Dark Pegasus Video Review: SHIMMER Women Athletes Vol. 19

SHIMMER Women Athletes Vol. 19 by J.D. Dunn July 5, 2008 From Berwyn, Ill. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Allison Danger. SHIMMER Battle Royal: This is more of a Royal Rumble with :30 intervals. Portia Perez is #1. Serena Deeb is #2. They barely have time to do anything in the 30 seconds. Jennifer Blake is #3. She goes after both girls but gets tossed. Nicole Matthews is #4. She and Portia are a team, so they doubleteam Deeb. Shark Girl is #5 to even things up. Cat Power is #6. She overpowers the faces. Jetta is #7. Deeb tries to clothesline Nicole over, but can’t get the momentum. LuFisto is #8. She goes after Cat Power. Veronika Vice is #9 as Portia eliminates Shark Girl. Ariel is #10. She tosses Matthews. Rain is #11 as Vice gets tossed by LuFisto. The International Homewreckers go to work on Ariel as Lorelei Lee comes in at #12. Cheerleader Melissa comes in at #13 to a big pop. She goes after Ariel. Lorelei tries to skin the cat but gets dumped. LuFisto and Melissa get into a serious slugfest. AWESOME! Nevaeh comes in at #14. She goes after Perez. Sara Del Rey stalks down at #15 and tosses Nevaeh. Allison Danger is #16. Serena goes for a monkeyflip on Del Rey but gets tossed. Del Rey tosses LuFisto over. Danyah comes in at #17. Ashley Lane is #18, but she gets jumped by Del Rey. Melissa nearly gets tossed by Del Rey to the horror of the crowd. Amazing Kong is #19. She tosses Danya, Danger and Melissa (her TNA manager). Lane goes for a crossbody, but Kong catches her and tosses her. Mercedes Martinez is #20. Kong tosses Portia out onto the pile. She stops to gloat, which allows all the other women to gang up and toss her out. Big pop for that. Nikki Roxx is #21. People start going in short order. Del Rey eliminates most of the house, but Ariel sneaks up and tosses her. That leaves Ariel and Jetta. Jetta sets Ariel up on top, and a grumpy Del Rey yanks her off. That gives Jetta the win by default at 11:51. Way fun stuff here. It’s not really meant to be a Royal Rumble ‘event’ match, just to get a #1 contender, and it works on that level. It really got the crowd into it too. *** After the match, Del Rey tosses Ariel into the guardrail. Rebecca Bayless interviews Daizee Haze and asks her why she’s not competing. She explains that she suffered an injury and can’t compete for the first time in her six-year career. Well, that sucks. Daizee, btw, is the consummate babyface. She’s strong but she’s also adorable, and you don’t want anything bad to happen to her. Portia Perez vs. Shark Girl. Shark Girl is a pretty recognizable Daffney Unger doing Shark Boy’s gimmick. Portia still looks twelve. Nice to see some things don’t change. Shark Girl makes faces at Portia and then bites her hand. Of course, the joke is that the teeth are just part of the mask, and there’s no hole to bite through. Porta drop toeholds Shark Girl into the ropes to take over. Shark Girl goes for a bodyslam, but Perez reverses to a small package for two. Shark Girl mounts her in the corner and bites her, but Portia powerbombs her and puts her feet on the ropes for the win at 5:32. I like both ladies, and the Shark Girl act is great. That match is about average, though. ** Serena Deeb vs. Danyah. They take it to the mat early, and Deeb gets a big heelish. She ties Danyah up and stretches her out. Oh my! I didn’t notice it at first, but Serena apparently got some work done. Nice. I guess that’s the “new look” Danger was talking about. Danyah makes the perky comeback. Some of her offense looks awkward, though. Deeb tosses her aside and hits the SPEAR for the win at 6:33. This was just like a TV squash. Domination, plucky babyface comeback, finisher. * Ashley Lane & Nevaeh vs. Cat Power & Veronika Vice. Lane and Nevaeh are kind of like the female Motor City Machine Guns. Veronika looks like a pissed-off Miss Elizabeth. Cat Power has Rhino-ish thighs, but hey, she’s a wrestler and looks like she could mess some people up. The fans chant the Meow Mix jingle when she’s in. The faces work in some doubleteams early, but Ashley gets caught in the heel corner. Power & Vice do the usual heel cheating moves. Nevaeh gets the hot tag and cleans house. Her timing is a bit off, though, so it looks sloppy in points. She catches Vice, and the babyfaces finish with the STO/Yakuza Kick combo at 7:00. I’d like to see Lane and Navaeh get more doubleteam offense in. The heels did a good job, but it was kind of generic heel offense. ** Amazing Kong vs. Lorelei Lee. The referee is P.J. Drummond, who, one assumes, is the one child of Conrad Bain who turned out okay. Lee can’t even budge Kong and gets tossed around. Lee throws a few dropkicks and gets a knee up to block a corner charge. Her handspring elbow misses, and Kong KNOCKS HER THE F*** OUT with a backfist at 4:23. Oh my Lord. That was a brutal finish. 