Revisiting 00s US Indies #18

Jimmy Jacobs v BJ Whitmer (Falls Count Anywhere) (ROH Fifth Year Festival: Finale, 3/4/07)

Still probably my favourite singles match either guy has ever had. Where their big cage match blowoff lost me was when they started having folk bring weapons and stuff to the ring and it became more about the big spots and kickouts of those big spots than the pure, unfiltered HATE and DISGUST and MALICE and whatnot. This was just a brawl around the building and the one weapon they used was the railroad spike, which was always an amazing part of the feud anyway. Jacobs was so good around this period, really an incredible brawler and character worker. I don't remember where I read it now but someone made the comparison between him and Eddie Gilbert and it's pretty much dead on. Much smaller guy, amazing brawler with an equally amazing wrestling imagination. He got thrown down every fucking stair in the building here, chucked across a bar knocking drinks everywhere with his head, yeeted into a stack of heavy non-folding chairs, thrown into half a dozen walls and at one point Whitmer tried to throw him off the balcony. For a second I thought he'd actually let him do it as well. Little things like Jacobs clawing Whitmer in the eyes to escape stood out and on offence he was a maniac, hitting a lunatic plancha off the balcony being the highlight. Once they get to the ring it doesn't take long before Jacobs stabs Whitmer with the spike, and say what you want about BJ Whitmer but that guy will go HARD with the plasma. He bladed every time Jacobs spiked him and the blood was visibly spraying out of his forehead at one point. Jacobs wiping the blood over himself and lying underneath Whitmer as the latter crawled around dripping blood was unbelievable. They didn't spend a ton of time on the ramp - they didn't spend a ton of time doing anything, which is partly responsible for me liking it so much - but everything there looked good and that finish was as brutal as you could want. I've called this the 00s version of Duggan/Sawyer for years now. I guess you can't really compare something with a reverse rana fighting spirit bit to Duggan/Sawyer and it probably had a little too much actual wrestling for the comparison to stick, but it's still the high point of straight up no-nonsense ROH brawling from a period where brawling was what the promotion did better than anything.