SHIMMER: The Foundation for the WWE’s Women’s Revolution

20 years ago, Dave Prazak and Allison Danger started Shimmer Women Athletes. They wanted to create a promotion that showcased women on a serious, non-objectifying platform.

The WWE was two years into the Diva Search era, Trish Stratus would retire a year later, and Lita would follow suit a year after that. Victoria and Mickie James would stick it out for a few more years, but the WWE was clearly looking to showcase a certain type of woman.

SHIMMER provided a platform for women to show that they were just as capable in the ring. That they deserved to be given time in the ring and to be more than just eye candy.

While they would shut down in 2021, I wanted to spend some time today to examine their legacy and impact on the industry we all love.

Alumni

The sheer number of women who came through SHIMMER on their way to bigger things is a long list. I won’t list them all here, but I did want to highlight a few.

Sara Del Rey: The first Shimmer Champion, she would be a mainstay in SHIMMER until 2012. The assistant head coach for NXT, Sara Amato, has been training the next generations of WWE wrestlers for 13 years now. Her training has helped the women to showcase why they are more than just eye candy.

Awesome Kong: After building her name in Japan and SHIMMER, Kong would go on to be one of the main pillars of the TNA Knockouts Division. Her matches with Gail Kim would help bring women’s wrestling to a more mainstream audience.

Bayley: Before there was Bayley, there was Davina Rose. Her work in SHIMMER would help her get noticed and signed by the WWE. She was one of the driving forces to get the women more time in NXT. And has become one of the most respected women’s wrestlers ever.

Asuka: Before starting her decade of dominance in the WWE, Kana would spend three years in SHIMMER. She would have great matches against Sara Del Rey, Mercedes Martinez, and Ayako Hamada. Her time in SHIMMER helped her to learn the American style, which she would use to great effect once she started in NXT.

Becky Lynch: While her run in SHIMMER would end due to her concussion, before she left, she would have a fantastic feud with Daizee Haze. Their 2-Out-3 Falls match, Prazak praised the match, calling it “One of the best women’s matches I’ve seen on US soil in a long time.”

These are just some of the many women who passed through SHIMMER on their way to greater things. A quick shout-out to a couple more in Paige and Athena, who also had good runs in SHIMMER before going on to be much bigger deals in WWE and AEW/ROH.

Legacy

Needless to say, if it wasn’t for SHIMMER providing a place for these women, and many more like them, we wouldn’t have had the women’s revolution, or at least not one that was as successful.

SHIMMER paved the way for the Knockouts in TNA, which helped to show what women could do. Gail Kim, Awesome Kong, ODB, and The Beautiful People were given time to showcase their talent. It was something totally different than what we had in the WWE.

During the late 2000s and the 2010s, women wanting to get into wrestling didn’t have much to hope for in the WWE. But SHIMMER, TNA, and Japan showed them that they could do more. That desire to do more, and on the inspiration of women like Lita and Trish Stratus, would drive them to push for more.

Bayley didn’t want to be a diva, nor did Paige, Becky Lynch, or Natalya. They wanted to be wrestlers. So, when fan backlash finally gave them that spot, they were ready to show what they could do. Since then, we’ve seen so many firsts for women in wrestling.

The first Women’s Hell in a Cell, Money in the Bank, Royal Rumble, TLC match, and two different WrestleMania Main Events. It’s commonplace now for women to main event Raw and SmackDown over the men; the NXT women’s division is constantly outshining the men’s roster. And all of this can be traced back to a small women’s only independent company.