Pez Stenstrom of Denver, Col. (9.0): Best Match: Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico. Worst Match: Cross vs. Romero by default, but still three stars. As a fringe ROH fan who just watched his fifth show from the promotion, I would say I'm pretty impressed with their product at the moment. I liked Driven, but I loved Man Up. I thought that listing the wrestlers' goals before the matches was a step in the right direction, and this, combined with solid announcing, made me feel initiated enough to enjoy the story the matches told rather than just the spots. The ladder match main event was jaw-droppingly brutal, but the semi-main event title match was hard-hitting in its own right. My only gripes with ROH are that some of its wrestlers strike me as overrated by diehard fans (maybe I just don't "get" McGuiness, while I'm pretty sure that B.J. Whitmer has nothing to "get"), and that some undercard matches definitely devolve into spotfests at times. It's hard to buy a kick to the head as a legitimate finisher when we've seen a quadruple backflip toprope Pedigree lead to a two-count. Still, you can't beat the heart and athleticism displayed by the roster from top to bottom, and WWE's "main event style" can't hold a candle to the storytelling and drama of ROH's big matches. Meanwhile, TNA's "main event style" storytelling can't hold a candle to Cinemax porn. ROH Man Up is easily worth the $15 price of admission that I payed, and I would happily pay $40 for their next pay-per-view if they saw fit to charge it. I just wish they'd do PPV more often or get their DVDs distributed in stores, so that watching some quality wrestling wouldn't require the patience and delayed gratifiation of ordering DVDs.

Ivan Trembow (7.0): Best Match: Morishima vs. Danielson. Worst Match: Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico. My rating probably would have been 9.0 if not for the ladder match main event. Those four wrestlers are better than that garbage match bulls--t. The beginning of the match with the hard chairshots to the skull was an ode to concussions, and the rest of the match with all those unneccesarily sickening bumps was an ode to pain pill abuse. And what a cliffhanger to build for the next PPV: Necro Butcher is here! Plus, he's going to fight the Briscoes, and they're going to use barbed wire in their feud. That's what I'm supposed to look forward to? That's what ROH is promoting when they have a roster of some of the best in-ring talent in the industry, with four of those talented wrestlers being the four who were put in that garbage match main event? What a waste. I watch ROH because it's better than watching WWE's roided-up monsters or TNA's laughing-stock-of-the-industry booking. I don't watch ROH to see garbage match flashbacks to the '90s.

Alfonso Castillo, Valley Stream, N.Y. (8.5): First, a few relatively minor criticisms. Nearly six years into the company's existence, it's pretty much inexcusable that its production values would remain so substandard. More than a decade ago, with what I could only imagine was a smaller budget and far more modest available technology, ECW's late night MSG's shows looked more major league than ROH. The lighting remains harsh - often washing out much of the wrestlers; the audio is atrocious; most of the graphics look straight out of public access television; and the whole show looks as if it were filmed with a camcorder. The ROH crew and its hardcore fans may be used to the product's gritty look, but it's imperative that ROH try to have a major league presentation while on the verge of a legitimate national expansion. It's like the old adage about the $50 porterhouse steak served on a garbage can lid. Another "criticism" is that the ladder war main event - while a legitimate match of the year contender - may not be the kind of match the company should showcase as an accurate sampling of its product. With the independent wrestling scene for years being plagued with garbage wrestling companies mimicking the worst of the ECW hardcore style, ROH should focus on its superior athleticism, and keep the blood and stunt bumps to a minimum. Regular ROH viewers, including myself, could appreciate the Ladder War for what it was - a relatively rare, ultra-violent, and dangerous culmination of an intense feud. But I question whether it belongs in the main event slot of a pay-per-view aimed at exposing the ROH product to new viewers. New fans who liked the match might go out and buy some ROH DVDs, only to be let down that there is nothing even close to the brutality of the ladder war. All that aside, from a pure match quality standpoint, there was not a better wrestling pay-per-view in 2007. There was not a match on the show under three-and-a-half stars, and the final two matches were legitimate MOTY contenders. Of the ladder war and the Morishima-Danielson match, I wish the show would have closed with the heavyweight title match , which featured ROH at its absolute best. It's a travesty that so many of these talents will never see the pay day they deserve because they are small or don't have "the look." Bryan Danielson has a connection with fans that Bobby Lashley could only dream of. And Nigel McGuinness exudes the kind of "cool" that Vince McMahon spends millions trying to manufacture. Yet, of all the tremendous performers on the show, I am most puzzled over how neither TNA nor WWE has picked up the Briscoes. With talented, well-conditioned tag team acts - with over gimmicks - being so hard to come by, Jay and Mark should be turning down offers left and right. The springboard Doomsday Device through the middle of the open ladder may have been the coolest spot of the year. One last bit of nitpicking: ROH needs to turn these shows around a lot faster. I believe this show took place sometime over the summer. Nigel McGuinness has already been ROH Champ for two months, and PPV fans are still several months away from seeing his title victory.

Dwight Hatfield of Clearwater, Fla. (10.0): Best Match: Briscoes vs. Steen/Generico Worst Match: None really. What an appropriate name for a PPV. I almost viewed it as a challenge to the supposed big two, which judging from their latest offerings looked like crap compared to ROH. A lot of these guys are completely new to me, but you know something? I have seen exactly two Briscoe Bros. matches and I already get them. See, this is what happens when you have logical booking, wrestlers who tell a story in the ring through both outrageous manuevers and subtle psychology, and announcers who don't try to get themselves over the talent. The entire show was top notch from top to bottom and any production issues I had with the last PPV were more than compensated for. I have no idea who Tyler Black, Jimmy Jacobs, or Necro Butcher are, but ROH made me excited to see them, they made me interested in them and want to see what happens on the next PPV, hell, they made me call my brother in Gainesville and plan for us to head over to Orlando to see ROH live. Isn't that what wrestling (and in particular wrestling shows) are supposed to do? ROH has more that won me over, I watched Man Up Friday and TNA Sunday, guess who makes me want to go to see their live show? That's right, based on the weekend's PPVs, I'll pay for an ROH show and skip the free TNA show. Wrestling fans want wrestling, thank God ROH understands that. Thank you ROH wrestlers, managers, fans, backstage people, and anyone associated with it - thank you for making me believe in wrestling again.

We welcome your 1-10 score and comments on this show for a "ROH PPV Reax" feature in the Torch Feedback section of PWTorch.com. To contribute your thoughts on Impact, click here.

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