This weekend in Berwyn, IL, SHIMMER Women Athletes tapes Vols 9 & 10 of their DVD series ahead of a very exciting summer which will see a SHIMMER Title tournament taped over two days in Berwyn on June 1st and 2nd, and their first show outside The Eagles Club on July 1st as they run Inverness, FL as the third night of a triple header at the Citrus County Auditorium with Full Impact Pro. With SHIMMER guest matches becoming increasingly regular on ROH shows, it looks like the SHIMMER bandwagon is showing no signs of slowing down.

The tapings for Vols 7 & 8 took place on October 22nd – a show that was expected to feature the blowoff to the Daizee Haze vs Rebecca Knox feud that had seen the two go 1-1 in their last two meetings (on Vols 4 & 5). The challenge was laid down and accepted as a one hour iron woman match, a concept that Dave Prazak obviously likes, as he tried to book a one hour match between Daizee Haze and Lacey in IWA-MS a few years ago. That match never happened, as the promised all women’s afternoon show (which was to have been subtitled “Shimmer Like A Girl”) never came off and Lacey no showed the promotion after a dispute with Ian Rotten. Perhaps the hour match concept is cursed, as not long after the Haze/Knox match was announced, Rebecca suffered a head injury while wrestling in Germany. It soon became clear that it was more serious than initially thought, and Rebecca was diagnosed as suffering cranial nerve damage. She has yet to return to action, and it could be a long time before she will be able to. At the age of 20, she has plenty of time to make sure she’s 100% healthy, but it cannot be overstated just how careful she needs to be when attempting a comeback. Knox is a true prodigy – there cannot be many wrestlers in the world who were as compete a performer as she was at the age of 19, and we can only wish her the best of luck in her recovery. In fact, the DVD begins with a snippet of Haze’s challenge, and Dave Prazak explaining the injury.

With Knox out, the main event spot became a match that in many respects is somewhat of a dream match of mine, with Daizee Haze taking on Cheerleader Melissa. Despite being based on opposite sides of the States, the two have fought a few times before, most recently during the ChickFight 6 tournament in San Francisco the month prior to this taping. That match, which has yet to be released on DVD, was reported to have been fantastic (an unsurprising assessment given that Haze plays a wonderful underdog babyface; and Melissa has an almost Samoa Joe-esque ass-kicker aura). Under the circumstances, if we aren’t going to get the Haze/Knox match, this is pretty much the perfect replacement.

In other news going into this show, we have debuts for Nattie Neidhart and LuFisto, and the return of Tiana Ringer. Neidhart and LuFisto actually had their first SHIMMER branded matches the night before this for Danny Daniels’ AAW promotion (and were included in on the Vol 6 DVD as extras). Neidhart ended up signing her WWE developmental deal after this set of tapings, so she’ll only get to feature on this and Vol 8. LuFisto too is likely only to appear on this set of tapings, as she js currently on an extended sabbatical as her accumulated injuries over the years have caught up with her. Should she be able to return, I’m positive she’ll be back in SHIMMER – but for now, we’ll just have to enjoy the short legacy she’s left.

First impressions of the Eagles Club are that we’ve now got a fancy entranceway, and the lighting issues I’ve been complaining about in recent volumes (where the hall is too dark) seem to have been rectified. Oh, and the ring announcer has shaved his head!

Tiana Ringer vs Lorelei Lee

Tiana was one half of the first ever SHIMMER match on Vol 1 against current WWE developmental wrestler Shantelle Taylor. Tiana seemed to have a lot of potential in that match, though it never quite turned out that way in her subsequent three appearances (a formula tag match on Vol 2 where she was overshadowed, a bad three way on Vol 3 and an ultimately unsatisfying match with Allison Danger on Vol 4 which ended in a flash cradle). Vols 5 & 6 were missed due to a clash of dates, so this is in some regards a fresh start for young Tiana, who comes out in pigtails and reinforces her heelishness by pulling the zipper of her top RIGHT up, so as to not display anything resembling cleavage. Lorelei Lee is your generic cowgirl gimmick. She’s nothing special at this stage in her career, but given that she’s a trainee of Lexie Fyfe and that she’s getting to rub shoulders with the crème de la crème of women’s wrestling at SHIMMER, the hope is that she’ll eventually become somewhat of a homegrown star. She’s still a long way away from that though, as she spends much of the match getting beaten on, with most of her offence coming by way of early roll-ups and one Tajiri-esque handspring off the ropes into a cross body. Tiana is clearly trying to incorporate a lot of personality into her work – playing off the ref, posing, pulling up her sleeve before dropping an elbow. She wins too, with a move Prazak calls the South Palm Beach Driver, which is, as far as I can tell, a fireman’s carry, and instead of performing a Death Valley Driver, you flick them the opposite direction, feet first, into a back bump. I’m fairly certain Sean O’Haire used a similar finisher during his forgettable WWE run. This was a semi-competitive squash, more or less. Not much I can add.

