Ring of Honor: Driven

Introduction:
Looking at the most consistent performers in professional wrestling today, it's difficult to bypass the talents of Ring of Honor's Bryan Danielson and his British counterpart Nigel McGuinness. And that's not just counting the performers of American wrestling, it's taking into consideration wrestlers the world over.

At Ring of Honor's second pay-per-view offering, "Driven", Danielson and McGuinnes met in the main event, in what was sure to be another tremendous encounter. Danielson and McGuinness had wrestled previously, most (in)famously on a card in Liverpool, England, which saw McGuinness lose his "Pure" championship to ROH World Champion Danielson.

Elsewhere on "Driven", current ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima was challenged by Jimmy Rave for his title, and the Briscoe Brothers faced Kevin Steen & El Generico, in defence of the World Tag Team Titles.

ROH Driven first aired on 1st July 2007, having been previously taped at the Manhattan Centre in New York City.

Video:
Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen NTSC (Region 0), and is quite good for a DVD of this genre.

Anyone expecting WWE-level production standards here are sure to be disappointed by this more basic effort, but much of the magic of Ring of Honor is in the fact that the company is not scared to bring the viewer close to the action - something which is not the case with the mega-bucks WWE.

The event appears to have been shot with two handheld cameras at ringside, plus one wide-shot steady camera. For a wrestling event concentrating on in-ring action, that's more than sufficient.

The transfer to DVD is fine, with little problems in the way of digital artefacts.





Audio:
Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is also good considering ROH's economic limitations.

Much like its video counterpart, while the audio recording is far from technically perfect, it does a tremendous job of capturing the vociferousness that is typical of Ring of Honor shows. On occasions where the crowd noise is particularly loud, there are some mild distortion issues, but unless you sat down expecting digital perfection, there will likely be little disappointment in this recording.

Commentary by Lenny Leonard and Dave Prazak is much less zany than many of their contemporaries, which again suits ROH's style. It's clearly a voice-over job, which with the sheer volume in the Manhattan Centre, is likely the only sensible way of recording.




Extras:
Four bouts which were not broadcast on the original pay-per-view show, yet were taped on the same night, are available here.

Remarkably, that includes the finest bout of the entire disc, and one of the very best of 2007 as a whole, as Bryan Danielson faced another of the finest young wrestlers on the planet, in Japan's KENTA. A sensational contest with a fantastic build and an incredible finish, this bout easily ranked in the Top 5 bouts of 2007.

Also included as an extra here is Nigel McGuinness vs Chris Hero, which is a very good bout, with a mild accent on comedy. The Women's tag team match which sees Lacey & Rain vs Daizee Haze vs MsChif is light years ahead of any similar WWE match, and Takeshi Morishima vs Adam Pearce is another example of why Morishima can be considered one of the brightest sparks on the Japanese wrestling scene.

There's also a short video available here as a preview of the actual pay-per-view, bringing viewers up to date with all the relevant Ring of Honor happenings.





Overall:
Ring of Honor's "Driven" began as it meant to go on, as Delirious, Matt Cross, and Erick Stevens collided with Davey Richards (who looks more and more like England's Tommy "Dynamite Kid" Billington every time I see him) in a match which featured a remarkable amount of action for an opening encounter. Matt Cross was the high-flying MVP of the bout, with his offence including the fantastically-named "Space Flying Tiger Drop", made famous by the legendary Tiger Mask.

A series of three shorter matches were next, in Matt Sydal vs Claudio Castagnoli, Naomichi Marufuji vs BJ Whitmer, and Brent Albright vs Pelle Primeau. There were lots of big moves featured in all three, though the most brutal had to be Albright's half-nelson German suplex - a manouevre rarely seen this side of Japan.

The first of the main event matches came next, as the Briscoe Brothers faced perennial opponents Kevin Steen & El Generico, in a quite amazing back-and-forth bout, which featured some watch-through-your-fingers risk-taking. With a relentless pace, this ended up being the second best bout on the pay-per-view itself.

In the penultimate encounter, ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima contested yet another short match, this time with Jimmy Rave. That said, the two packed a lot into their time, and the bout was an excellent set-up for the No.1 contenders match main event, as Bryan Danielson faced Nigel McGuinness.

Fittingly for the top match of the card, this was the one bout which featured a considerable build to its finish, as any main event should. Beginning with some awesome submission work, there was also some very innovative wrestling here, which deserved the crowd chant of "This is wrestling!". With a brutal finish to boot, this was one of the very best bouts of 2007, and a must-see for any modern wrestling fan.




Overall, Ring of Honor's "Driven" featured two Match of the Year candidates for 2007 (Danielson vs McGuinness and Danielson vs KENTA), and alone that should be enough to convince wrestling fans that it is an essential purchase.

But if you are in need of further persuasion, there's an excellent six-man bout to open the pay-per-view, and a fantastic ROH Tag Team Title match, as the Briscoe Brothers took to the air against Kevin Steen and El Generico.

With nothing even resembling a poor match here - a fact which is extremely rare on WWE cards - Driven comes with the very highest of wrestling recommendations.

NB. "Ring of Honor: Driven" can be purchased by visiting http://www.rohwrestling.com