Evolution Schematic 10.04.08: SHIMMER (Part 1)

Sorry for last week’s no show. Yeah. This week’s isn’t much better, thanks to a combination of me being elsewhere having fun a lot this weekend and my monitor dying, forcing me to do this in 600X400 which isn’t conductive to long essay style writing.

Go read my Fact Or Fiction appearance. I totally owned the Rant Wars boys, even if I lapsed into my own parlance and didn’t clarify myself. Still, Wrestling 2.0 is a good name for the second generation stable, don’t you think?

Once you’re done there, go sign up for Stablewars No Mercy Play-Per-View. Win stuff, and prove you’re better than the 411 writers!

Anyway, on with the show, an ES about a company I’d like to work at least one taping for at some point.

And yes, I am aware that that doesn’t make sense on the face of it. Work it as a manager/bodyguard, to clarify.

Smartypants.

Overview

Women.

Eye Candy.

Tits.

Valets.

Knockouts.

Divas.

To most wrestling fans, these terms are practically interchangeable. Who really, when you get down to it, cares about women’s wrestling? As long as the look hot and wear as little as possible, they can do whatever, be as tough as they like but we’ll still just look at them as sex objects. This is the Xena effect, and has taken a fairly strong grip on the non-Japanese wrestling fandom. If you don’t live over there and know that 90% of all wrestling moves are invented by Japanese Women, you probably see women wrestlers as, well, women first, wrestlers a distant second, if at all.

Unless, of course, you have seen a few things. Perhaps it was the old school, hard as nails 70’s and 80’s women wrestling, where they had to be tough, where Moolah had a death grip on her title, and later on Wendi Richter was possibly, at a time, the second most popular person in the WWF.

Or maybe you were paying attention in the early part of this decade, and actually paid attention to the WWE Women’s Title while it was traded between the likes of Trish Stratus, Molly Holly, Jazz, Victoria, and others, back when all the women in the company suddenly hit on all cylinders and the division actually became a highlight of Raw, to such a point where the Women’s Title Main Evented a Raw broadcast. It was a true golden age that sadly did not last as long as it should have, not before the dark, Diva Search time.

Or, perhaps, you know and have seen that little oddball Indy fed. One that gives the US Indy women of today a chance to, you know, go out there and wrestle. And wrestle they have, across 20 shows so far, with 2 more coming up within the month. A company built around giving Female Athletes the chance to prove themselves, the company has seen the cream of the crop come through it’s doors. But of course, the company was hardly born whole, it has evolved, ever so slightly, as it has grown. So, let’s get everyone up to speed, shall we?

Origins- Not just a pretty face, that Dave.

Let it never, ever, be said that Dave Prazak can’t spot a business opportunity when he sees it.

A manager of several years standing in the US Indy scene, before transitioning into a manager/announcing gig, Dave across the years would find himself managing men who would fight over men who had women in their corner, often to specifically ward off him. Through various means, be it talking to them in an attempt to win them over to his side, be it seeing them interfere in the match or, on occasion, getting his ass kicked by these women, Dave realised that there were a lot of women out there without a proper platform to show their skills. They had to hook up with men in order to get anywhere in the industry, and they often rarely were in the same place at the same time as another women, let alone get a chance to wrestle them.

This would be where the cash register would go off.

There was talent out there, BEGGING for a chance to be taken seriously, so much so that they probably would work for cheap, provided they were treated with respect. Joining forces with Allison Danger, in order to ensure that women would listen to him and ward off any beliefs that he was trying to just pick up floozies or some such, and ripping off adapting the ROH/FIP business model, in late 2005, SHIMMER Women Athletes was born.

Debut- Kink working.

And began with a rather average first half show. Shantelle Taylor, as of this column YOUR TNA Knockout Champion, became the first woman to win a SHIMMER match, defeating Tiana Ringer (who is as this point in time YOUR York University Kinesiology Student) in an acceptable, if someone unmemorable match.

Team Blondage (Amber O’Neal and Krissy Vaine) defeated Cindy Rogers and Nikki Roxx, Ariel (neither the Vampire nor the Memaid) defeated Rain and Lexie Fyfe beat Christie Ricci. The show was ok, for a upstart US Indy show it was perfectly acceptable, but it wasn’t setting the world on fire.

Then the show actually kicked into gear, thanks to Cheerleader Melissa and MsChif, two stalwarts of the SHIMMER roster already, Melissa known by some as the Female American Dragon (just without the gigantic beard phase) and MsChif just freaky. And the two put on a great match that most men on the Indy scene would be happy with, MsChif pulling a slight upset win. Allison Danger and Beth Phoenix continued the roll, with the boss managing to defeat the future Santino Bonker.

Then came a 20 minute draw between Sara Del Rey and Mercedes Martinez. For 20 minutes these women kicked the crap out of each other, and thus proved to everyone that this wasn’t some bimbo federation, as they made a stand for what the company was built around, damm good wrestling.

By women.

Daizee Haze defeated the whiny, bitchy Lacey in the main event to send the fans ‘home’ happy, as the first SHIMMER event went well. Not as great as it could have gone, but it certainly made it’s mark, and proved a point.

The second show also proved a point.

That there is such a thing as a sophomore jinx.

Phase 2- Transitions in time and space.

But you can sorta understand why. The second ‘show’/DVD was filmed directly after the first one, and thus everyone was a bit tired and coming down off the rush they got when they first stepped through that curtain, realising that this was really happening.

That, and everyone seemed to be bitching or bragging.

Lacey bitched about everything physically possible (and making some things up) to show how Daizee cheated her.

Cindy Rodgers was upset at how Team Blondage cheated to beat her a few hours before, and got some revenge by beating Krissy Vaine.

Nikki Roxx (Roxxi for you Knockout fans) managed to beat Lexie Fyfe thanks to her taking too much umbrage about a fan making fun of her, uh, extremely lower back area and thus missing a vital move.

Cheerleader Melissa was angry about not winning. Tiana Ringer was upset about losing. Ariel and Shantelle Taylor were still happy from their wins, and thus never knew what hit them as Melissa and Tiana dismantled them fairly businesslike, much to the fans annoyance.

Del Rey bragged about her match, Mercedes bitched about her bragging.

Amber bitched long and hard when Christi Ricci beat her.

Danger didn’t bitch, she just went out there and beat Rain, but then when you own the company and don’t have a beer swilling redneck for a champion, you’re less prone to bitching as a rule.

Haze was complimentary to two of her opponents for that night, Mercedes and Del Rey. Lacey…

Beth Phoenix was really unhappy about having to fight MsChif, clearly freaked right the Marella out at her, but managed to use that unnerving to defeat the Non-David Flair Loving Screaming One.

And then came the 4 way elimination match, and there was bitching a-go-go.

Del Rey bitched at Haze for going to the floor in what had been a fair, competitive match up.

Haze then bitched when, after all 3 of the other girls beat her up, she finally fought back, got Lacey down, then Mercedes tagged herself in and got the pin off Haze’s hard work.

So then Haze repaid the favor, and blind tagged in to beat Mercedes, which then pissed BOTH Mercedes and Del Rey off, since they wanted to fight womano-a-womano.

And then finally, Haze lost to Del Rey, which pissed off everyone not named Sara Del Rey.

The show ended with Melissa bitching about MsChif’s luck, and then there was hype, from Allison Danger, about Rebecca Knox and her debut next show.