Dark Pegasus Video Review: SHIMMER Vol. 4

SHIMMER Women Athletes Vol. 4 by J.D. Dunn February 12, 2006 From Berwyn, Ill. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Allison Danger. Opening Match: Amber O’Neal vs. Nikki Roxx. Nikki is finally starting to look like the Nikki we know in TNA. Or at least the Roxxi we know in TNA. She’s also sporting a Kardashian-esque ass. Amber is sure to let us know she wants to be considered a “diva.” Amber pulls Nikki’s hair and cheats a lot, but she shows she actually can wrestle when required as she applies a Goku-Raku Surfboard (where you choke the person out with their own arms). Amber hits a corner clothesline, but Nikki blocks a second try and stacks her up for two. Amber tries to go back to her old tricks, but Nikki catches her in the Cruncher (kind of an inverted Stone Cold Stunner) at 9:21. I got no problems with this as an opener. *3/4 Ann (Thraxx) Brookstone vs. Shantelle Taylor. Brookstone looks like Aileen Wuornos on steroids. She shoves Shantelle down a few times, but Taylor kicks away at her legs and tries an Oklahoma Roll. That was a bad idea from the formula stage. Brookstone is just too big for Shantelle to move her, and she can’t sell the way Amazing Kong can. She does work in a Hennig necksnap, though. Shantelle goes back to the legs and ducks through Brookstone’s legs for a pump-handle reverse rollup, getting the win at 5:55. Brookstone looks like the kind of wrestler who would be good in a shootfight but can’t “work” with others. Kind of the female equivalent of Nailz. She hasn’t been invited back as far as I know. 3/4* Recap of Malia Hosaka & Lexie Fyfe teaming up to beatdown Lorelei Lee on Vol. 3. Cindy Rogers made the save, so we get… Cindy Rogers & Lorelei Lee vs. Malia Hosaka & Lexie Fyfe. The heels (now know as “The Experience”) try to attack during the patdown, but Rogers and Lee work in the “row your boat” spot. The faces work Hosaka’s arm á la the Rockers. Hosaka wraps her legs around Cindy in a bodyscissors, but Cindy uses her powerful thighs to muscle her way up and ram Hosaka into the corner. Hosaka cuts her off with what I’ll generously call a “martial arts chop.” Cindy plays face-in-peril as Lorelei keeps coming in and distracting the ref while the heels switch off. The heat segment on Rogers goes on for a *long* time before Cindy reverses a suplex to her own and tags Lee. Lee gets a little lost while trying to clean house, but the faces do manage to work in stereo sunset flips. Lee gets caught in the wrong corner, though, and the Experience finishes her with a doubleteam gourdbuster at 16:02. They didn’t have enough material to fill that amount of time. Lee was physically talented but very green, so they spent most of the match covering for her. That meant that Cindy was stuck taking a beating for a good portion of the match (nearly 10 minutes!). Not surprisingly, the pacing suffered. ** Allison Danger vs. Tiana Ringer. Danger’s witty banter with the fans in the front row is pretty funny. Danger takes Ringer down early, so Tiana squirms to the ropes. Longish feeling out process. They take it to the mat where Allie grabs a headlock. Tiana grabs a handful of hair and then bails to avoid any repercussions. Danger tries to pull her back in by the hair, but Ringer snaps her throat off the top rope. Ringer hits an around-the-clock series of low dropkicks to the back of Danger’s head. She rubs Allison’s face into the mat as the fans get behind Danger. Ringer can’t get Danger to submit, and Danger hits a knee strike to the head to come back. Danger small packages Ringer and picks up the win at 11:09. They had their hearts in the right place, but this match felt clunky, and the finish came out of nowhere. *3/4 Rebecca Knox joins us from the pub across the street to brag about how good she is. She says Daizee must be smoking something to think she can beat Knox. No. Not Daizee. **cough** The promo is pretty bad, but I think that owes a lot to Knox slowing down because otherwise her accent would make her incomprehensible to us Americans. Sara Del Rey vs. Rain. This was supposed to be the Minnesota Home-Wrecking Crew in tag action, but Lacey was snowed out. Lots of matwork early with Rain trying to use hairpulls to take advantage. Del Rey shrugs it off and applies a Crippler Crossface (although it’s more of a chokehold, and isn’t that disturbing given the new context surrounding Benoit’s holds?). She segues to a keylock, but the fans start getting behind Rain, so she drops it and glares at the fans until they start chanting for her. Rain yanks Del Rey off the ropes, slamming her on the back of her head. That gives Rain the advantage. She slams Del Rey off the top and hits an Elijah Experience for two. Rain goes for a Tornado DDT, but Del Rey counters to a Northern Lights Bridge á la Jerry Lynn for two. Rain grabs a sleeper and then a backbreaker. Slapfest from the knees! Del Rey wins that battle and boots Rain in the gut. Rain stays on top with a Tornado Lungblower. She tries again, and Del Rey German Suplexes her. She can’t hold the bridge, though, so it only gets two. Del Rey gets serious and finishes with the Royal Butterfly at 14:07. Good stuff up until the finish which blew the