This was an Anything Goes match.
Adam Page has joined the Bullet Club since we last checked in with him, and realizing that they squandered his really good 2015 push, ROH simply opts to run one of its great forgotten 2015 midcard feuds back.
It’s not unfair to call this a retread of that match.
This version of the match is not quite as great.
Jay and Hanger also repeat a fair bit of it. The neckbreaker with the chair around Page’s head, a lot of the little bits in the match, the general tone of the thing where they get to use a chair and one (1) table spot, but it never feels like it gets the same allowances as other brawls or the allowances that it should if they were REALLY serious about the Page push. That’s all still here, and those criticisms are totally fair.
What works though, and what still allows me to call this great, is the way that they use all of that to build upon what happened ten months ago.
It’s real clear that this time, they’re a little more serious. Likely because the Bucks have a little more power now and with Page in the fold, there’s a more vested interest in ROH getting it right. He’s not rocketed to the top exactly, but there’s a difference in the way this match treats Page and the way he was a Jay Briscoe villain of the month ten months earlier. Here, he’s ascendant at the very least, and shows clear signs of progress from where he was, improving the very specific areas of his game that caused him to lose before.
Generally, he’s more aggressive. Specifically, he now has the noose as a prop and a tool that helps him fill gaps in his game. He’s not as tough as Jay and he eats a lot of shit in this match, but he’s able to use the noose in some real key moments, especially at the end.
Specifically, Page is able to avoid things that beat him the previous year. Jay Briscoe blocked the Rite of Passage off the apron and through a table on the floor in 2015, and he’s not able to in this match. Following that, Page chokes him inside with the noose and hits a second Rite of Passage for the victory. It’s an obvious show of progress, both in the win and how he gets it, but maybe things like this ought to be. It’s hard to be subtle about concepts like “young guy learns and adjusts in one hyperspecific way”. Ring of Honor commentary is still too absent-minded to really nail this down, it’s easy to miss, but this is an incredibly deliberate company and it’s hard not to see the connection.
If nothing else, a great example of how to slightly elevate someone, without harming the person he actually beats to get there.
Like much of Ring of Honor in 2016, it feels undeniable that it’s not as good as it used to be a year prior, a feeling exacerbated by repeating their footsteps like this. Unlike most of Ring of Honor in 2016, this match still winds up being pretty great, largely because it’s one of the few times they acknowledge their history and play to it in a way that feel progressive instead of regressive.
HANDWERK 