Live SHIMMER Report 10.13.07 – Berwyn, Illinois

On October 13, SHIMMER: Women Athletes returned home to the Eagles Club in Berwyn, Illinois to tape Volumes 15 and 16 of their popular DVD series. The Eagles Club was filled to capacity with 250 fans, over 90% of whom actually had their tickets in advance. The audience was hot throughout the night, and they had good reason to be with the action that was delivered.

Joey Eastman, usual SHIMMER ring announcer, was not on the show. He was missed.

There were two SPARKLE dark matches, which, as is traditional, featured male wrestlers. Rob Conway was supposed to compete in one such match but cancelled at the last minute for undisclosed reasons. I was unable to get the names of most of the competitors. The first match was a portly African American gentleman named Cadillac Jones beating two random men in a handicap match. The second was a six man tag featuring six men that I’d never seen before in my life. The finish was a guy who looked like a skinny Justin Credible (try to wrap your head around that) pinning one of his opponents with a shooting star press.

Taped for Volume 15

Match #1: ‘Jezebel’ Eden Black def. Amber O’ Neal. O’ Neal, as always, did a great job of getting the crowd in to the match. The story was that Amber wanted to work at a much slower rate but that Black was a bit more fired up and tried to hasten the pace. Jezebel eventually locked in her Garden of Eden triangle choke while O’ Neal was pulling her hair and distracted by the referee. The former Team Blondage member made the ropes and was quickly back on offense, however. Unfortunately for her, she’d get locked in the Garden of Eden again, this time after Black blocked a slap. A fun opener, to be sure.

Match #2: Portia Perez & Nicole Matthews def. Ashley Lane & Lorelei Lee. This was Lee’s return to SHIMMER after being ‘benched’ due to a poor win/loss record. Matthews (who is out of Canada and wrestles elsewhere as Nikki Matthews) and Lane (who is out of Ohio and wrestles elsewhere as Lexi Lane) were both making their debuts. I had my worries about this match because those three are among the least experienced wrestlers on the roster, but they wound up putting together a match that was perfectly fine. I couldn’t tell what exactly the finish was supposed to be, as Perez basically fell on top of Lane and laid there while the three count was made. I’m guessing she was supposed to have her feet on the ropes but wound up not being close enough.

Match #3: Jetta def. Serena Deeb. Jetta was our third debut in a row. She’s from the United Kingdom and was making her first trip to the States. Her mannerisms are very similar to those of Lacey and Rain, something which would be further explored later in the evening. She picked up the victory with a rather unique combination, hitting what would best be described as a straightjacket lungblower and then rolling through in to Jinsei Shinzaki’s Heavenly Lock for a submission.

Becky Bayless interviewed Allison Danger. Bayless said that the last time Danger was in Chicago, she lost a two out of three falls match to Cindy Rogers. Danger’s response? ‘That was in Florida.’ Anyway, the gist of the interview was that, despite her recent losing streak, Danger now has her sights set on the SHIMMER Title. Unfortunately, she was interrupted by Rogers, who said that in order to move up, Danger was going to have to go through her. The Definition of Technician then attacked Danger, and we had ourselves an impromptu match.

Match #4: Allison Danger def. Cindy Rogers. This was very similar to their match on Volume 10, with a lot of brawling and use of the guardrails. Danger wound up getting the victory when Cindy was tangled in the ropes, leaving her an easy target for a neckbreaker.

Match #5: Cheerleader Melissa def. Alexa Thatcher. I was surprised by the crowd reaction to Thatcher, which was actually stronger than Melissa’s at some points. Melissa continually went for the Kudoh Driver (vertebreaker), and finally got the pinfall with it. Thatcher sold the move like she was dead, laying immobile for quite some time and requiring the entire referee crew to assist her from the ring.

Match #6: The Minnesota Homewrecking Crew of Lacey & Rain def. Portugese Princess Ariel & Josie. Ariel & Josie had teamed together on earlier DVDs but had recently been doing singles work. Josie’s dropped a ton of weight since I last saw her and looks great. This was a pretty standard M(n)HWC match, with plenty of good double teaming, and, of course, cheating. Ariel was pummeled for quite some time and then got the hot tag, after which she and Josie hit a variant on the Hart Attack, with Ariel coming off of the second rope to deliver the clothesline. However, that wasn’t enough to put away the Homewreckers, as minutes later they got Ariel in to their spike tomikaze and got the win. All four women were at the top of their games here, particularly Ariel, who at one point busted out a sick spinebuster that I’d never seen from her before.

