Crown Jewel is the topic of the day, and is one of the most polarizing in quite a while. But does it compare to the real Crown Jewel…JIMMY RAVE?

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick & tired of anything & everything having to do with WWE’s Crown Jewel event. It’s going down today, and I’m so ready for the whole thing to be over. I think everybody is. Those of us that are disgusted that WWE went forward with the event, took the Saudi blood money and even brought back noted racist Hulk Hogan for the occasion are ready to move on. Those of us that don’t see the big deal with any of those things & think that WWE is bringing hope & change to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are ready to move on as well.

This isn’t the first time that the phrase “Crown Jewel” has conjured up negative emotions from wrestling fans. When I think of the term, my mind goes back to 2005, when I was attending my first Ring of Honor show in Dayton, Ohio. It was Part Two of ROH’s Third Anniversary Celebration. We went up to the Montgomery County Fairgrounds after hearing some positive hype about the company & many of the talents. My girl Traci Brooks was on the card, which was pertinent to my interests. Also, AJ Styles was booked in the main event, and we were familiar with him from his work in TNA. Based on the crowd reaction most of the people were drawn there by AJ.

The Crown Jewel of The Embassy

Styles was wrestling this fella by the name of Jimmy Rave. At the time, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize Jimmy Rave if he was wearing a name tag that said “HI MY NAME IS Jimmy Rave”. He may have been on an episode of Impact getting squashed. I knew he wasn’t one of the sacred cows of ROH’s largely workrate-obsessed fanbase. While most ROH matches got endless amounts of stars from their fans, Rave’s were typically met with disdain.

I quickly figured out why ROH fans had a hateon for Jimmy. The over the top entrance with Rave’s manager Prime Nana ordering the valet to drop to all fours so Rave could use her as a footstool getting into the ring was a good heat-getter. (Imagine doing that in 2018!) The action was fine, but Rave wasn’t a smooth technician, amazing high flyer or strong style practitioner. He was a solid wrestler, which by ROH fan standards was unacceptable.

Then he beat AJ Styles. By using hair spray. There were few things that mid-2000s Internet smarks hated more than screwjob finishes. Especially via something outdated like hair spray. We were deflated by the result. The Crown Jewel of the Embassy had come out on top. JIMMY RAVE, AH!

It was the right booking move though. (Nice work, Gabe.) Styles was a part-timer with ROH & over enough with the fans that one loss to Jimmy Rave wasn’t going to affect him. He wasn’t on the Chicago Ridge show the next night. Rave was, against that market’s hometown hero, CM Punk. It was the beginning of a feud between Punk & Rave that would further establish Rave as one of ROH’s most hated characters. I remember being pissed that Traci Brooks took a Rave Clash from Jimmy and never came back to ROH. Of course, my beef was more with CM Punk than Jimmy Rave over that, but that’s neither here nor there.

A True ROH Heel

Jimmy Rave ended up being a staple of the ROH shows I would attend in Dayton over the next few years. The highlight being his victory in the 2006 Trios Tournament as part of an Embassy team with Alex Shelley & Abyss. He never failed to get a proper heel reaction, which was nearly impossible to get in early Ring of Honor.

ROH catered to Internet smarks, who are prone to cheering for the best wrestlers regardless of their face/heel status. Christopher Daniels was good at being a heelish character, but he was such a great wrestler that ROH fans were inclined to cheer him anyway. CM Punk was good at being a heelish character, but he was such a great promo that ROH fans were inclined to cheer him anyway. Bryan Danielson’s run as a heel champion was awesome except for the fact that ROH fans treated him like Hulk Hogan in the 1980s.

The following years haven’t been any better. The SCUM era was the by-product of guys who wanted to be cool heels. Bullet Club has always been about being cool heels that sell merchandise (and doing a damn good job of it, so more power to them). Ring of Honor has been littered with heels that didn’t want to be “a goddamned heel, motherfucker”, to quote Bruce Prichard quoting Jim Cornette. But you can’t blame them too much, as they were working for fans that liked cheering heels anyway.

Jimmy Rave found the magic formula for being a heel in Ring of Honor. Don’t give the fans too much. Steal finishing moves from top stars & claim them as your own. Let your manager do the talking for you. Don’t do anything that makes the smarks think “OK, this guy’s actually pretty good.” I think many of us have evolved to the point where we recognize this type of approach as actually being the right way to do things as a heel…but then I look on social media and realize that I’m probably wrong.

Shower him with presents

Once Japanese stars started coming into ROH on a regular basis & people threw streamers for them, it was only a matter of time before the practice spread to the American wrestlers. Jimmy Rave didn’t deserve streamers…but he did deserve toilet paper.

JIMMY RAVE!!!
-Fans throw toilet paper in the ring and scream "Die Jimmy Die!" pic.twitter.com/XaVksKXES5

— Blakiyama Jun (@jevanshistory) September 21, 2018

Dalton Castle has the best entrance in Ring of Honor history as far as I’m concerned, but Jimmy Rave & the toilet paper probably makes the top five. It was such a pure hatred between the ROH fanbase & Jimmy Rave. I don’t think we see enough of this in 2018. We certainly don’t in Ring of Honor. The most effective heel in that company right now probably has to be Bully Ray. That would be fine if Ray wasn’t more than a decade older than Jimmy Rave. I’d feel a lot better about the future of wrestling heels if the best heel in wrestling was younger than Jimmy Rave.

This is the part where somebody tells me that Tomasso Ciampa is younger than Jimmy Rave. Child please. That guy’s a total babyface to the NXT smarks. They soak his act up like cat nip when he’s not wrestling Johnny Gargano. And now that Gargano’s heel, forget about it. There isn’t that guy out there now that everybody hates. Well, maybe Austin Aries, but that’s more behind the scenes than in front of the cameras.

Wrestling needs a Crown Jewel. Not the one WWE is offering us today. We need the next Jimmy Rave. Hell, we need the current Jimmy Rave.