Shimmer Volume 8

The show begins with a promo from a glasses wearing Sara Del Rey. She awkwardly tells people to check out her match from Shimmer Volume 5 against Mercedes and then goes over the history of the two of them and how Martinez blames her for their loss against Lacey and Rain.  She also seems a little annoyed that she has to face Mercedes again despite beating her already, but says she will do it again. This was not good at all. She seems so uncomfortable on the microphone and having her show frustration that she again has to face Martinez does seem a little heelish to me.

Lexie Fyfe vs Lorelei Lee

We have our first Lexie Fyfe match since Volume 3 and it occurs to me that since that shocking victory over MsChif Fyfe is on a 5 match winning streak right now! Lorelei Lee on the other hand hasn’t won a match since Volume 3 so I guess given the amount of times Dave’s talked about the women needing to win to maintain their spots a loss here could mean trouble for her. Lee comes out hatless again. Why doesn’t she just buy lots of cheap ones so that she can afford to keep giving them away?

This was honestly a nothing match and aside from Lyfe blocking Lee’s handspring backflip elbow with a knee to the back and Lorelei’s brilliant coughing and spluttering selling of a camel clutch choke there wasn’t anything noteworthy about it. For a match this short I think they should have had a back-and-forth encounter but this was all Fyfe and her offence wasn’t anything to write home about and Lee needs someone to help make her look good and Lexi didn’t do that. The end came about when Lorelei went for a standing moonsault but Fyfe got her knees up and then hit the Attitude Adjuster for the three.

Cindy Rogers vs Deeb

Rogers comes out with her usual ridiculous jumping around entrance, but the fans know she’s on the cusp of a turn and one can be overheard stating “she’s no longer a face” in an amusingly deadpan way. Her opponent is Serena Deeb who’s got a new attire at last, wearing blue rather than pink. I reckon Cindy saw that Serena teamed with Portia Perez last volume and wants to take down yet another tag team, still bitter over her Volume 1 loss to Team Blondage. Danger asks Prazak “What makes Serena so Debious?” because her surname is Deeb and ‘Debious’ rhymes with ‘devious’ I guess?

Cindy Rogers works the leg and does do some incredible submission moves that I’ve never seen before, but then out of the blue wins with the TCB which wouldn’t do any damage to the leg at all. I know I spend more time putting down Cindy Rogers than I do any other wrestler on the roster but I’ve now seen eight matches of hers and don’t think that any of them were any good. It’s frustrating as she proves with some of the superb submission moves that I’ve regularly praised that she has talent but there seems to be no rhyme or rhythm to her matches. It’s as if she’s an AI in a wrestling game where she does random moves rather than use ones that will add to a story or make sense. Serena to her credit does a sublime job of selling the leg during and after the match which I appreciate even if it played no part in the finish. For my money Deeb is the best at selling an injury out of anybody who’s ever competed in Shimmer and this was the first time when watching these old shows where I can see the potential in her that she later realised. After the bell Rogers stomps on Serena which disgusts Allison.

In the back we see Cheerleader Melissa in the locker room tying up her boots when MsChif walks into view. Melissa asks, in such a worried way, if this team is really gonna work and MsChif just throws some of her entrance chain gear into her lap and silently leaves. I’ve got to say the locker room looks so packed with bags spewed everywhere and this is only with 23 women on the roster. How are they going to manage when we get 40+ on future shows?! I liked this segment. Quick and effective and Melissa just had a sentence to say which is the best use of her. I noticed the second time I watched this segment that Josie walks into shot in the background and sort of freezes when she notices the camera which made me laugh.

Lufisto vs Allison Danger

I’m not quite sure why such a high profile match like this is so early on the card but I shouldn’t complain too much as one of the biggest gripes people have with these early shows is that the first half is much weaker than the latter half so this rectifies that by spreading the big matches out. Lufisto is wrestling with a tie on which I just adore. It’s one of the first signs we have of the kooky anime character she evolves into. She also has a bandage on her back, which she also had on Volume 7. I don’t know why she has the bandage but I imagine it might be the result of one of the death matches that she made her name from. If so then the bandage works as reminder of her wrestling past and the tie hints to the future so this makes an interesting point in the middle of her career. Allison Danger comes out and she’s wearing an outfit that combines the stars of the USA and the Maple Leaf of Canada and is my favourite attire of hers.