Match #7: The Experience of Lexie Fyfe & Malia Hosaka def. MsChif & Daffney. This was a bit of a grudge match, as Chif & Daffney dealt the Experience their first loss in tag team competition. To get revenge, Fyfe and Hosaka did a number on Daffney’s bad knee at the last SHIMMER show in Florida. The knee was also the focal point of this match, with the veterans doing a good job of targeting it until Daffney slipped away and tagged MsChif. The scream queen ran wild, but she was ultimately herded away from the ring so that Fyfe and Hosaka could hit their double team gordbuster on Daffney and get the win. The four-way brawl that occurred between the women towards the end of the match was near perfect, with a ton of action, yet not so much that the crowd couldn’t follow it. It’ll be interesting to see how that gets edited together for the DVD.

Match #8: ‘DARK ANGEL’ SARAH STOCK~! def. Daizee Haze. Stock was appearing unannounced, and the crowd went nuts for her. They did some awesome mat wrestling during the first five minutes, literally better than any other quick back and forth exchange that I’ve seen two women do. At one point it looked like Haze had the Dark Angel beat with a Yakuza kick, but Stock rolled to the outside. Daizee followed her out with a dive. I couldn’t see the impact from where I was sitting, but there was a sick thud on the hardwood floor as a result of that one. As Haze was going down, it looked like Stock might’ve been slightly out of position to catch her. Daizee was fine, though, and the match continued. Eventually Haze got in a heart punch and looked for the Mind Trip, but Stock blocked it and turned the move in to a victory roll to win. Great stuff all around. This may have been the best match that I’ve ever seen live. Well, at least it was until . . .

Match #9: Sara Del Rey def. Amazing Kong to retain the SHIMMER Title. Though the crowd was small, there was definitely a ‘big fight’ atmosphere in the air for this one. The two wrestled a back and forth contest, with Kong perhaps having more of an edge the longer that the match wore one. They both managed to get in all of their trademark moves, and Del Rey did land a German suplex on the big girl, as she’d recently done in ROH and FIP. More impressive still was the fact that Del Rey got Kong up in to the Royal Butterfly AND took her over in to the slam. After this move, both women were down with referee Bryce Remsburg applying the count. Del Rey was up around eight, while Kong could not return to her feet before ten, and thus lost the match. The reaction to the finish was interesting. If you had your eye on Kong, it was pretty clear from her positioning during the eight count that she wasn’t getting up, and that gave some (myself included) an inkling of how the match was going to turn out. Others, however, had their attention elsewhere and didn’t even realize why the bell rang when it did. Those people were not happy, and there was a small ‘bullshit’ chant. I personally didn’t think that the ending weakened what was otherwise a great contest, though I’m betting that there were members of the crowd who would disagree with me.

The main events for Volume 16 were announced immediately after the Kong/Del Ray finish, which I’m guessing was a move to pacify those who were unhappy with the way the match ended. For the most part, it appeared to work.

Taped for Volume 16

Match #1: Lorelei Lee def. Amber O’ Neal. Lee was quite green during her initial SHIMMER run but showed a world of improvement here. She hit two big moves (a cross body and an elbow) out of beautiful handsprings which propelled her at least halfway across the ring. I don’t recall what she used to get the win, but it may have been a bulldog variant. This was probably a step below O’ Neal/Black but was still a fine opener.

Match #2: Cindy Rogers def. Daffney. This match was odd. Early on, Daffney fell to the floor, and she started once again selling her knee, almost to the point where I thought they were doing an injury angle. However, she did get back in to the ring and was still selling it like crazy. Then, out of nowhere, she just started wrestling again. I’m not talking about the situation in which a wrestler starts making a comeback and stops selling at the same time. It was like gears changed, and, all of a sudden, we were in a completely different match. Rogers ultimately won with the TCB, her version of the dragon sleeper. This was far from being the best match in SHIMMER history.

Match #3: Ariel & Josie def. Portia Perez & Nicole Matthews. This was another solid tag team match in a series of them. Fans were all over Perez with chants about the fact that she, in their words, ‘looks twelve.’ Matthews may actually look younger, but nobody picked up on that. Portia got her first singles win in SHIMMER by beating Josie with a chain shot, and they did do a couple of spots that acknowledged that history. The finish came when Josie and Portia were brawling on the floor, and Josie did something (my view was blocked) to take Perez out of commission for quite some time. This resulted in Matthews being lifted up by Ariel for a unique double team in which Josie comes off of the top rope with a blockbuster while her partner slams the opposition down in a spinebuster-like move.