3/4* Nikki Roxx vs. Nicole Matthews. Nicole pouts because Nikki is so over. It’s weird that Nikki can’t use the name Roxxi Laveaux, but she still has all the clothes and the hair so Danger has to call it a “new look” without referencing anything that’s going on in TNA. I wish wrestlers had consistent histories regardless of promotion. It’s kind of like Marvel with its characters and not having Ben Urich write for The Daily Bugle in the Daredevil movie because the Bugle was used in Spider-Man. Nikki dominates early but charges into a knee. Nicole controls and cheats a lot, but she never really gets close to winning. Nikki comes back and finishes with the Barbie Crusher at 9:18. Kind of a typical “welcome back” squash. ** Allison Danger vs. “Girl Dynamite” Jennifer Blake. The fans get behind Danger early, and she soaks up the adulation. Stiff tie-up to start, and Blake walks up the ropes for leverage. Now, why wouldn’t Danger just – nevermind. Danger lets her go, and Blake splats on her face. Blake controls Danger by the arm and does a pretty nifty job of it with lots of armdrags and counters out of different positions. Danger takes a breather on the outside and clotheslines Blake on the floor. Back in, Danger floats over into the Lance Storm Straight-shooter. Blake makes the ropes and busts out the KENTA KOBASHI CHOPS! Dangers shoves her away, but Blake comes back with MORE KOBASHI CHOPS~! Blake goes for a schoolgirl rollup, but Danger reverses her onto her shoulders and gets the win at 9:52. Nice little action-packed match. Blake has mad Canadian skillz. **3/4 Danger pays respect to Blake and calls her the best Canadian female wrestler in a while. The Canadian NINJAS interrupt the lovefest (“One Winged Dove” is great interrupting music, btw). Portia (w/COOKIE~!) says Danger is only Diet Canadian anyway, and she wouldn’t know a great Canadian wrestler if one put her in a Sharpshooter. The NINJAS lay out a tag challenge for Blake and Danger. LuFisto vs. Rain. LuFisto is making her SHIMMER return here. LuFisto works in a lot of armdrags and uses her massive thigh advantage. Rain cheats to come back and grounds the match. LuFisto powers up and turns a Butterfly Lock into a DVD. Rain catches her going up and slams her off. That sets up the Goku-Raku Stretch. LuFisto powers out and gets pissed, putting Rain in the Camel Clutch and humbling her with crossface forearms. LuFisto blocks the Rain Drop and kills her dead with the BURNING HAMMER at 10:20. LuFisto is a little ball of thunder. **1/4 Sara Del Rey vs. Portuguese Princess Ariel. This is just after Del Rey started in with the Kevin Sullivan look. She attacks Ariel in the aisle and doesn’t let up once they get to the ring. It’s a pretty bad ass-kicking for the first ten minutes or so. Ariel gets in a few plucky shots, but it’s all the Del Rey Show, starring Sara Del Rey, produced and written by Sara Del Rey, with special guest Sara Del Rey, and featuring Billy Vera and the Beaters as the house band. Ariel gets in a Tornado Bulldog, but Del Rey catches her coming off the top and finishes with the Royal Butterfly at 14:26. Ariel got in enough offense to make it interesting, but the result was never in doubt. ** Cheerleader Melissa vs. Mercedes Martinez. Very mat-based match early on, which Melissa controls fairly easily. Melissa targets Mercedes’ upper body with whatever stretch catches her fancy. Mercedes goes low to counter and chops Melissa in the chest. Melissa takes her down and Curbstomps her, though. OUCH! They take it to the floor for some brawling, and Martinez regains control. Back in, Mercedes shrugs off a German Suplex and drops Melissa on her head with her own German Suplex. Melissa goes for the Kudo Driver but gets Brainbustered. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Melissa catches her with the Samoan Drop for two. They jockey for position, and Mercedes comes out of it with the Fisherman’s Buster at 15:47. Mercedes, presumably, is up there for a title shot after this win. I would follow Melissa up to the gates of hell, but her outside commitments pretty much mean she’ll never be the focal point of the promotion. *** Rebecca Bayless catches up with Sara Del Rey and she wants to know what’s up with Del Rey’s new look and attitude. Del Rey says she carried SHIMMER for years and now she’s going to take out her frustrations on the rest of the roster. SHIMMER Title: MsChif vs. Jetta. Jetta reminds me of Ross’ fiancé on Friends. Wow. That was vague. The British one. Jetta can’t get anything going because MsChif uses the power of the SCREAAAAM! She keeps stalling instead and busts out her personal bottle of water á la Lacey. When Jetta finally gets in MsChif rides her down and goes to work on her arm. MsChif has some SICKENING stretches. The one where she bends Jetta’s foot back to her head and then turns it into a gutbuster is particularly heinous. Jetta screams that she didn’t sign up for this. That’s some good cowardly heel. Jetta desperately tosses her into the railing and then suplexes MsChif into the ring. She wonders aloud why she did that. Jetta goes for the Stranglehold Lungblower, but MsChif overpowers her and counters to the Desecrator at 14:04. Jetta was kind of an odd choice for the challenger because I never really thought of her as a threat. Oh well, I guess it’s sort of like winning the World Title and then defending it against Santino Marella on Raw just to establish yourself. **1/2

The 411: Blah show, although it started nicely. I'm really interested in seeing more of Jennifer Blake now, though. I appreciate the show-to-show booking, but I wouldn't mind seeing something a little more high concept too. Thumbs down.
Final Score:  5.5   [ Not So Good ]