After a handshake at the start things get heated early on in the match when Danger rips off the bandage from Lufisto’s back and specifically targets the injury for the reminder of the contest. Seriously what the fuck Allison? All your talk about wrestling the right way and not taking shortcuts and then you do this? Yes it’s not cheating and makes logical sense that you’d target the injured body part, but then technically Rebecca Knox wasn’t cheating when she faked the injury either so Danger’s character just seems like such a hypocrite to me. Even Prazak has to mention that Danger’s acting slightly out of character here.  Lufisto fights back and does some incredibly painful looking kicks to Danger and then she fires up with some Kobashi chops and running attacks to a cornered Allison. Lufisto applies a bodyscissors to Danger and the fans all chant “tap, tap, tap” so either Lufisto’s won them over or Danger’s behaviour has turned them against her. Lufisto then traps Danger in the Coquina Clutch and the referee stops the match giving Lufi the victory.

I thought this was a lot of fun. I like Danger as a wrestler but completely hate her Shimmer character so seeing her act like a jerk and then get her arse handed to her with some vicious kicks and chops was very satisfying to see. I preferred this to Lufisto’s match against Mercedes on Volume 7 and think this was Allison’s best match since Volume 3. Lufisto helps Allison up and they hug and then walk to the back.

Amber O’Neal vs Josie

Josie sat out the last volume whilst Portia Perez got a main show debut but she’s taking the Canadian’s place this time out. Amber O’Neal is sat on top of the turnbuckles as usual and she looks super cute as she nods her head in time to Josie’s awful “music”. A fan shouts that O’Neal sucks but she replies that their Mum sucks. Haha, yeah I know “your Mum” is such a lame comeback, but it’s always one that cracks me up and I love that for the second show in a row she’s owned this crowd. Not content with owning the fans she turns her attention to Josie by saying “I went toe-to-toe with Allison Danger, do you think I’m worried about this hood rat?” Awesome! Josie tries a comeback but it completely dies on its arse and is met with silence which I found hilariously awkward. The fans are still on Amber’s case as they chant “Skanky Barbie” at her whilst Danger accuses her of taking shortcuts. Seriously, the cheek of the woman!

While watching this match I was wondering exactly what Amber O’Neal’s finisher is as she’s only won one singles match so far and that was with a rollup and handful of tights. I get my answer as she puts away Josie with a STO. A bit better from Josie here compared to her previous tag matches and she does a nice lungbuster from the corner and a diving neckbreaker from the middle rope which later becomes her finisher called the Blockbuster, but I think here she hardly makes any contact with O’Neal with the move. Amber’s character is enough to get her by but she’s yet to have match that I’ve really been able to get into.

Backstage promo where Cindy Rogers smarmily states that was not Serena’s night in a really condescending way. Allison Danger comes down from the moral high ground to ask her what the stomp on Deeb was all about after the match and to lecture Cindy. Rogers explains that she wants to get noticed and will do whatever’s necessary. Danger reckons that Cindy’s better than this and tells her to go about it the right away. Cindy agrees that’s she’ll do it the right way, but then says she’ll do that by any means necessary. Oddly despite Cindy clearly just stating that no, she will not listen to Danger and will do whatever it takes to go up the roster Allison walks off seemingly satisfied that her pep talk has worked.

Malia Hosaka vs Nikki Roxx

Malia’s last singles outing on Volume 3 feels like so long ago that I forgot Malia has different entrance music when she’s not in a tag team. She walks through the curtain to silence, but tells the fans to shut up anyway. Nikki Roxx is super over. I said that before but her reactions keep growing at such a quick rate and truthfully were it not for her being so popular I would have completely lost interest in this match. I was actually looking forwards to this as I love Nikki and convinced myself that I liked Malia but just don’t enjoy The Experience’s tag matches, but this just went on for far too long. It was over eleven minutes and honestly felt longer. Malia’s obviously an old school wrestler and her constant cheap tactics are, if you excuse the Michael Cole-ism, vintage heel heat, but I just don’t find it all that entertaining to watch and I’m disappointed as I’ve been wanting to see her in singles action for a while now however this didn’t entertain me. That said the ending was quite good as Malia tried a Hurricanrana and Roxx turned it into a powerbomb with a bridge for the win. It looked really smooth and almost like Kevin Owens’ Pop-Up Powerbomb. Malia has a temper tantrum after her loss, just like Amber did when she was defeated by Nikki too. People just don’t like being beaten by Nikki Roxx.