psychology of the match because Rain worked the back throughout only to have Del Rey use a move that required her to power Rain up. **1/2 Falls-Count-Anywhere: Cheerleader Melissa vs. MsChif. MsChif scored an upset win in a match that Melissa dominated. Melissa was upset that she couldn’t get a rematch, so she cost MsChif a match on Vol. 3. MsChif rightly refuses to allow a pre-match inspection because it’s “No DQ.” Pervy ref. Melissa chops away early, but MsChif drop toeholds her into a Dragon Clutch. Too soon for a submission, though. Melissa hits some STIFF strikes in the corner. MsChif Misawa flips out of a surfboard and flips Melissa over into a Hammerlock/Dragon Sleeper. Melissa fights out of it and applies a Mr. Salty-ish move, bending MsChif’s leg behind her own head. Okay, um, OW! She one-ups that by putting MsChif in the tree-of-woe and putting her into a Tarantula Surfboard against the corner. Awesome! MsChif won’t give up, so Melissa pulls her back in and curbstomps her. They finally take it to the floor as Melissa goes to apply the Inverted Cloverleaf, but MsChif kicks her to the outside. The brawl spills into the crowd, and the fans scatter. MsChif chokes her out against the edge of a chair. That’s innovative. Melissa fades but hulks up and slams MsChif’s face into the wall. They go all the way to the sidewalk. A slam on the concrete gets two as MsChif has started to bleed from the shot to the wall. Back to the building now, MsChif tosses Melissa down the stairs and whips her into the chairs. More chair action as MsChif bends Melissa over the edge of one of the chairs with a bodyvise. Melissa fights out again and shoves MsChif under the band’s stage and closes the door! They play it off as Melissa trying to humiliate MsChif, but it would be pretty funny if MsChif freaked out and submitted in order to get out. Instead, Melissa opens the door and tries to pull her out, but MsChif comes out of another door and jumps Melissa from behind. They trade some wrestling moves for a number of nearfalls before Melissa puts her on the wheeled pallet and shoves her at the ring. MsChif hits her face on the edge but still slides all the way under the ring and crashes into the guardrail. Crazy spot. They continue to brawl over to the staircase where Melissa knocks MsChif onto a platform. She has finally had enough and applies the Inverted Cloverleaf, only this time, she puts a chair on the back of MsChif’s and makes MsChif stomp the chair into the back of her own head. That’s it. Melissa is my new favorite wrestler. MsChif has to tap out at 26:13. An excellent, creative brawl with spots that even I’ve never seen before (and I’ve seen a *lot* of wrestling). There were even new variations on old spots like using the stage instead of the ring. The one knock, and it’s not a little one, is that it felt like it was set on 3/4 speed. Still, a fantastic match. ***3/4 Recap of Rebecca Knox faking an injury to defeat Allison Danger. Daizee Haze vs. Rebecca Knox. Rebecca does a lot of shtick before the match, including patting the ref down. Allison Danger is openly rooting for Haze on commentary. Knox outwrestles Daizee cleanly but still stops to cheat once in a while. Gotta love that. She puts Daizee in a surfboard and uses the ropes for leverage. Knox has some of the best execution that I’ve ever seen for a non-Japanese woman. She even works in that Ricky Steamboat hammerlock-and-then-flip-into-a-bridge move. Haze starts to fight back, so Knox ducks to the floor to stall. Daizee tries to go after her by diving off the top, but Knox sees her coming. Back in, Rebecca folds Haze in half and starts doing push-ups while she has Haze in the hold. Ha ha! What a bitch! She hits a scary-looking pump-handle slam that drops Haze on her head. I take back what I said about execution. Instead of covering, she steps on Haze’s throat and then argues with the ref while her knee is across Haze’s throat. Are we sure Ric Flair never made a trip to Ireland about twenty years ago? A running forearm ROCKS the Haze. Daizee fires back with her own, but Knox forearms her again, and Haze just crumbles. Haze does make the comeback with a headscissors, but she misses the Heart Punch and falls victim to a Bridging German for two. Knox T-Bones her over and tries her double-springboard legdrop. In a cruel twist of irony, she lands hard on her leg and hurts herself. That allows Daizee to recover and hit a missile dropkick to set up the Heart Punch and Mind Trip at 20:14. Another excellent match. Very WWE-ish (men’s matches) in that they started on the mat and went up-tempo late. Knox was a tremendous heel. ***1/2 Allison Danger says she’s happy to get back to her winning ways, so she wants to challenge another woman who got a big win – Cheerleader Melissa.

The 411: Like the previous volumes, Vol. 4 features a lackluster undercard that is saved by the main-event talent. Melissa vs. MsChif was probably the company's best match to that point, and I'm starting to like the simple storytelling of building a match from one show to the next. If you check the run times, the rule-to-suck ratio is about 3-to-2, so I'll call this a thumbs up. Thumbs up.
Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]