WARNING: Contains recent Ring of Honor results.

Ring of Honor is filled with babyfaces, tweeners and very few true heels. Many of ROH’s dastardly characters are cheered because they are often good wrestlers. That's the nature of the ROH live crowd. Bryan Danielson was heel champion for over a year and received ovations. Homicide, before his babyface turn, was very popular. The Briscoes, CM Punk, Alex Shelley…I could go on. However, there is one man who has been booed and hated consistently for years. That is something that newcomer heels like Chris Hero, Adam Pearce and Shane Hagadorn have not yet accomplished. There is one heel above all others in ROH and that heel is Jimmy Rave.

Based on recent Ring of Honor results and what Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez have said, Jimmy Rave looks to be ROH’s next golden boy. He could be ROH World Champion before the year is out. Part of me is pleased by this. That’s the part that is a fanboy for this character that I have seen develop over the past few years. But if I were to drop my love for this guilty pleasure, if I look at his talents objectively, I must ask this question:

Is he really that good?

I want to make it clear that I enjoy Jimmy Rave the character. He is one of the best characters in Ring of Honor today. By “Jimmy Rave the character”, I don’t mean “Jimmy Rave the performer” because they are not the same thing. The character is the product of Gabe Sapolsky’s booking. The performer is the product of Rave’s own talent. He is not one of the best and most talented performers in Ring of Honor. If I am forced to look at him objectively, I must confess that he is not anything special by himself. Considering Rave just wrestled for the Ring of Honor World Championship and will likely be getting another shot -- or even a title reign -- before the year is out, fans need to ask themselves some hard questions about this man.

But first things first. Let’s delve into Jimmy Rave’s history in Ring of Honor. Rave debuted with the promotion in 2003. He was quickly thrust into the Field of Honor tournament. This was a round robin tourny that included most of the ROH midcarders. Rave was booked to be the tournament’s biggest jobber and to create an underdog gimmick for this rookie. He wasn’t a particularly impressive wrestler, but at that time in ROH, great matches were few and far between, so Rave fit in well enough. AJ Styles became his on-screen mentor and tried to bring something out of him. Rave failed in every attempt.

In 2004, Rave was given a spot in another tournament. This time, he wrestled for the right to win the new Ring of Honor Pure Wrestling Championship. He lost in the first round to AJ Styles in a sub-par match with a big botch from Rave. The fans began to turn on him. Rave did not bring much to the table. Later that year, Rave’s big storyline was that he was a loser struggling to keep his spot in ROH. As part of the company’s “internet kayfabe”, Rave posted on his blog that he was pissed off with the ROH fans for making him lose his job. This was all a work, though, as he returned under the guidance of Prince Nana as the newest member of the heel stable, The Embassy. Rave donned a new sparkling purple and gold outfit and was dubbed the “crown jewel of the Embassy” by Nana. He finally had a gimmick and the heat was incredible.

Over time, Rave became the only heel in the company that the fans truly hated. ROH crowds cheer for heels and boo babyfaces all the time, so Rave was something special. He had not improved but he was booked so well that it was as if he were a new man. Fans began to shower the ring with toilet paper every time he entered the ring. He had the best heel act in Ring of Honor.

Last year, Prince Nana left ROH to pursue other goals. Nana’s departure disbanded the Embassy and left Jimmy Rave alone. This sparked Rave’s biggest push to date. ROH played off the fact that Rave now had to fend for himself. Rave’s character became depressed and hopeless. His music was changed from the trumpeting royal theme to “House of the Rising Sun” to give him that dour mood. He was losing matches much as he did in his first year, but after a while, he started scoring upset wins over the likes of Homicide and Nigel McGuinness. This signaled that ROH was ready to put him in the main event…which leads us to the point of all this:

Can Jimmy Rave be an ROH main eventer? Let’s look at all the factors that make up a wrestler and see how Rave stands up.

First, how good of an in-ring worker is he? On rare occasions, when carried by someone like Bryan Danielson, he can be quite good. On every other day and against every other opponent, Jimmy Rave is an average, unspectacular worker. He has a fine sense of timing and balance, but beyond that, his work is as plain as white bread and almost as tasteless. He also has a habit of looking like he does not quite know what to do next. Rave’s blank, expressionless face is more frequent than his angry heel face. His moveset (such as it is) is his best asset to his matches. His big moves are brilliant in their simplicity. Rave performs the spear and the pedigree as his top signature moves. Because of their associations with WWE’s biggest heels (Triple H wasn’t a babyface when Rave starting using the pedigree), they grab instant heat. The commentators cry that Rave is unoriginal and steals material from others. This adds to his act. Beyond this, Rave is not much of a worker. He can be labeled with “Good for an indy guy” and that’s about it. If you actually think he’s hot stuff, try to list all of Rave’s great ROH matches in the past couple years. At most, you will probably get two or maybe even three, and he was not the star of any of them.

Secondly, how adept is Rave at promos? I would say not very. Judging Rave’s speaking ability against most wrestlers from WWE and TNA, he’s awful. The best way to “enjoy” Rave’s promos would be to judge them only in comparison to the rest of Ring of Honor, in which case they are average instead of bad. Again, try and list all the great Rave promos from the past few years. There aren’t any. Let’s be real here. He does not have the gift of gab, and unlike Danielson, who somehow became an adequate (but by no means exciting) talker in the past twelve months, I don’t see that upswing in Jimmy Rave’s future.

Lastly, let’s look at his heat. This is where Jimmy Rave shines. His heel heat is off the charts. Only he and Chris Hero are in that league in ROH. Frankly, the promotion has lots of heels, but most of them are lightly cheered or given a fair amount of respect from the crowd. Rave, while beloved on wrestling message boards, is consistently torn apart by the crowds. Rave is not quite what he used to be in this department, though. The toilet paper throws were recently removed, and unless something has changed within the last couple shows, the biggest part of his act is gone. However, with that said, he’s still over in a big way, and almost entirely because of this, he is being pushed to the main event.

Will Jimmy Rave become ROH Champion before 2007 is through? Possibly. A lot of the signs point to it. Some may say that Rave’s loss to then-ROH Champion Homicide last Friday means that Rave is not getting the big push, but you could also look at it as Sapolsky testing the waters and teasing the title change to get people used to the idea. A lot of ROH Champions didn’t win the title on their first attempt either. CM Punk, James Gibson, American Dragon and Homicide all had multiple loses before it was decided it was their time.

Should Rave be ROH Champion this year? Were I in charge, knowing what I know now after looking at him objectively, I’d say no. Maybe one day in a transitional reign but not now. ROH is about to lose Samoa Joe, Austin Aries and Homicide due to TNA politics. They are losing a lot of their best workers. ROH needs a good wrestler at the top of the ladder now more than ever. Nigel McGuinness would be my pick. He can work, he can talk and he’s over. Roderick Strong would be a distant second choice. I can’t imagine Rave being the one to the title off Takeshi Morishima.

Speaking of which, Morishima won the Ring of Honor World Championship last week. He is another in a long line of ROH Champions who receive the top belt almost solely on being a great worker. ROH knows its fanbase. Sapolsky always gives the big belt to the best wrestlers and not the best characters. Jimmy Rave, while not someone I would consider a “bad” worker, is not in the league of any other former ROH Champions.

If Rave wins the ROH World Championship, it would be a radical departure from the norm. Is Ring of Honor -- and by extension its fans -- ready for that?