BRM Reviews SHIMMER Vol. 5 (disappointing)

[Big Red Machine]

SHIMMER Vol. 5 (5/21/2006)- Berywn, IL

Hello and welcome to BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series! Today we’ll be looking at another show from my shameful shelf of unwatched DVDs. After last month’s awesome main event, I promised you another show with Sara Del Rey in the main event, and I have delivered. Well… really Dave Prazak delivered, but I’ll take credit for finding it. Tonight Sara will be in a match with no time limit against Mercedes Martinez. Also, we’ll be watching Daizee Haze wrestle little baby Becky Lynch. Those are the top two matches of SHIMMER Vol. 5!

DAIZEE HAZE vs. PORTIA PEREZ-2.5/10
This was a bonus match on the DVD, but the internet says it was the actual opener on this show, so I’m just putting it here.
Daizee won a short match cleanly with the Mind Trip.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Rebecca Knox came out and laid Daizee out with a German Suplex. Then she cut a promo that I couldn’t understand most of because of the poor quality of the audio and because of the crowd shouting her down, but what I could understand was not good. Not all great promos are born being great promos. Now I understand why Prazak had this as a bonus content on the DVD.

THE REAL SHOW STARS HERE:
DAIZEE HAZE PROMO- okay
This was taped before this show. She talked about how SHIMMER was “changing the landscape” for women’s wrestling, which was true, but talking about this being the first-ever two-out-of-three falls match in a promotion that had only had four previous shows came off as a little silly to me. Her comments about Rebecca Knox were perfectly acceptable babyface stuff, but noting inspiring, either. They also showed us a replay of the finish of the above bonus match and the attack and a brief (and still barely comprehensible) clip of the promo.

LORELEI LEE vs. RAIN- 4.75/10
Dave Prazak and Allison Danger are your commentary team. While hyping up the tag match later, they noted that Ariel’s partner would be a surprise because her previous partner, Shantelle Taylor, was no longer in SHIMMER because she had “signed a developmental contract with WWE” and not only did they wish her well, but they talked about show she used SHIMMER as a platform to get that opportunity. I thought that was particularly interesting given how indies at the time generally treated the idea of wrestlers going to WWE on screen (they crapped on WWE as being easier, more restrictive, not the level of competition, even though most bookers and promoters fully supported their wrestlers doing so behind the scenes), and especially with the way women’s wrestling was in WWE at the time, and the fact that SHIMMER’s existence is essentially a direct response to that.

It’s a rare match where you can have the babyface work the headlock and have it be compelling without doing comedy, but they did that for the shine here and it worked very well. Rain won cleanly with Acid Rain.
After the finish, there was a very abrupt cut to a clip of the women’s Scramble match at Supercard of Honor, which I remembered being extremely fun. They showed us everything from the big moonsault to the outside through MsChif picking up the win.

CINDY ROGERS vs. MSCHIF- 6/10
Really fun submission wrestling. I need to find more Cindy Rogers. MsChif won cleanly with the Desecrator. Once again, we had a VERY abrupt cut after the finish, this time to a…

NIKITA PROMO TAPED LAST NIGHT- okay
This was fine built to her match with Lacey, but it was more than a little long-winded, and the larger framing of this as an “Americans women don’t think British women are tough” angle rather than just Lacey not thinking Nikita was tough didn’t do anything for me.

AMBER O’NEAL vs. SERENA DEEB- 6/10
Amber won with a roll-up and a handful of tights. She was an effective heel throughout.

ARIEL & JOSIE vs. THE EXPERIENCE (Lexi Fife & Malia Hosaka)- 5.75/10
This was a lot of very old-school tag team psychology (which is usually good) and very basic stuff (which was just passable). The Experience got the win heelishly.

ALLISON DANGER vs. CHEERLEADER MELISSA- 7/10
Prazak handled commentary for this match alone.
The fans chanted “YOU’RE IN DANGER!” at CLM. I wonder if anyone ever chanted that at Ares.
These two had what seemed like it was on track to be a really great match, but MsChif came out and distracted CLM, allowing Danger to win via roll-up. Then they cut to CLM and MsChif brawling on the floor. This show is on two hours and twenty-six minutes long, so I can’t imagine these cuts are for time. What is up with these cuts? Did something go so horribly wrong with CLM getting out of the ring to attack MsChif that it had to get cut from the DVD?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
The aforementioned brawl was quickly broken up by referees and wrestlers. After MsChif was escorted to the back, the others made the mistake of letting Melissa go, and she charged to the back to try to get her hands on MsChif again.