Nattie Neidhart vs Ariel

I’m in pop heaven here during the entrances with Cyndi Lauper vs B*Witched. This begins again with more great wrestling from Nattie. I find it odd how I’ve found her to be more entertaining in her two Shimmer matches than I have in almost her entire WWE run. Nattie is quite popular with the fans and I usually don’t like fans cheering on heels, but due to my love of the Hart Foundation I really want to cheer her too and keep forgetting that she was a heel during her brief Shimmer run. Dave mentions Ariel’s six woman tag match against Amazing Kong from Volume 6 and says that Kong will be returning to Shimmer soon. Hell yes!

The highlight of this match was when a frustrated Nattie left the ring after a dropkick from Ariel and she refused to get back into the ring so Ariel chased her round the outside until Nattie dived through the ropes back into the ring and then literally jumped into referee Brian Gorie’s arms and stayed thee until Brian just drops her. Hilarious! I remembered this spot well from my original watch but I thought it was Beth Phoenix with her superb comedy character that did it so I spent Volumes 1 & 2 waiting for Beth to do that spot. I think it’s because I keep forgetting how much fun Nattie was. Neidhart warns the ref to never drop her again and Dave says that hopefully she won’t be in his arms again before Danger quips “I don’t think anybody has to worry about being in the arms of Brian Gorie again”. Ouch, what a burn!

Neidhart tells the ref that a fan threw something at her and then when Brian Gorie was distracted she cheap shots Ariel. Nattie hits a Michinoku Drive for two and then tries the Sharpshooter but Ariel gets to the ropes before it can be locked in. Ariel’s whipped to the corner and Nattie charges towards her but is met with a boot for her trouble and Ariel connects with a tornado DDT for a near fall of her own. Ariel connects with a lovely looking Northern Lights for another two. Ariel shouts out “that’s it!” and looks to win with her Dariel, but Nattie counters it with a fantastic release German suplex. Ariel’s shrieks during that suplex were great. Neidhart locks in the Sharpshooter for the first time in Shimmer and Ariel literally screams in pain before tapping out. Nattie twice says “If you mess with the best, you die with the rest” and follows that up with a final “Yeah baby!” I love that little tribute to her Father but she sure does say it a lot and she reminds me of a pull string cowboy with how often she repeats her catchphrases during these matches.

I really quite enjoyed this. I wouldn’t say it’s a must watch or anything but I found Nattie to be very entertaining and it was good to see a more comedy side of her compared to what we saw against Del Rey. I think it was one of Ariel’s strongest showings too and I wouldn’t mind seeing her go up against one of the bigger names on the roster.

Tiana Ringer vs Daizee Haze

This should be awesome and is my most anticipated match on the show as I adore both of these women. Tiana comes out in her blue wrestling gear for the first time and she looks great although a fan shouts out that it makes her resemble a volleyball player. The fans chant that Daizee’s gonna kill Ringer, which makes Tiana angry. A lovely double springboard armdrag by Ringer allows her to show off some of the stuff she’s learnt in Mexico. Haze front facelocks Tiana, but Ringer is able to lean forwards and kicks the back of Daizee’s head and Danger puts over Tiana’s dance background which allows her to perform such athletic moves. She hasn’t done that move since the very first Shimmer match against Shantelle Taylor and it is possibly my favourite move in Shimmer and one of the most beautiful too. I think she should use that kick later on in her matches in a similar vain to AJ Styles’ Pele Kick. I also can’t believe that she never gave it a name so I’ve christened it the Bell Ringer!