Backstage promo with Daizee challenging Melissa for the main event.

Cindy Rogers vs Portuguese Princess Ariel

Cindy Rogers is a Bret Hart fan, and emulates his technical style where she can. She’s even adapted his nickname slightly, calling herself the “Definition Of Technician”. Sadly, while she’s competent as a wrestler, I’ve also found her quite bland in her appearances to date. Portuguese Princess Ariel is the same performer who has been going by the name of Ariel on previous volumes. I believe the “Portuguese Princess” prefix is a concession to WWE legal, given that Shelley Martinez now performs under the name Ariel on the ECW brand. Even more than the last match, this matchup just screams “undercard” at me. Also, the match is a bit of a love in, as it’s a mutual respect society in this one. With no reason to really care about either of the competitors, the match is sort of there. The only note is that Cindy Rogers tried pulling the tights at one point in the match, and then when she lost clean to the Dariel (Diamond Cutter), she didn’t shake Ariel’s hand. This could either be just Rogers’ frustration, or it might be the start of a heel turn. Apart from that, nothing to see here.

Backstage promo with Lacey accepting Nikki Roxx’s open challenge.

The Experience vs Serena Deeb & Portia Perez

This is your “Experience” match of the evening. The Experience are Lexie Fyfe and Malia Hosaka, two veterans who are essentially playing the part of the “wall” that the young girls in the promotion have to break down if they want to move up the card. They beat Cindy Rogers & Lorelei Lee on Vol 4, Ariel & Josie on Vol 5, and teamed with Amazing Kong to beat Ariel, Josie & Cindy on Vol 6. Next up to take on the surly vets are OVW’s Serena Deeb, who impressed on Vol 5 against Amber O’Neal, and Portia Perez, who is making her main show debut after having a pre-show internet only match with Daizee Haze before the tapings for Vols 5 & 6. Both teams are colour co-ordinated – The Expereience in blue and black, and Serena & Portia in pink and black. Once the match started (after pre-match hilarity as the ring announcer accidentally added 100lbs to the combined weight of The Experience), it settled down into the typical formula match with Portia playing Ricky Morton. Serena gets the hot tag and runs wild on The Experience forever. Eventually Portia comes back in, and after Serena gets tossed to the outside, Portia becomes a sitting duck for The Experience’s double team gourdbuster. I’m led to believe that Portia got injured during this match. It’s not noticeable, nor was it serious. She did, however, sit out the Vol 8 taping later in the day. Standard Fyfe/Hosaka match. I wonder where they end up going from here, as they’ve now essentially killed the entire undercard.

Backstage, Cheerleader Melissa accepts Haze’s challenge.

Rain vs MsChif

This match signifies the fairly clear division between the undercard segment and the upper card matches. Both of these girls are coming off massive wins on Vol 6. Rain and her partner Lacey finally assembled their infamous tag team The Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew to roll over Sara Del Rey & Mercedes Martinez in the best tag team match in SHIMMER’s history, while MsChif settled her feud with Cheerleader Melissa in a Last Woman Standing match that finally saw the best feud of 2006 grace the main event position. They go straight to work into a really good, really competitive match which focused on MsChif’s rib injury and Rain’s attempt to work on that. There was precious little in the way of character interaction (I would have thought Rain would have been APPALLED at having to wrestle this screaming goth girl), and they instead stuck to the in-ring stuff. As ‘Chif started to get the upper hand, Cheerleader Melissa wanders out to ringside, distracting her rival, allowing Rain to hit an inverted back cracker (stomach cracker?) for a near fall. Soon Lacey ran out to ringside, apparently knocking over Melissa, to throw a chain to her partner. As Melissa and Lacey face up to each other outside the ring, Rain hits MsChif with the chain in view of the referee, who calls for a disqualification. Post match, the MHWC mug for the cameras, as Melissa seems upset. This was all a bit untidy.

Nattie Neidhart (who seems very happy) cuts a promo on Sara Del Rey… promising a “Hart Attack”, and finishing with the Neidhart trademark “Yeah baby” and Anvil laugh.

