[2006-06-23-ROH-Throwdown] Bryan Danielson vs Jimmy Jacobs vs BJ Whitmer (Three Way Elimination)

[Edwin]

I know this is a stipulation that usually gets frowned upon as they lack psychology a lot of the time and are harder to put together, but this is one of the best three way matches ever and it also benefits from being an elimination match as you can get a proper 1-on-1 match after an initial elimination. Worth mentioning the booking leading to this match is fantastic with Whitmer and Jacobs being in a hot Jimmy loves Lacey angle and both men trying to kill each other with some dangerous powerbombs off the top rope through the ring apron or the crowd. They start with a standard three way and they work portions of it as handicap, Whitmer and Jacobs vs. Danielson and then Danielson and Jacobs vs. Whitmer and both portions work as Whitmer and Jacobs is the two lesser ranked opponents trying to get one on the Best in the World who's impossible to putdown and then other portion is the two smaller opponents trying to partner up to putdown the bigger man. The first fall ends perfectly with Jacobs pairing up with Danielson to eliminate the bigger man. Then the match turns into a 1-on-1 and it gets hot with Danielson, the dominant world champion and Best in the World to defend against the local Michigan native and much smaller challenger and underdog. The do such a fantastic job at putting this segment of the match together that the fans are split as usual, but hot for Jacobs and even buy into him pulling off the upset and winning the title and you can see fans literally jumping up and down on a hot near fall of a counter roll up. They avoid going overboard with the excessive 2.99 false finishes a lot of indy matches suffer from and the finish is fantastic as Danielson taps out Jacobs to a crossface chicken wing to which Jacobs pass outs to and doesn't tap and thus keeps over his image of being a tough to put away, ruthless and violent wrestler. Also you can hear the crowd actively booing at the finish.