Ringer also has some lovely looking kicks and some great over-the-top elbow drops. She then connects with a great tilt-a-whirl-backbreaker. Yeah, I just love almost everything she does in the ring! Ringer poses with a foot on Haze and shows off her pipes. Daizee is able to hit a crucifix pin, but Ringer kicks out and then quickly puts her down with a big boot. More elbow drops and then a legdrop from Tiana earn her a two count. Haze hits a headscissors take down and then dropkicks Tiana to the corner and then gives her a second one to a seated Ringer who was sitting against bottom turnbuckle.

Haze goes the Heart Punch, but she’s pushed to the ropes instead. Daizee bounces back and tries to execute a wheelbarrow rollup but Ringer catches her and applies a full nelson before taking Haze to the mat with an electric chair drop. That was excellent. Ringer mounts Haze and just starts softening her up with right hands. Tiana picks up Haze looking to finish her off with the South Palm Beach Driver, but Daizee counters into a sunset flip for two. Haze ducks a clothesline and takes Ringer down with an Uranage and then she mounts Tiana and gives her some rights of her own. This final stretch is getting really good.

Ringer reverses an Irish whip and sends Haze to the corner. Tiana charges towards Haze but Daizee gets a boot up. Haze climbs up top perhaps looking for her dropkick but Ringer crotches her on the turnbuckles. Tiana then lifts Haze up on her shoulder and carries her to the middle of the ring looking for the South Palm Beach Driver again, but Daizee is able to land on her feet. Ringer tries a dragon sleeper suplex, but Haze again lands on her feet turns it into a Heart Punch and then Yakuza Kicks Ringer for the three count.

In case you couldn’t tell I really enjoyed this and found the last few minutes very exciting. It was Ringer’s first match against an established main eventer and she did very well indeed. She’s also starting to show more character and we’ll see that more over the next couple of volumes. As for Haze, I’ve gushed and praised her on every one of my reviews so far and to think that this, despite being very good, might be her worst Shimmer match is a striking testament to how talented she is.

The Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew vs MelissChif (Cheerleader Melissa & MsChif)

We see the events from Volume 7 that was the set up for this unlikely tag team match and then Lacey and Rain make their entrance. They try and shield themselves from photos (how dare these fans get them for free!) and then they acknowledge that the fans with the previous ‘MHWC’ sign have amended it to now say ‘MnHWC’ with a smaller ‘n’ on a different sheet of paper. Fair play to them fans and for Lacey to acknowledge it. Melissa enters in a green cheerleader outfit and is wearing the chains that MsChif gave her earlier. She looks awesome in it and I’m glad they’ve made an effort to make themselves look more like a team, but part me of me thinks it could have been awesome if it was MsChif who adapted her look to that of Melissa’s and came out with green pom-poms! Their team was called ‘MelissChif’ by the fans and it sort of stuck. Lacey is angry, or angrier given that is her usual temperament, at Melissa wearing chains and demands that the ref make her take them off. Bryce tells her to calm down and she shouts out that she’s not going to. MsChif starts the match with her usual scream and Rain falls to the mat and tags in Lacey throwing her into the lion’s den. Lacey tells MsChif that she should take some medication or something. Fricking fantastic line! I believe this is the only time we ever get to see Lacey and MsChif share a Shimmer ring which is a massive shame.

MsChif tags out and Lacey slaps Melissa. Wow, does she have a death wish or is she just so deluded that she thinks she can win a striking battle against her? Melissa applies a leg submission as Lacey tries to crawl to the ropes and Rain tries to enter the ring to break it up but this distracts the referee and allows MsChif to come in and pull Melissa and Lacey back to the centre of the ring. I loved seeing the face distracting referee while the heels double team their partner cliché turned on its head there. MsChif and Rain tag back in and Rain hits an incredibly loud sounding slap. The MHWC, or perhaps that should the MNHWC, gain the advantage when Lacey kicks MsChif from the apron and MsChif plays face in peril for the remainder of the match. Rain and Lacey are just fantastic and getting heat and with Rebecca Knox gone they are the two biggest heels in Shimmer by some margin.

