A Little Column of Honor: Jimmy Jacobs and The Sherlock Absence

I don’t keep current with too much television these days and when I do watch television series it is in marathon format. That said, I was fortunate enough to catch the first two seasons of BBC’s Sherlock series, which had been receiving rave reviews from critics for some time as well as from several friends of mine whose opinions I value highly. They were all spot-on; Sherlock is amazing.

Benedict Cumberbatch does a fascinating treatment of Sherlock as a savant with severe behavioral (and etiquette) issue. Martin Freeman is very respectable as a Watson in need of “the war”-pursuing action and and learning (though not quite grasping) how Sherlock uses his deductive reasoning to solve cases.

One of the true revelations through the series is in the use of Sherlock’s nemesis James Moriarty, as played by Andrew Scott. His Moriarty is a merciless master of mind games and every bit the equal, if not more than the equal to Sherlock. He knows how to use modern technology to his benefit; his psychological feints and dodges are almost as entertaining as his cadence and body language during his scenes conversing (“playing”) with Sherlock. This is a Moriarty to be reckoned with, and it’s all Sherlock can do to keep pace with him and create at least the stalemate that keeps the pieces of the chessboard moving onward.

An amazing revelation hit me after watching Sherlock and then seeing Jimmy Jacobs walk down to the ring during the Video-On-Demand presentation of Ring of Honor Supercard of Honor VIII.

There was Jacobs, all decked out in a powder blue suit, white button-down dress shirt and dark blue tie, his hair all disheveled as he strode down to ring with menace in his gait and darkness and misery in his voice. He bore the complaints about Ring of Honor and the fans’ treatment of himself, BJ Whitmer and Roderick Strong like an axe swinging down with deadly accuracy on the trunk of a dying tree. My mind flashed to a scene from an episode of Sherlock, and there it was:

Jimmy Jacobs is professional wrestling’s Moriarty, and he is desperate need of a Sherlock Holmes.

Jacobs has been through a career’s worth of villainy in Ring of Honor and the independent scene, most notably being the puppet master in The Age of the Fall stable for ROH from 2007 through 2009. In the past he has also been a fallen angel who tried to redeem Steve Corino and Kevin Steen and instead landed into the faction known as SCUM with the very same people he had wanted to save.

It is miles away from the character’s humble beginnings as a young and optimistic youth paying tribute to Brusier Brody with his furry boots and call-and-answer bellows of “Huss!”, or the naïve and doting lovesick puppy he played while mooning after Lacey.

In the meantime, Jacobs has played the role of revolutionary, anarchist, and now with The Decade, a protestor. In its own perverse way, Jacobs is now a sort-of civil rights advocate, attempting to instill his version of a Code of Honor in the treatment of the “veterans” of the promotion.

The clearest line I can draw from Jacobs to Moriarty is that of the mastermind mindset and the psychological warfare both use to gain the edge and win the game.

No one can play mind games like Jimmy Jacobs. It is a necessary tactic since Jacobs is not always the biggest physical presence in a fight. Instead of always facing an opponent head-on, punch-for-punch, he twists and turns his opponents so much that they can’t see the endgame he has in mind. That is the essence of the Moriarty character throughout its many incarnations in literature, movies and television.

Then there are the word games and puzzles that come from them. Moriarty loves giving Sherlock clues including word puzzles and non-verbal cues and then watching the mind of a master detective attempt to work the meaning out before it’s too late. Jacobs’ memorable promos possess a similar kind of verbal play, like the ones during the feud with BJ Whitmer in 2006, the outdoor scenes in Philadelphia during his time in The Age of the Fall and even the ones he seemingly gave while on the side of angels while in ROH and Dragon Gate USA.

