It’s very cool to see again.
To continue the theme of the month, it is not what it was six years ago. Setting aside the simple fact that father time is undefeated and nobody here is physically what they were during their famous series six years prior, the third or fourth match on a Ring of Honor b-show in 2018 is not a heavily featured stunt show in PWG in 2012. To continue the theme of the month, again, it does not matter all that much.
For whatever’s been lost for whatever reason, enough remains and enough has grown in its place that still allows a real fun little thing to come out of the soil.
What’s new between these teams is the far more interesting part, so we can cover that first.
Obviously, the big thing here is the Bucks in 2018.
Matt Jackson once again devotes a match to his lingering back injury, but unlike a lot of other matches like it before and after, it’s also a match that displays the knowledge the Bucks possess and occasionally showed at their peak of time and place. This is not a place for a teary body selling epic so the back work isn’t that so much as it is for a little light work to be used in transition, something to fill up some space with, but never a thing that feels forgotten either, to Matt’s credit. The offense is as sharp as it often was in 2018, and while I could never personally sink so low as to cheer for the Young Bucks, their hot tag babyface stuff here (and throughout the year) is as great as it ever was. They are not likeable people, but there’s a balancce they strike sometimes in matches like these. Things move fast enough and the opponents aren’t all that likeable, so you can get swept up in it and just enjoy the fireworks for a little bit.
Said balance might not be possible if not for the change in Player Uno and, now, Stu Grayson as well.
With them, the change is not quite so severe. They didn’t magically become really good at individual body part selling or improve individual performance all that much. They are, however, in a totally different role as the antagonists of a Young Bucks match rather than the form all other meetings took, and do a very good job of it. Their work on top isn’t flashy or showy, that’s saved for the last third of the match, but it’s simple and effective, the sort of work I wish that they had been able to show at any point after this, and that maybe only really works here in a smaller room. It’s not quite bullying heel work and it isn’t quite some old-school attack, but it’s mean and relatively spartan, not only helping the match flow a lot easier when it isn’t 1000 miles an hour for fifteen minutes, but providing a contrast that helped the Bucks out a whole lot.
There’s then the old stuff here. Two tag teams with a ton of cool moves and ideas, who also have a ton of natural chemistry together. It occasionally gets a little convoluted and you could lob off two or three minutes. It’s not perfect. But there’s a spark or a magic here or whatever other metaphysical terminology you would like to use to explain why somethings just happen to work out. The execution is as crisp as possible, the construction and escalation is pristine, and thanks to all the ways everyone’s grown and the switch of how this match usually goes, it’s also a match that feels new enough to impress and comfortable enough to please.
Following a bunch of cool stuff, the Bucks win with the Meltzer Driver.
A real nice feeling return to form for an old match up, before it would unfortunately become a pretty bad one once it hit national TV.
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HANDWERK 