SHIMMER Volume 24

SHIMMER Women’s Athletes

ShimmerWrestling.com

Hotline: (630) 585- 3958

$14.95

Reviewed by Joe Babinsack

New talent on display, solid booking across the board, and top notch wrestlers displaying their abilities in the ring.

That’s far more than can be said about other, more visible promotions, and that’s most of the reason why I got a boost of enthusiasm about wrestling by watching the culmination of two dozen DVDs by one of the industry’s most consistently excellent promotions.

That the talent is all female is of little concern by me. I know I live for watching an industry where women wrestling is dismissed as eye-candy, as inferior, and often simply as a joke. I know too often my peers on the internet play the same sort of sexist games; indifferently dismissing promotions like SHIMMER; oblivious to the efforts, talent and product it produces; more interested in boosting the status quo of the mainstream rather than trying something new.

Across the board, SHIMMER is doing things right.

While it has an established roster of top notch indy talent, and names that mean something in women’s wrestling, no matter if they wrestle here or on the East Coast or on the West Coast or even in TNA, SHIMMER has been introducing new talent for most of its existence, intermixing and moving people up and down the cards.

In this DVD, we have a big time main event that happens to be a tag team match, that happens to include the top four names in the promotion, the country, the world.

While Melissa Anderson, masked or not, costumed or not, cannot seem to buy a spot in TNA, she’s on the mark here in SHIMMER. Teamed with one-time antagonist and now SHIMMER Women’s World Champion MsChif, they make up the babyface opposition to the two monsters of the promotion, perennial challenger and monster heel Amazing Kong and former SHIMMER Women’s World Champion Sara Del Rey.

I’m still not digging Sara’s weird eye makeup, but the transition from mostly face, sheer technical talent to over-the-top heel has been an impressive one. Injecting more personality, despite the crazed look and attitude, means that the matchups are more personal and the grudges have more feeling.

What I love about SHIMMER Volume 24 is that it extends the solid booking that has been the hallmark of the promotion. Each DVD is not the be-all, end-all event, it’s just another piece of the puzzle. What I mean by this is that there’s no over-the-top sense of enhancing the main event, no senseless hyping, no screaming and yelling and making more of what’s going on.

Instead, the builds are more focused, and thus more satisfying.

Winning and losing means something, and thus you know when a match is over, that the winner will move up and the loser will move down. And in this promotion, the mixture of veteran talent enhances the roster, because there is no sense of “sides” and there is no sense of veterans going over just because, and there is no established format that cannot be escaped.

More so, there is no overwriting, overbooking and no mysterious and lazy repeated finishes.

The things you can count on with SHIMEER are passionate work in the ring, dynamics that engage the viewer and all shapes and sizes of women. I’ve said it and will continue to say it, but in women’s wrestling, and especially in SHIMMER, we see the sensibilities and product that hearkens back to Old School – with current moves and workrate and evolving of the professional wrestling artform.

Newcomers to the roster include Jessie McKay, who takes on Kellie Skater. These two Aussies provide an solid opener, and establish themselves (Skater the heel, McKay called “Everybody’s Favorite Girlfriend” clearly the face) and establish the feel for the DVD, where you expect to see action and effort.

SHIMMER has stepped up with the promos and the in-between interviews and monologues between matches. The Canadian Ninjas (Portia Perez and Nicole Mathews) are a fun heel team, and there’s nothing like seeking the very cute Perez brandishing a wiffleball bat and a hockey stick to promote her No Disqualification Street Fight with Allison Danger.

The Experience is back in the house, as Lexie Fyfe & Malia Hosaka take on newcomers Tenille & Rayna Von Tash. Veteran heels make the babyfaces look better, and Tenille and Von Tash show some interesting potential. While Tenille is one more athletic brunette, Von Tash is a statuesque redhead reminiscent of Ditta Von Tease.

What’s interesting here is that the babyfaces don’t have to go over to look good.

Amber O’Neal is one of my favorites, a heel who knows how to work the crowd, work a match and tell a story. She takes on “Girl Dynamite” and also blonde but younger Jennifer Blake. How can Amber O’Neal ever have a bad match?

Talking about favorites, let’s talk about Mercedes Martinez (who happens to be the WSU Women’s Champion, as far as I know) and who truly is the Latina Sensation. I didn’t give Madison Eagles much of a chance, but the thing with SHIMMER is that they do feature the sort of ‘measuring stick’ matches that let you know how far the other gal has risen.

Martinez put her away, but then endorsed her as a future contender. It’s an old school staple, but when it’s done, does it ever disappoint?