Allison Danger vs Amber O’Neal

Allison Danger has recently completed a one month tour of Europe, where I had the pleasure of seeing her work and also interview her for my audio show. Having spent much of the month staying with friends of mine, one of the interesting nuggets of information I gleaned was that *this* match was Allison’s favourite match to date in SHIMMER. That sort of surprised me, thinking she might choose one of her matches with Rebecca Knox, or maybe her match with Rain from Vol 4. One thing is for sure, Amber is one of the best performers in the promotion at projecting a character, having her self absorbed blonde character down beautifully. The only thing is – I’ve found her very hit and miss. She didn’t really impress me between Vols 2 & 4, but she totally blew me away with a great performance on Vol 5 (against Serena Deeb). On commentary, Dave Prazak is joined by Daffney, who also appeared on commentary on Vol 6. Prazak flat out says that this match is a test for O’Neal to see if she can hang with Danger. The immediate reaction as the match plays out is that yes, she *is* hanging with Danger – showing a lot more quality wrestling than she’s shown to date in SHIMMER, while retaining the personality that made her a hit in the first place. Amber works the leg a lot, causing Danger all sorts of problems. Danger’s big spot mid match is a series of FIVE rolling vertical suplexes, and they eventually get to the “Boo”, “Yay” spots with the crowd as they exchange heavy elbows. Danger eventually takes O’Neal down and locks in an STF for the tap out. By far the most accomplished in-ring performance of Amber’s SHIMMER career to date. In my mind it wouldn’t be as good a Danger match as her encounters with Knox, but yes, this was very good.

Lacey vs Nikki Roxx

This match came about as Lacey answered Roxx’s open challenge. Roxx has been making overtures about moving up the card and testing herself against better opponents, and backstage, Dave Prazak clearly thinks there is a lot of potential in Roxx becoming a main event level performer in SHIMMER. Stylistically I see this as a great match, as Roxx has got a lot of fan support, and Lacey’s heelish style (full of complaining and stalling) should play into it well. In fact, right off the bat we get empassioned chants of “Nikki – Roxx! Lacey – Sucks!”. In the words of Prazak, “Nikki Roxx is over like a four leafed clover on St Patrick’s Day”. The match itself was the best one on the show to this point, full of slick reversals and sequences. Lacey brought it to Roxx with some impressive manoeuvres, including a neckbreaker which transitioned into a Butterfly Lock, a back suplex that nearly KILLED Roxx, and a Cobra Clutch hold which brought Roxx down in a backbreaker across Lacey’s knee. It was an engrossing match to watch, as I didn’t remember who won (I tend not to pay too close attention to the results of future volumes, so as to not spoil too much), and I was really getting into Roxx’s struggle. Eventually Roxx set up Lacey with a chinbreaker and hit the Barbie Crusher for the uncontested three count. Great stuff, and Roxx looked tremendous. Credit to both girls, and I’m looking forward to seeing Roxx continue her path towards the top of the card.

Mercedes Martinez vs LuFisto

Let me just offer a pre-emptive “ouch” before we even start this one, as I fully expect both these girls to leather the hell out of each other, as both girls hit hard and have no problem receiving it. Martinez set the standard for what I guess we can term women’s strong style on Vol 1 against Sara Del Rey, while LuFisto has made her name as the “First Lady Of Hardcore”, competing against both women and men around North America, even winning the CZW Iron Man (sic) title. This is a first time ever matchup, and Dave Prazak underscores that LuFisto would be doing straight wrestling matches in SHIMMER, not the hardcore stuff. Interesting to note the height difference between the two, as the 5’3” LuFisto looks decidedly tiny beside Martinez. As expected, this was a really physical battle, with Martinez in particular laying in some heavy punishment, although, as DP notes on commentary, how do you make LuFisto submit to a wrestling hold after all the hardcore stuff she’s put herself through? LuFisto gave a good accounting for herself in the match, showing that she could have become a real fixture in the SHIMMER ranks. She eventually fell to Martinez’ Fisherman Buster, capping off a really decent match.