It was even pointed out to me that Jacobs is like Moriarty in that while the latter is a consulting criminal-for-hire in the BBC series, the former is also a counsel-for-hire. Jacobs has notably appeared in other promotions as the lead or important member of a heel stable. He was revealed to be the leader, or at least the spokesperson, of the anti-CHIKARA forces at the National Pro Wrestling Day this past February in Easton, Pennsylvania. He also appeared for that promotion previously, working alongside then stable-mate Kevin Steen to fight against the CHIKARA heroes (better known as Technicos).

Now here is the problem that exists-Jimmy Jacobs might be a great “villain” (or at least one could use the term “antagonist”) and maybe he is the greatest one on the independent scene currently. However, an antagonist needs a counter-balance in the protagonist to truly live on in the hearts and minds of the audience. The saying goes that every good hero needs a great villain, but the reverse of that saying is true as well. The Joker and his maddening chaos would not have nearly the meaning and context without Batman in existence with his attempts to keep order and control on Gotham City. The Joker needed Batman to help define him and vice-versa.

So too, does Moriarty need Sherlock Holmes in order to help define the context of his existence. It was Holmes’ existence that created what was termed “the final problem” in Season 2, Episode 3 of the BBC series (“The Reichenbach Fall”).

Moriarty needed Sherlock not just to exist, but also to keep the world from getting “boring”. In the BBC series, that feeling was quite mutual. Oftentimes, Sherlock is seen longing for the next great game to consume his mind. He is dismissive and contemptuous of cases he finds uninteresting and perhaps beneath his deductive prowess. Moriarty is there to fill in the malaise of observing and deducing adulterous spouses and museum heists.

Jimmy Jacobs needs his equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, his counterbalance. So then it seems the real tragedy here is that there is no great hero to combat the great villain in this story. ROH and he both could sorely use a Sherlock, but it doesn’t take a detective to realize they don’t have one right now…and it doesn’t seem like there is anyone on the roster at the moment who can be that for him.

It isn’t Cedric Alexander, who is poised to be a great asset for ROH, especially in the ring, but hasn’t yet demonstrated in the way of promos or a character that would use mind-games to unsettle his opponents. To be fair, Alexander hasn’t been given much promo time or opportunity for him to show conclusively whether or not he could do that if called upon, but it’s clear that for right now his current character track wouldn’t fit the mold of a Sherlock.

It’s not going to be Steve Corino, who is bickering with Decade member BJ Whitmer (and there has been heavy foreshadowing it will end up in a physical confrontation at some point and maybe even a match). However he remains on friendly terms with both Jacobs and Strong, trumping up their wrestling ability during their appearances. Even taking his interactions with Whitmer under consideration, Corino is seemingly done with in-ring action in ROH for the most part. He is far more devoted to commentary, where he has been phenomenally entertaining and effective and where he remains of most use to ROH at the moment. Besides, Corino has never been on the side of the angels for very long in his career. To invert one of the most important statements Sherlock says to Moriarty on the BBC series, he may not be an angel, but he is on their side. Jacobs would need someone devoted to good rather than evil for the Moriarty-Sherlock relationship to be at its greatest effect.

Austin Aries in 2008 gave it a nice shot, when he used mind games to completely undo The Age of the Fall, but again, Aries was no angel and was more an anti-hero or better, another devil just with a different agenda. The story of Aries seducing and sleeping with Lacey when she was supposed to recruit him is plenty evidence that Aries was not meant to be altruistic in his actions during that storyline. Aries just didn’t like Jacobs very much, so he took away everything of value, including Jacobs’ lover, and convincing member Necro Butcher to defect from The Age of the Fall.

At one point, it seemed possible that the character progression for Jimmy Jacobs would have been to go from child to adult and from anarchist to hero, but now it seems like he is destined to be a villain par-excellence throughout much of his career. Therefore, Jimmy Jacobs may be Ring of Honor’s greatest villain without a nemesis who could equal his efforts.

Is there a Sherlock out there on the independent scene, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be brought in and used as the counter-balance? Ah, then the game might truly be on. Until then, it’s being played by only one-and he rules the board alone…and maybe, just maybe, he is lonely, because he has no one to play who is truly worthy of him.