Del Rey and Kong cut promos, mostly on Cheerleader Melissa, establishing the history between them all, and making sure that the history progresses beyond this DVD.

Next, Lacey’s back as a manager and she’s standing with the Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew of Rain & Jetta. Managers were basically introduced into SHIMMER recently, and that’s a great addition, notably with Annie Social and her growing stable, but utilizing Lacey is also important, bringing her knowledge and mic skill to bat for her team.

Nikki Roxx & Portugese Princess Ariel are their opponents.

Roxx has her hair growing back, and the makeshift team does well up against the heels. This is mostly a match to keep the MHWC strong to contend against Ashley Lane & Nevaeh, but any featuring of tag team action is more than alright by me.

Speaking of hair, Serena Deeb takes on the rather uniquely named Cat Power, who is minus the mask now. Fun match, maybe a little too cutesy fun at first, but there’s nothing wrong with changing up styles.

Especially since the next two grudge matches are feeling the seriousness.

The Canadian Ninjas team would win one and lose one, but let’s watch the DVD to find out who does what. First up is Nicole Mathews taking on Daizee Haze in what is billed as a No Time Limit match. I didn’t think the gimmick was necessary, but the following match is Allison Danger taking on Portia Perez in a No DQ Street Fight, putting Danger and Perez in jeans and in a garbage style match.

I loved how the matches flowed into each other in true old school ECW fashion.

Danger/Perez featured everything that is traditionally great about SHIMMER, but introducing the hard-core style match. I wouldn’t want to see this every DVD, and certainly not escalated, but the change of pace was welcome, and it established Portia Perez as a player equal to her looks, and while I like to play down my oft annoyed attitude about Allison Danger, I do grudgingly give her props for this match.

Now as hardcore as that last match was, let’s take hard-hitting action a notch or two higher, without the crazed bloodletting or the cringe-worthy chairshots.

SHIMMER features more than just a few women who can work All Japan Level stiff, but two names that come to mind are Wesna “Croatian Panther” Busnic and Lufisto’s brand of “Hardcore Anime”.

Somehow, I believe “Panther” is a reference to the WWII era German Tank. And it is befitting.

These two ladies, and I say that with fear in my eyes, tear down the house, tear into each other and tear up any sense that women cannot put together a match far more violent than their male counterparts. I can’t name a wrestler in the WWE today who inspires me in terms of hard-hitting action like this match. Like women wrestling or not, check out this match and tell me otherwise.

What I also love is that this match, and the main event both establish challengers to MsChif’s Women’s Championship, as well as the stated number one contendership for the Tag Team Gold of Ashley Lane and Nevaeh. (I also give props for not having an ‘obligatory’ match with the Tag Team Champions.)

So we establish one contender, and we establish that Annie Social is the heel manager par excellence, and then we move into the history laden tag match between MsChif/Melissa and Del Rey/Kong.

Dynamics, to me, are vital and this is as dynamic as it gets.

Here, we have the two heel contenders and a face contender and the World Champion. In the end, the heels (plus another) put the beat down on the Champion.

In the end, it establishes the next DVD or two, because we have a tag title match slated, and we have contenders established for MsChif, and we have Cheerleader Melissa set up for one-on-one’s with any of the three heels.

More important, this main event builds upon the card. It has the hard-hitting action, the technical mastery and the heel/face interactions. It has top names, which everyone on the roster aspires to reach. It has meaningful ramifications and meaningful action.

But getting to the finish is the fun part, and these four ladies put on a show worthy of their cumulative reputations. Pro wrestling is definitely fun and enjoyable when the SHIMMER women are in the ring.

1.       Jessie McKay vs. Kellie Skater
2. Lexie Fyfe & Malia Hosaka vs. Tenille & Rayna Von Tash
3. Amber O'Neal vs. Jennifer Blake
4. Mercedes Martinez vs. Madison Eagles
5. Rain & Jetta with Lacey vs. Nikki Roxx & Portuguese Princess Ariel
6. Serena Deeb vs. Cat Power
7. No Time Limit: Nicole Matthews vs. Daizee Haze
8. No Disqualification Street Fight: Allison Danger vs. Portia Perez
9. Wesna Busic vs. LuFisto
10. MsChif & Cheerleader Melissa vs. Sara Del Rey & Amazing Kong

Joe Babinsack can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Next up is Women’s Superstars Uncensored (yeah, hate the name, love the wrestling) and Glamour, Glitz & Divas, and then we move out of women’s wrestling for a spell.