Sara Del Rey vs Nattie Neidhart

OK, so many people thought that Nattie was WWE bound even before this show, so I guess there was no time to build to a match like this, but seriously – talk about a baptism of fire! Neidhart is good. Really good, in fact – but a strong argument can be made that Del Rey is the SHIMMER company ace. Unbeaten in singles competition to date, Del Rey is the class of the field. No-one told Nattie, it seems, because for long portions of this match, she HUMBLED Del Rey. Given how dominant Sara has been, this was truly eye opening stuff, as Neidhart worked over the legs of her opponent for the eventual Sharpshooter. Del Rey fired back, sure, but Neidhart kept cutting her off. Nattie was almost certainly going to get a massive push in the WWE Women’s Division based entirely on her surname, but the truth is she deserves a massive push based on the fact that she’s just fantastic. She’s got this engaging charisma that she’s clearly inherited from her dad, where every so often she’ll shoot the audience a look, or invite them to kiss her ass, and it’s just FANTASTIC. Neidhart eventually went for her Sharpshooter, but couldn’t get it locked. In fact, it was Sara who ended up with the move applied to Nattie, although Nattie was able to turn herself around and get out of the hold. It reached a point where both the exhausted warriors were just running at each other, clotheslining each other, but neither giving way. Eventually, Del Rey locked on the Butterfly hold, then flipped Neidhart into the powerslam for the three count. Holy hot damn, this was great… and while no-one would deny Nattie her chance to make it in the WWE, from a purely selfish standpoint, I’d love to have seen her work SHIMMER for longer than just these two Volumes. The Del Rey rivalry, for example, could have easily spread over several tapings. Plus, what about the possibility of a Neidhart vs Cheerleader Melissa rematch from the Canadian SuperGirls taping? Or Neidhart vs Martinez? Or imagine Neidhart vs Haze? So many potential classics.

Post match, Mercedes Martinez comes out and lays down the challenge for Del Rey vs Martinez III on Volume 8.

Daizee Haze vs Cheerleader Melissa

This has been a really great show to date, and that last Del Rey vs Neidhart match would have been a fitting main event… but we’ve still got this dream match to go. Melissa has the Malenko ice-cold charisma going on, as usual. She’s a killing machine, and she loves it. Haze is so adorably engaging (although flower-less for this outing), and under normal circumstances is one of the smoothest performers I’ve ever had the joy to watch. I say “under normal circumstances” because I fear for young Daizee’s life in this one. Actually, for the first five minutes it’s some pretty decent (and even) wrestling action… then, as the action spills to the floor, we get our major turning point. After Daizee hits a dive on Melissa to the outside, Melissa retaliates by grabbing Haze in a wheelbarrow position, and proceeded to swing Haze’s head into the crowd barriers half a dozen times. I’ve seen Melissa do this a number of times, and it never fails to scare the shit out of me. Daizee tries throwing one of Melissa’s pom poms at her, causing Melissa to grab the other one and forcibly rub it in Haze’s face. You wouldn’t think that having a pom pom rubbed in your face was particularly vicious, but when Melissa does it, it was. From then on, Haze was the battling underdog, staying competitive, but always working from the back foot. She managed to avoid a couple of Melissa’s favourite techniques early, including a Curb Stomp and countering an Air Raid Crash with a submission attempt, but Melissa ended up hitting an Air Raid Crash for a close fall, and eventually securing the first Kudoh Driver (Cop Killer/Vertebreaker) she’s managed to hit in SHIMMER for the three count. Great stuff. Post match, The Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew hit the ring and assaulted Melissa. Who should make the save, but MsChif… running of the Crew, and causing Lacey to throw out a challenge for Volume 8 for MsChif and Melissa to team up to face the MHWC. Melissa and MsChif stare at each other, and MsChif rolls out of the ring, shaking her head.

===

And so, that was Volume 7 – one of the strongest Volumes to date, in my opinion. After the initial three undercard matches, you’ve got six straight quality singles wrestling matches – and much to my own surprise, the Melissa vs Haze match that I had expected to be the highlight was probably overshadowed by Del Rey vs Neidhart, who produced the goods in this volume’s “must see” match.

I won’t deny for a moment that I missed the presence of Rebecca Knox on this show, as she established herself very quickly as one of the SHIMMER poster girls, but this volume sets out a number of storylines that will take the promotion forward. Nikki Roxx establishing herself at (or near) main event level brings a number of fresh matches, and the tag team of MsChif and Melissa for Vol 8 (assuming it doesn’t break down) seems to turn Melissa babyface, again opening up a number of possibilities. It’s a real shame that both of the new girls that were introduced here aren’t going to be long term roster members, but I’ll enjoy them while I can. There is even movement on the undercard, with Cindy Rogers possibly developing a personality. Sure, they need to introduce a title belt to give further meaning to these main event matches, but that is being attended to this coming June.

As it is, this is a stacked card that is an essential purchase for anyone who has enjoyed the SHIMMER product to date, and it’s a fine jumping on point for new fans who haven’t yet seen what the promotion can offer. Well done to all involved.

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