The MHWC continue to beat down on MsChif with double team moves as Lacey drop toeholds her and Rain does an elbow drop. An angry Melissa stupidly keeps coming into the ring to try and prevent the heels double teaming, but this just allows them to do it more when the referee restrains her. Why does Melissa even care so much? I know they are team mates in this match but just two volumes ago they were trying to kill each other! There aren’t even any championships yet either so it’s not like a victory here would achieve anything. Showing any emotion at all sort of takes away from what I love about Melissa, but surely she’d be loving seeing MsChif getting beaten up if anything?

Eventually MsChif makes the tag only for the referee not to see it and damn, they did such a good job of turning the classic tag tropes on their head at the start of this match. MsChif reverses an Irish whip and then charges towards the corner only to run into a boot from Rain. Rain climbs the turnbuckles and grabs MsChif looking for a lungblower, but MsChif blocks this and connects with a crazy Death Valley Driver from the middle rope and a gorgeous bridging pin for a two. I said before that a DVD always seems like it should end a match and that goes double for that one. I think Lacey should have broken the pin up at least.

Both women make tags and Melissa comes in like a house of fire. Lacey made this hot tag to Melissa look great by constantly getting up only to be knocked back down which the Experience, despite all their umm experience, didn’t do for Serena Deeb on the last volume. Melissa hits the curbstomp on Lacey to cap off the nice hot tag but Rain is in to break up the pin attempt. MsChif enters now and the faces do an elaborate double pin attempt on their opponent where Melissa pins Lacey and MsChif pins Rain, but Bryce refuses to count. Okay I know technically all four women are in the ring and therefore the ref shouldn’t count the pinfall, even though Melissa is pinning the legal woman Lacey, but it just made both Melissa and MsChif look stupid by attempting an illegal double team pin and it kind of hurt the momentum of the final stretch of the match.

Rain hits a codebreaker to Melissa and Lacey follows that up with a lungblower, but Melissa is able to kick out. MsChif is tagged back in, a little too soon for my liking seeing as she was worked over for a long time, and MsChif takes Lacey to the corner, ties her legs up in the ropes and spikes her with the devastating looking Obliteration. Wow! Rain breaks up the following pin attempt and gives MsChif a Rain Drop and gets a two count before Melissa breaks that up and hits an Air Raid Crash. Bryce tries to get Melissa out of the ring because she hasn’t tagged in. What?! Neither had Rain and you literally just counted her pin attempt?! Lacey sets up MsChif for an Unprettier and Rain grabs her legs and gives her an electric chair drop at the same time for a Double team Tomikaze. Lacey covers and Melissa runs into the ring but completely ignores the pin attempt and attacks Rain instead and MsChif kicks out. With Rain and Melissa fighting on the outside Lacey hits the Implant DDT for the three and to maintain the MHWC’s undefeated record.

I really liked this match and it is easily the best tag team match so far in Shimmer in my opinion. All four women were very good here with a special mention to MsChif for busting out two incredible moves for the first time with the Obliteration and Death Valley Driver. This is also the best we’ve seen from Rain too and I think her being in tag team matches perhaps hides her weaknesses a little more than when she wrestles by herself.

I do have issues with this match however. For one there were just gaps of logic with Melissa’s actions at points, especially the end where she runs into the ring and doesn’t attempt to break the cover and yeah Bryce Remsburg annoyed me at times too. I think he’s one of the very best referees usually but when the match breaks down at the end you’ve either got to say anything goes or stick to the letter of the law, but to be so inconsistent and also disrupt the momentum of the match at one point just tarnished everything a little for me. Lastly MsChif should not have kicked out of the Double team Tomikaze. That moved looked incredible and especially given how much abuse MsChif had taken in this match she should not be kicking out of a tag team’s finisher. But despite all of that if I shut off my critical side of my brain this was very enjoyable.

After the match MsChif and Melissa have a stare-off and then shake hands. I feel like I’m nit-picking now by criticizing this too but I felt like they missed out on not milking the eventually handshake more. As it stands the match ends and whilst Lacey and Rain are still celebrating and the camera is following them Melissa and MsChif are starring at each other and then quickly shake hands. I think it would have been better if you had the MHWC celebrate to the back, cut their music and then do the stare off so that all the attention is on the two wrestlers in the ring. Also this would build up tension as you don’t know whether these two will be cool with each other or whether they will start brawling again. That way the hand shake would have got more of a reaction too.

