The Quest for the Whitest Match in History: Day 4

BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs vs. Roderick Strong & Jack Evans
ROH - 5/7/2005
ROH Tag Team Titles Match

I don't know if there's anyone in recent memory who's done a better job of parlaying their whiteness into great wrestling than Jimmy Jacobs. This is a guy who first got noticed in IWA Mid-South doing a series of 80's nostalgia-based gimmicks, went to ROH, where he eventually became an emo/screamo dude, and now finds himself the leader of a stable of WTO protester types who spouts off half-baked, Chuck Pahalunik-inspired philosophy like Curtis Iaukea used to holler about bathing in the River Ganges while analyzing chicken bones. That's a trio of really white gimmicks, and he made all of them work really well. This is from the first of those gimmicks, wherein the big joke is that he's a tiny dude who thinks he's John Nord. He's one-half of the tag champs with Whitmer, who selected him as his partner to replace alleged kid-toucher Dan Maff, resulting in your classic zany mis-matched tag partners situation. This is their first defense, with the basic story being the newly formed team that may have fluked their way into becoming champs are taking on the more well-established duo of Strong & Evans, who are presented as being maybe the best team in the world at this point.

On the other side of the ring, we have another team of a charismatic little white guy and a vanilla bruiser. Jack Evans' over-enthusiastic, Jamie Kennedy-esque wiggerdom makes me think he could have gotten over huge as a heel in another promotion. Then it occurs to me that no one with a wigger gimmick has ever been successfully booked long term as a heel. They either get turned face by the fans like Evans or Too Cool, or their street thug-antics get played straight like PG-13 or Public Enemy. Public Enemy might as well have been my two lumpiest male relatives, they really wouldn't have been any less credible as hip street toughs. What does this say about wrestling fandom that you can't book a wigger as a long-term heel without playing it straight? I mean, aside from the obvious. Wonder how Jack Evans would have fared in the Urban Wrestling Alliance?

Match was really, really good. This is from Manhattan Mayhem, which was one of the better wrestling shows of the last decade. Awesome Samoa Joe/Jay Lethal Pure Title match, really good Aries/Shelley ROH Title match, crazy CM Punk/Jimmy Rave dog collar match, an elusive good Rocky Romero singles match as Black Tiger against Jamie Noble, and this, probably my favorite ROH Tag Team Titles match ever. I really liked the Jacobs/Whitmer team. They had a really good, classic tag team dynamic, where Jacobs could carry the body of the match with his selling, and BJ could come in, get the hot tag, stiff somes dudes, drop them on their heads, and not have to over-extend his fairly limited skill set. Also, the stoicism that just comes off as boring on his own becomes charming when presented as a contrast to the oddball antics of Jacobs. There was an odd couple charm there, and I was always a little disappointed that that never factored into their later break-up and feud, although I can understand why. Whitmer really lacks the dramatic chops to pull off unemotional guy remorseful that his once easy-going pal has lost his light-hearted nature, so what can you do. Anyway, they made for a really interesting team, and since then, I haven't really been grabbed in the same way by Aries & Strong or the Briscoes. Jacobs plays Ricky Morton and gets to eat all sorts of crazy double teams from the challengers, including the truly insane assisted moonsault double stomp onto Jacobs while he's draped on the ropes and Strong lifting Evans into a vertical suplex that he releases and becomes an Evans 450 splash. Evans takes too long jawing with the ref to hit a Doomsday something, and Jacobs is able to escape and tag out. BJ stiffs dudes and drops them on their heads, leading up to the combo powerbomb/Contra Code for the win. Good stuff.