AMAZING KONG vs. NIKKI ROXX- 7.25/10
This was Kong’s SHIMMER debut, and one of her first matches in the USA. Danger was back on commentary. Given that, I was shocked that she didn’t play more of the monster heel. This might actually be the least I have seen her play a monster heel in a match (though she still wrestled like the bigger wrestler and used her size well). Nikki was a great underdog for her, too. This has me quite curious to see more Amazing Kong from this era.

LACEY vs. NIKITA- 6.5/10
Cutting out the entrances meant that we missed out on a significant amount of Lacey yelling at the crowd, which is the best part of Lacey’s matches. Right after the bell, she did grab the referee and demand that he “TELL THAT F*CKING PERVERT TO STOP TAKING PICTURES OF ME! Fans are supposed to pay for that!” Wonderful!
The announcers built Nikita up, but I didn’t see anything above average here. She countered an Implant DDT and hit a backbreaker to get the three-count… and they cut away before we even heard the bell ring!

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH: Daizee Haze vs. Rebecca Knox- 7/10
This grudge match started off with… comedy and dancing. Not good.
Daizee got the first fall. Knox got the second fall using the ropes in a way that really wouldn’t add any extra leverage, which is one of my big pet peeves. After seeing this Allison Danger said that she wanted to see Daizee “kill her right in the ring. We could have our very own deathmatch on our hands.” That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? Knox won with illegal leverage on a submission where the pain was too great for Daizee to get her shoulders up. This whole match had a feeling of drabness to it. Whatever intensity this feud was supposed to have, it really didn’t translate.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- bad
Allison Danger left the commentary table to cut a promo on Knox… but in between her showing up a ringside and her starting to talk, we had another cut. How long cold it have possibly taken her to get a microphone that we needed to cut it out of the show?
Danger says that she and Daizee are both in ROH, and ROH has a Pure Title… so she wants a Pure Rules match against Knox at Volume Six so that Knox can’t illegally use the ropes because the ropes will be legal. That was theory, anyway, but that doesn’t really make sense with what we saw here. The Pure Rules mean that you can’t break holds with the ropes after you’ve used your three rope-breaks, not that opponent is allowed to use them for illegal leverage. Well… it kind of winds up playing out that way, but it doesn’t feel like a real part of the rules to me. I don’t think anyone had ever won with extra leverage from the ropes on a Figure Four after his opponent used up his rope-breaks. It was always a submission that happened to use the ropes and the big deal was made about it ropes no longer being able to break the hold via the ropes rather than the opponent being allowed to use the leverage. This feels like challenging someone to a three-way because you want a no DQs and no count-outs. It technically works, but it feels a little odd.


NO TIME LIMIT MATCH: Sara Del Rey vs. Mercedes Martinez- 7.75/10
Before this match, they showed us some highlights of their match from Volume 1, followed by a very bland promo from Sara from Volume 3 challenging Mercedes to this rematch.
As you’d predict, this went a long time (twenty-two minutes). They hit each other hard and did some head-drops. Sara pulled out the win by rolling Mercedes up when Mercedes had her in a submission. For whatever reason, this just didn’t draw me in the way you would want a main event to draw you in. The wrestling was fine to great, but it lacked the gravitas to pull me in, and the story was just “we’re doing stuff to each other,” so that didn’t pull me in, either, because I had no rooting interest.
After the match, Sara told Mercedes she could have a rematch any time she wanted.

THE EXPERIENCE PROMO- fine
They will use their combined experience advantage over others to remain dominant.

IT IS ANNOUNCED THAT CHEERLEADER MELISSA AND MSCHIF WILL FACE EACH OTHER IN A LAST WOMAN STANDING MATCH ON VOLUME 6- cool

MERCEDES MARTINEZ’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY LACEY- good
Mercedes wants to take Sara up on her offer for a rematch at the next show, but Lacey barges in and says she is bored of seeing those two. She says that Mercedes’ pin on her at Volume 2 shouldn’t count because everyone in that match teamed up on her. She tells Mercedes to get a partner to face her and Rain. Sara Del Rey showed up and offered to be Mercedes’ partner. Everyone agreed to this.


This was not a good show from SHIMMER. The wrestling was disappointing, and the production values were terrible. I’m not someone who usually even comments on production values, but the production values on this show were TERRIBLE. The mics were bad, the ring was positioned in front of windows that created a glare, and basically every light in the building produced a lens flare the entire show. Hopefully next month’s review will be better in that regard… but considering that it’s IWA-Mid-South, I’m not optimistic.