Mercedes Martinez vs Sara Del Rey

We miss all of Mercedes’ entrance as we are shown all the previous interactions between these two over the top of it. I really hated that. I love the entrances in Shimmer and the crowd interactions that can occur during them in such an intimate venue. I know I’ve moaned about how some of these video highlight reminders have gone on too long, but if the alternative is that we don’t get to see somebody make their entrance that I’ll happily wait through them. A better solution perhaps would have been to have tried to a promo with Mercedes where she talked about their matches at Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 5 and how it all led here, though I am aware that the editing for these DVD’s are done months later and that wouldn’t have been possible to do later.

Sara comes out through the curtain and Mercedes attacks her during her entrance and whips her into the guardrails. My grievances with the missed entrance are forgotten about due to the fantastic quick start of this match and Sara then returns the favour and whips Martinez into the rails. This match already has more heat than their Volume 5 meeting which I found a little hard to care about due to a lack of it. Sara enters the ring and attempts a dive to the outside, but Mercedes cuts her off with a kick to the midsection. Both women stand on the ring apron and Del Rey big boots her off and then hits a rolling senton to the floor. Both women enter the ring and Mercedes mounts Del Rey and throws brutal looking strikes to the back of her head. You know how I complained about Mercedes’ overly hard knife edge chops in my last review? Well given how heated this has begun I actually think this match would completely warrant them!

Del Rey hits the divorce court to Martinez and then goes about working on her left shoulder. An amazing exchange of brutal sounding slaps follows before Sara attempts a powerbomb but Martinez rolls up and over Del Rey’s head and gets two on a roll-up. Prazak mentions that Shimmer will crowning its first champion in 2007 and that both Sara and Mercedes will surely be in the running for the championship. Del Rey is whipped to the corner and tries to climb the turnbuckles, but Mercedes instead gives her a German suplex from the middle rope. Sara rolls to the outside to avoid a pinning situation but there’s no let up from Martinez who dives through the ropes and takes her down.

Both women re-enter the ring and Sara applies an STF variation but Martinez bites her hand to escape it.  Mercedes DDT’s Sara and climbs the turnbuckles but Sara climbs up too and does a fall away slam from the top rope, with Martinez landing on her shoulder. Both women struggle to get to their feet and begin exchanging punches, but it’s Mercedes who wins it with an amazing flurry of punches. Del Rey tries to regain momentum with a powerbomb but Mercedes counters it and comes down on Sara’s chest and she follows that up with a spinebuster for two.

Martinez tries a running knee strike at Sara, but Del Rey catches it and hits a fisherman suplex with Martinez again landing on her shoulder. Sara hits the powerbomb at the third time of asking but it’s only good enough for a two. Sara tries to finish the match with the Royal Butterfly but Martinez knees her to the gut. Mercedes goes for the Fisherman Buster but Del Rey inside cradles her for a near fall. Del Rey tries a big boot but Martinez ducks it and hits four Saito Suplexes for the three count and ends Del Rey’s undefeated streak. Both women get a standing ovation and Mercedes walks to the back holding her shoulder and the show ends with a “Shimmer” chant which then turns into a “Sara” one.

Now that was more like it between these two! Volume 5 was a good match, but it wasn’t one that gripped me. With no clear face or heel and neither woman having a well-defined character I didn’t find it all that engaging and I really didn’t want to see another match between them. With Mercedes’ new found aggression however and her desperation to win added so much more heat and story to it when compared to their previous encounters. Martinez character is always better when she’s angrier and more intense and it fits more with her aggressive wrestling style and hard hitting offense. If I do have one criticism with the match it’s that Mercedes’ Saito Suplex is her big finisher she uses whenever the Fisherman Buster doesn’t do the job in the same way that Melissa uses the Kudo Driver when the Air Raid Crash doesn’t get the win and Sara was up on her feet straight away not only after the first one, but after the second one too. I also don’t think that Del Rey quite needed that much protecting at the end either, though perhaps it served to show just how much Mercedes wanted the win that she wasn’t taking any chances. This tied up the feud at 1-1, with 1 draw too which meant that it could potentially have led to a four encounter between them, but that never happened.

