Randy Smith of Washington, D.C. (9.0): Best Match: Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinness. Worst Match: Pelle Primeu vs. Brent Albright. I haven't sent any feedback to this site in the last 6 years, that tell's you have bored I've been with the wrestling business as a whole. After watching ROH "Driven" I have to say, this is the best wrestling promotion in the US right now. No run in's, no continuous stupid backstage skits, no beautiful big chested women who have no business inside of a wrestling ring, no jacked up 7 footers who can't work match. Just a bunch of hungry wrestlers who love what they do. Danielson and McGuinness was awesome, will it be a classic? Only time will tell. The Briscoe's are the best tag team in the business today. Very good match with El Generico & Steen. I'm impressed with Larry Sweeney, he's bringing back that old school feel of what a heel manager is supposed to be. Yeah the production sucked, but I'm not watching for the production. I'm watching for great wrestling and making new history. "Respect Is Earned" was great, but this was a notch better. I can't wait for the next PPV in November. For $15 I would definitely recommend this PPV to any wrestling fan who's tired of the stale product WWE and TNA put on every week.
Jason Detrick of Channahon, Ill. (8.5): Best Match: Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson. Worst Match: Brent Albright vs Pelle Primeau. ROH tried some new things on Driven than they did on Respect Is Earned, including more matches with two of them going under 5 minutes which is a rarity on ROH shows. For the most part it worked. The Rave vs Morishima match almost felt like a highlight package of a longer match. It wasn't a squash with both guys getting respectable offense. With Rave being on his way out of the company at the time, I expected a more dominating performance from the champ. The Albright squash accomplished its goal perfectly, though it is hard to praise such a short squash match so that automatically gets worst match due to the length. The opening 6 man was great fun and better than I remember it being live. Claudio vs Sydal was better live I think, but this match was also great with Sydal showing off some of his awesome fluidity and timing in the ring. The Briscoes match was very good, but these two teams have eclipsed this performance in their subsequent matches during this feud of the year contender. Track them down on DVD when they come out. Nigel vs Dragon was as good as advertised. They built on many of their learned spots from previous encounters and still somehow manage to raise their games against each other every time. This match had state of the art mat wrestling and submissions, hard hitting strikes, and even some high flying thrown in. This is what a pro wrestling respectful rivalry should be all about. I was surprised how well the Chicago crowd came off, as I don't remember being that hot live. They really added something to the show. The Sweet & Sour backstage segment was long but it was entertaining throughout. For the 2nd straight PPV, the Pearce promo went too long. He's a very good talker, but the subject matter does not seem to fit his personality from previous shows. Another great PPV offering from ROH.
Claudio Castagnoli [photo by Wade Keller (c) PWTorch]
William Hatfield, Clearwater, Fla. (9.5): Best Match: All Worst Match: None. Wow, I see why Matt Sydal got signed by WWE, he's A.J. Styles without the hick accent. This Delirious cat, man, cool stuff. Larry Sweeney is like this hip amalgam of Roddy Piper and J.J. Dillon. I felt like I was watching old NWA from the late 80's with cutting edge wrestling maneuvers. For the first time, since well, Great American Bash when Sting beat Flair the first time, I did not get ripped off on a Pay Per View. Maybe it's just super excitement over all these new fresh characters, that's not to say I am not familiar with a lot of the wrestlers, because I am familiar with a few of them, but most of it was either from WSX, MLW, or various indies where there wasn't exactly a spotlight shining on them. Anyone who didn't like, I mean LOVE, this PPV, obviously doesn't like wrestling, and for them, John Cena is waiting with open arms (and a lame set of moves) tomorrow night. I read some feedback where people were talking about this show being a spotfest? Are you serious? and then had the gall to talk all glowing about TNA, yeah, ROH (and I this was the absolute first time I have ever seen ROH) they had spots in their matches, but at least the matches took time and it wasn't three minutes of non psychological nonsense. After watching this, I completely understand why Austin Aries and others wanted to come back to ROH. Morishima is like this Japanese modern day version of Stan Hansen. The vignette with Sweet N Sour was the funniest thing I've seen in wrestling in months. The Adam Pearce segment was well done, what a fixating talker this guy is. I am genuinely right now am like "How in the hell did I miss this? This is the best show I've seen in YEARS!" My only complaint would be the audio. It's a simple fix, just have the sound guy run a splitter on the board, one into the house PA and one into an independent recorder, then dub the independently recorded sound into the final production, but this is only their second PPV. So with as great as the matches were, Driven is forgiven for this very small oversight. Good god, I hope this company gets a television deal, when they do, I have a feeling there will be a major force on the scene. This was wrestling and it's real, damn real. On a closing note, I want to say that you hear about great wrestling all the time on results, people comments, message boards, etc., most of the time you can't tell if it's misinformation or exaggeration by a promoter or superfans of the promotions, as far as Ring of Honor is concerned, I wasn't a fan, I didn't believe the hype after being burned by other leagues and promotions. I want to tell you, as a wrestling fan for over twenty years, this is the real deal. The price is right, the characters and action are there, give it a shot, I can guarantee it'll be better than most WWE and TNA PPV's and at less than half the cost, what have you got to lose? Order Driven on replay! it made a believer out of me!
Charles Grasho (10.0): Best Match: Bryan Danielson vs Nigel McGuinness. Worst Match: None. This was the first time I've ever seen ROH wrestling and let me say WOW!! This made me flashback to the early days of ECW with the crowd boiling hot and the wrestlers busting their asses for the fans. The Danielson vs McGuinness match was the best wrestling match I've seen in the last 20 years. If this isn't he match of the year I don't knowwhat was better. The worst match on this card - and every match was great - was so much better than WWE or TNA that it defies belief. I haven't watched TNA in months and now I'll probably no longer order WWE PPV's. ROH has a new and very satisfied fan.
Hughesmiester -Torch VIP Member (9.0): Best Match-Nigel vs. Dragon. Worst Match-Whitmer vs. Marafuji. Unreal pay per view. Love how they are carrying storylines directly from PPV to PPV. It makes it easy for the casual fan to follow everything that is going on. I thought Nigel-Dragon was match of the year and Briscoes-Steen & Generico was off the charts. Thought all the other matches were in the 3-4 star range as well. I am not a fan of Whitmer at all, so anything he is in is tough for me to watch. Loved the Pearce promo. Great show and eagerly look forward to the 3rd PPV, "Man Up".
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AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
