty cool, I'm just lazier than Fab and don't feel like linking it. Really good shit though, I ate it up when I first saw it as an edgy teenager, and I’m pretty sure this was the first thing I actually saw from ROH, granted it was like two years later still bc I didn’t know shit about them in 07. Like a lot of mid 2000s stuff, some of it is cringy, but overall I still fuck with it. AGE OF THE FALL!