Opinion
The True Crown Jewel: JIMMY RAVE!
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 Especially via something outdated like hair spray.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.
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Opinion
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions
Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY – Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY – The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY – Keeping the news ridiculous… The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
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CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE’s PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS…IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O’Dowd’s 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
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CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!