This was a LADDER WAR for Daniels and Kazarian’s ROH World Tag Team Titles.
It’s easy to doubt this match.
In all fairness, there’s an especially fair complaint here about Shelley and Sabin kind of seeming like third wheels. Some 75-80% of this feels like an Addiction vs. Young Bucks match, it feels like that’s the real issue throughout, and while Shelley and Sabin obviously have a lot to offer this match (themselves once upon a time having an exceptional ladder match against the Bucks in 2010 TNA), they often seem like these bonus pieces that disappear for long swaths of the thing.
Again though, it’s one of those times in 2016 where I’m going to praise a match and I 100% understand you, The Readers, not getting it if you haven’t seen the match. Sabin has not been what he was in some time, the Daniels/Kazarian team has always been something of a “and then the bell rang” team for all their wonderful promos and stories, especially in this ROH run, and I’ve gone over the thing with 2016 Young Bucks again and again. There’s a version of this that does absolutely nothing for me.
Thankfully, that’s not the version we get.
Part of that, admittedly, is a real gnarly spilling of blood from Christopher Daniels. ROH being ROH, I don’t believe it to be intentional, especially when it comes right after a ladder shot right to the top of the forehead, but ultimately intention doesn’t matter quite so much to me, especially when the result is something this visually spectacular. I have been and will always remain in the camp of “a lot of blood can make a match better”, and this match is an absolutely stellar example.
The other part, beyond the bloodletting, is that this is just a really well assembled match of its kind.
Despite every problem or minor complaint I’ve had with any of these teams in recent memory, this is an absolutely stellar example of just what it looks like when a match of this style and caliber runs at something close to full strength, and what it looks like when everyone involved cuts as much of their shit as possible and delivers the goods to the fullest extent of which they are capable.“`
More than any of Ring of Honor’s prior LADDER WARS or even more then the Bucks’ PWG ladder matches, this is functionally just a full ass TLC match. Tables, ladders, a few chairs, and a sort of a match that is more focused on story, big moments, and more on making the really big things stand out. In that regard, it is a complete and total success. The sort of a match that is assembled with a stunning amount of confidence and executed in such a way that makes it clear that this match is confident for a reason. It is measured in all the right ways, insane enough in all the right ways, and with enough time to really breathe in ways that matter that allows the match to get the most out of every truly insane, dramatic, or brutal thing that happens in it.
Following a Cutler Driver (if you call it the Indytaker/Indietaker, you are either uninformed or the police) off the ladder through a ladder bridge, the Bucks get the titles down and finally regain the ROH Tag Titles. A long overdue win after clearly being the focal point of the division for a year or two and the company for the last nine months, but nobody ever accused 2010s ROH of being exceptionally fleet footed. They get there in the end, at the very least.
A banger, and a classic display of real professionals turning it on big time for a pay per view main event. One of the year’s better matches of this time.
HANDWERK 