** SHIMMER DVD Reviews by Brad Dykens **
October 22, 2006 – – – – – Berwyn, Illinois
SHIMMER Women Atheletes Volume #7
SHIMMER Women Athlete’s is back with its seventh volume of the very best women’s professional wrestling in the entire world. SHIMMER gets hotter and hotter with every DVD they release to the home audience as they build towards the eventual crowning of the first ever SHIMMER champion! I for one would like to thank SHIMMER, Dave Prazak, and all of the girls for helping to revitalize women’s wrestling from the miserable perception perpetrated by “those perverts up in New York.”
The DVD started out on a somber note with Dave Prazak announcing that Rebecca Knox had suffered a career threatening head injury in Germany and her scheduled 1-hour time limit match with Daizee Haze had to be called off. Prazak wished Knox well as she recovers from the injury at home in Ireland and that goes double for the staff of Online World of Wrestling. Knox was a big part of SHIMMER and hopefully will be again some day. Best wishes to Rebecca Knox.
The first match featured Canadian bad-girl Tiana Ringer taking on “Country Girl” Lorelei Lee. Tiana Ringer looks like she has been working her image and lost her shorts in Mexico but luckily she found a pair of butt-huggers which only covered about 7/10ths of her rear end. Lorelei Lee has a great look for wrestling but she’s still just a little green but has a great future if she keeps at it. Tiana scored the pinfall on Lorelei and ran backstage to have her new shorts surgically removed from her butt ( 4 / 10 ).
Daizee Haze cut a promo challenging Cheerleader Melissa to face her in the previously advertized 1-hour time limit main event.
Next up we has pixie stick spokes-woman Cindy Rogers (I say that because she is so hyper) facing the happy-go-lucky “Portuguese Princess” Ariel in a rare face-vs.-face match. Cindy Rogers looked especially good in this match but it was the Portuguese Princess who hit the Dariel (Stunner) and scored the important victory in the end ( 6.5 / 10 ). Ariel helped Rogers up after the match and offered to shake hands but Rogers inexplicably blew her off. I’m sensing a heel turn. Okay it’s obvious.
Lacey accepted the open challenge that was issued by Nikki Roxx, who was looking to climb the ladder in SHIMMER.
The veteran tag team of Lexie Fyfe and Malia Hosaka, collectively known as “The Experience,” were up against OVW’s Serena Deeb and Canadian cutie Portia Perez. It goes without saying that I am automatically biased towards any Canadian talent, but I have also exchanged some pleasant emails with Ms. Perez and can vouch for her down-to-earth personality as I am the proud owner of an autographed Portia Perez photo! This was also my first chance to see Portia in action so I only hoped that I didn’t put her on to high of a pedestal. She looked nervous but held her own against SHIMMER’s two most experienced performers. Hosaka and Fyfe proved that experience is a wrestlers greatest asset by easily putting away their younger opponents ( 6 / 10 ).
One half of the Minnesota Home-wrecking Crew, Rain, met up with fellow IWA: Mid South alumni MsChif inside of the SHIMMER ring. I would love to see MsChif vs. Malia Hosaka some day. One can’t help but cringe whenever the contortionist MsChif allows her opponents to twist and bend her into sick positions with various submission moves. Cheerleader Melissa quietly made her way to ringside even though her feud with MsChif was supposed to be over. Lacey ran out and knocked Melissa over and threw a chain into the ring so Rain could use it to knock out MsChif! Melissa pulled Lacey off the ring apron and the referee disqualified Rain for using a foreign object ( 7 / 10 ). Looks like they’re building towards a tag team match on a future DVD.
Calgary native Nattie Neidhart, who happens to be the daughter of Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, cut a promo about being proud to be in SHIMMER and debuting against the undefeated Sara Del Rey tonight. Yeah baby, hahahahaha!