Match #4: Alexa Thatcher def. Ashley Lane. These two had a somewhat unremarkable contest, though it wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. Lane has a look that could probably get her a WWE contract any time that she wanted it (think Kelly Kelly). Sadly for her, the look did not prevent her from being kicked straight in the face by Alexa, which lead to the pinfall.

Match #5: The Experience of Lexie Fyfe & Malia Hosaka def. Allison Danger & Serena Deeb. Deeb’s always been an odd wrestler for me to watch, because she looks like a very fit, attractive woman but then wrestles like a babyface from Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1980’s. Given that fact, I guess it only makes sense that she played Ricky Morton here. Ultimately she tagged in Danger, and the faces made their comeback. I loved the comeback just because Serena Deeb threw her punches during this portion of the match, and I swear that she’s the only female wrestler on the planet who can throw a good looking jab to the face. The punches were not enough to win, though, as Danger and Deeb were separated just long enough for Serena to eat the double gordbuster and get pinned.

Match #6: Daizee Haze, MsChif, & Eden Black def. Lacey, Rain, & Jetta in a six woman tag. There was a lot of comedy early on, and it was actually quite good. Highlights included the heels bringing out lab goggles to block MsChif’s green mist, Haze assaulting the bad girls’ bottles of Propel fitness water, and a three-way game of rock, paper, scissors between Rain/Lacey/Jetta to determine who would start the match. No, I don’t know how rock, paper, scissors is supposed to work with three players, and neither does Lacey, which she rather loudly admitted. Four minutes went by before the actual wrestling started, and the first thing of note was a big six-woman submission spot. The match continued with quality exchanges between the ladies and more comedy being intermingled. Towards the end, Daizee Haze and Eden Black both hit dives on the heels, with MsChif teasing a suicide dive but ultimately opting to scream at her opponents through the ropes.

Match #7: Amazing Kong def. Cheerleader Melissa. Melissa was portrayed as much less of an underdog than most of Kong’s opponents, as her hard hitting style allowed her to go toe to toe with the Amazing One. There were a ton of huge moves in this matc, and I couldn’t possibly list them all. Highlights included Melissa giving Kong a rana off of the second rope and a fat double stomp from the top. Unfortunately, Kong was not curb stomped at any point. Melissa did go for the Kudoh Driver, but it was blocked. Not long after that, Kong was able to hit her back fist and her Amazing Press to take home the victory. This may have been the best match of Volume 16, and I would peg it as being just as good as the Kong/MsChif and Kong/Haze matches from Volumes 9 & 10.

Match #8: Sara Del Rey def. ‘Dark Angel’ Sarah Stock to retain the SHIMMER Title in a two out of three falls match. Yes, there were plenty of ‘Let’s Go Sara(h)!’ chants in the opening moments of this one. For the first five minutes or so, they did a quick back and forth match until Stock was able to get the advantage thanks to the POWER OF LUCHA LIBRE. She did a series of three big lucha spots and was going for a fourth when Del Rey hit her with a German suplex out of a wheelbarrow position to score the first fall in just under ten minutes. Fall number two saw Del Rey dominating for the most part and getting a little bit frustrated by her inability to put away Dark Angel. At one point, Stock fought out of the Royal Butterfly and later got her own rollup, evening the score at one fall apiece. This makes Stock only the second woman in SHIMMER history to pin Del Rey, the first being the injured Mercedes Martinez. The third fall was also dead even until, out of nowhere, the champion got a rollup out of the corner and retained her title. From my angle, Stock’s shoulder actually came up at one point during that final pinfall, though I don’t know if it was a mistake that can be covered by camera work or something intentional that will play in to a rematch. I’d say that this was a very good main event, albeit a step below Del Rey/Kong and Haze/Stock from earlier in the evening.

Overall: One of the reasons that I keep going back to SHIMMER is that they keep delivering, and tonight was no exception. I would have paid $30 just to see Stock vs. Del Rey, Stock vs. Haze, Kong vs. Melissa, or Kong vs. Del Rey. However, the fact that I got all four of those matches plus highly entertaining undercards made this ticket a great buy. Though I’m sure that there will be some folks lining up to complain about the ending to the much-hyped Kong/Del Rey title bout, it did make sense in the context of the match, sets up a potential rematch, and certainly wasn’t enough to put a damper on all of Volume 15 for yours truly. The entire taping ran about six and a half hours, but it never once dragged and provided entertainment throughout. The fact that the card can keep its audience captivated for such a long period of time is probably the best testament to the product’s quality. Kudos to Dave Prazak and to the SHIMMER roster, as they’ve hit another one out of the park and produced two more DVDs that are must-haves for any fan of women’s wrestling.