Overall Show:

It’s a similar story to the last taping with an underwhelming undercard and great main events. I really enjoyed the last three matches in addition to Lufisto/Danger and Neidhart/Ariel was fun too. Overall I’d say it was slight step-up from the last two Volumes.

Best Match: This is a toss-up between either the main event or the tag team match and due to how parts of the tag encounter fell apart at the end I’ll give it to Sara vs Mercedes.

MVP: I was thinking about giving it to Rain or Ringer who put in their best performances to date or MsChif for some incredible moves but I’m going to go with Mercedes Martinez for really giving her character such aggressive edge that made the main event very exciting.

Shimmer Farewells:

-Nattie Neidhart. Of course like Krissy, Beth, Shantelle and Nikita before her the WWE inevitably signed Nattie Neidhart to a contract and she’s still there to this day. I was pleasantly surprised by watching her Shimmer matches and being reminded of how accomplished a wrestler she is and again it’s sad that outside of her brief tag team with fellow Shimmer alumni Beth Phoenix she’s not really gotten to show it in the WWE. Like Beth also she’s also not shown her gifts of comedic talent that was displayed here unless you count her farting gimmick or love angle with Great Khali but nobody aside from Vince found them amusing.

In addition to Nattie leaving this is the final show for quite some time for three more of the roster. First Lorelei Lee won’t be seen again for 8 volumes so it’ll be interesting to see if she’s improved any when we next see her wrestle. Lastly injuries meant that Lufisto and Mercedes Martinez missed the entire Shimmer tapings for 2007. It’s a shame about Mercedes, who’s out with a shoulder injury go figure, as I felt she’d just found her groove as a character. Lufisto was out with a back injury and was supposedly thinking about retirement at the time. But have no fear because we have two debuts on the next volumes and the return of Amazing Kong!

So that’s it for Shimmer in 2006 and so I thought I’d give out my belated year-end awards. I was thinking of doing the same for 2005, but as that was just Volumes 1 & 2 I thought I’d make these ones cover the first two calendar years of Shimmer’s existence.

Match of the Year

1. Rebecca Knox vs Daizee Haze- Volume 5
2. Rebecca Knox vs Allison Danger- Volume 3
3. Rebecca Knox vs Daizee Haze- Volume 4
4. Cheerleader Melissa vs Daizee Haze- Volume 7
5. Lacey vs Daizee Haze- Volume 1
6. Cheerleader Melissa vs MsChif- Volume 4
7. Sara Del Rey vs Daizee Haze- Volume 3
8. Amazing Kong vs Nikki Roxx- Volume 5
9. Mercedes Martinez vs Sara Del Rey- Volume 8
10. Lacey & Rain vs Cheerleader Melissa & MsChif- Volume 8
11. Mercedes Martinez vs Sara Del Rey- Volume 1
12. Cheerleader Melissa vs Shantelle Taylor- Volume 3
13. Mercedes Martinez vs Lacey vs Sara Del Rey vs Daizee Haze- Volume 2
14. Lacey vs Nikita- Volume 5
15. Beth Phoenix vs MsChif- Volume 2

Top Face

1. Daizee Haze
2. Nikki Roxx
3. Sara Del Rey
4. MsChif
5. Shantelle Taylor

Top Heel

1. Rebecca Knox
2. Lacey
3. Rain
4. Cheerleader Melissa
5. Beth Phoenix

Tag Team of the Year

1. The Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew
2. The Experience
3. MelissChif

Best Volume

1. Volume 5
2. Volume 1
3. Volume 3

Wrestler of the Year

1. Daizee Haze
2. Rebecca Knox
3. Cheerleader Melissa
4. Sara Del Rey
5. Lacey
6. MsChif
7. Mercedes Martinez
8. Allison Danger
9. Shantelle Taylor
10. Nikita

I'll leave you again with another dark match so here is Sara Del Rey vs Lorelei Lee. See you next time for what promises to be an excellent show featuring a double main event of Cheerleader Melissa vs Sara Del Rey and Amazing Kong vs MsChif!