SHIMMER ambassador Allison Danger wrestled Team Blondage survivor Amber O’Neal. Daffney Unger returned to the announce booth to join Dave Prazak in calling the match since Allison is the regular commentator. The best thing they could do with Amber O’Neal right now is find her a new Team Blonde partner. As long as it’s not that useless stripper Lollipop. Allison Danger made Amber look like a million bucks but forced O’Neal to tap out to the STF ( 7.5 / 10 ).
Ever since the debut of SHIMMER Women Athletes I have been begging to see Massachusetts wrestler Nikki Roxx in more high profile matches. Ironically she has been asking for the same thing lately and we both got our wish on volume seven as Roxx wrestled the Minnesota Home-wrecker Lacey in one-on-one action. I can’t review a Nikki Roxx match without mentioning that she has the best ass in the wrestling business. There I said it. Roxx was pumped up and very comfortable being put to the test against the more established Lacey. It was a classic case of good prevailing over evil as fan-favorite Roxx scored the biggest victory of her SHIMMER career after nailing Lacey with the Barbie Crusher ( 8.5 / 10 ); Who rocks? Nikki Roxx!
The First Lady of Hardcore, Montreal’s own LuFisto, returned to SHIMMER to face the Latina Sensation, Mercedes Martinez, in a first-time-ever match-up. If you don’t know who LuFisto is – first of all shame on you – then go here. Mercedes Martinez earned a hard-fought victory over LuFisto with a Fishermens Buster ( 7.5 / 10 ) Unfortunately, shortly after this event, Martinez and LuFisto both suffered career threatening injuries. All the best to both on getting healthy again soon. Don’t worry though, LuFisto and Mercedes Martinez both appear on SHIMMER Volume 8.
Nattie Neidhart made her debut in SHIMMER and you won’t believe how similar she is to her father, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. The REALLY scary part is that she’s actually kinda hot. Nattie’s first opponent was my favorite female wrestler, the undefeated Sara Del Rey. Nattie and Sara are very familiar with each other from their battles in Japan – some of which can been seen on Sara Del Rey’s DVD. Allison Danger commented that she was a huge fan of 99% of the Hart family, which I’m pretty sure was a clever insult at Nattie’s controversial cousin “Teddy.” These two girls worked really hard and gave the fans the best match of Volume 7 with over twenty grueling minutes of strong style wrestling action. Nattie kept trying to apply the Sharp-shooter, the move made famous by her uncle Bret “The Hitman” Hart, but Del Rey repeatedly reversed the hold and actually managed to apply the Sharp-shooter on Nattie! Nattie fought her way out of it but found herself in a Butterfly Suplexed and pinned by the American Angel ( 9 / 10 ). As many of you know, Nattie Neidhart was signed by WWE shortly after this show. Best of luck to her in the land of sports entertainment! Nattie will be featured on SHIMMER Volume 8 before she gets assigned to Deep South Wrestling in Georgia.
After the match, Mercedes Martinez confronted Sara Del Rey and they set up a match for Volume 8.
The main event was a thirty minute classic between Daizee Haze, who has been in more SHIMMER main events than anybody else, and CAC Future Legend Cheerleader Melissa. It’s great to see Melissa in the main event spot, although I wish she wasn’t a heel so I could cheer for her! After thirty minutes of methodical grappling, Melissa used the dangerous Kudo-driver (aka the Vertaebreaker) to finish off Daizee Haze ( 8 / 10 ). That was the first times in many attempts that Melissa successfully executed the Kudo-driver on a SHIMMER opponent. After the match, the Minnesota Home-wrecking Crew attacked Cheerleader Melissa until MsChif made the save. Lacey and Rain challenged Melissa and McChif to a future tag team match (most likely on SHIMMER Volume 8).
Final Thoughts: The production quality was a major improvement from volumes five and six, which were slightly diminished by poor lighting. All systems were go and volume seven looked a hell of a lot better! The last four matches on this DVD are just phenomenal and well worth checking out.
If you would like to purchase this or any other SHIMMER DVD, please check out ROHwrestling.com – and also be sure to show your support by checking out www.SHIMMERwrestling.com – Thank you!