Shimmer Volume 3

Trying to capitalise over the buzz of the first two Shimmer shows Volumes 3 & 4 are held just three months later in February 2006. A good idea on paper but in reality Chicago was set upon by a massive snowstorm which meant that Ariel, Mercedes Martinez and Lacey could not make it to the tapings and Rebecca Knox very nearly missed her much-helped debut too and she did not enter the venue until Volume 4 was underway. With our original 18 roster members now reduced to just 12 how will the show fare? Let’s find out…

I should talk now about the production values and sadly it’s not an improvement as there is so much lens flare from the lights it looks like a JJ Abrams Star Trek movie. On the plus side however Dave Prazak is on commentary alone for this volume. That’s not a knock against Danger at all, but on the last two volumes her microphone sounded rather muted and at least this way we have one commentator that we can clearly hear as opposed to two we can't. As it stands I think Prazak is along with Joey Styles one of the few out there that can carry a show by himself. As Shimmer is his baby he clearly has so much passion for it, knows all the moves and as he personally books all the talent he knows everything about them too.

Rain vs Nikki Roxx

Jobber entrances for both! Now I know I said in my review for Volume 2 that I think the shows should open straight with a match, but no entrances wasn’t what I meant! I'm aware the first six volumes of Shimmer received retail friendly versions with all the entrances removed so as to avoid copyright issues on the entrance music, but my version is the original copy, one I once again bought and have signed from Rain, so I’m not sure why the entrances were cut here as the rest of them are still intact. Maybe Dave’s just not a fan of Hole’s ‘Celebrity Skin’?

Nikki Roxx’s new look for this set of tapings is a light brown curly hair style this time around. I’ve got to be honest and say it’s an improvement. Also of note is that referee PJ Drummond makes his debut here replacing Jennifer Carlisle, which can only be a positive. This match ushers in our first “WWWWRESTLING – YAY!” call-and-response chant in Shimmer, something which will become a regular staple of shows from here on out. I don’t know if it is, but the crowd does seem to be little bigger for this set of tapings, though that could be because of all the cameramen and women at ringside. No idea what is going on with them being ringside here for this match, and this match only. At future shows you will see Japanese cameraman taking photos of the matches with the Joshi talent in, but I don’t know why they are here now.

Anyway I enjoyed this match. Rain’s heel mannerisisms were on point and she even shouts out “SERIOUSLY?” at one point and over in Australia Madison Eagles takes notes. Nikki Roxx puts in her best performance to date in a Shimmer ring, including hitting a couple of lovely Northern Lights suplexes and reversing an Acid Rain attempt for a near fall. Dave mentions on commentary that Rain has lost both of her matches so far and needs to win this to maintain her spot on the roster! Bloody hell, he’s ruthless back then! She’s only lost two times! Thankfully though Rain picks up her first win after hitting the Acid Rain after three matches of attempting it.

Three Way Dance Elimination Match

Amber O’Neil vs Cindy Rogers vs Tiana Ringer

Due to the chaos surrounding the snowstorm we ended up with an odd number of wrestlers for this show, so we have a triple threat here. I mentioned in my Volume 2 review how rare elimination matches are in Shimmer…. I obviously forgot we have one on the very next show! Amber O’Neil has mercifully ditched Gwen Stefani and now has Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ as her theme. It also is the beginning of a slight character tweak for her going from the mean cheerleader type character into more of a ditzy dumb Barbie role which I prefer. She is still announced as ‘Team Blondage’s own- Amber O’Neil’ but we are told the news that after the last shows the WWE signed up her tag team partner Krissy Vaine in addition to Beth Phoenix. Cindy Rogers comes out second which oddly means that Tiana Ringer as the heel comes out last in the spot usually reserved for a babyface. I’ll say now that I love her theme song ‘I Don’t Want to Know (If You Don’t Want Me) by the Donnas and I like her backflip over the rope ring entrance even more.

With three people in the ring you’d expect a little awkwardness and indeed there is. The opening part of the match revolved around the heels double teaming Rogers but Amber keeps hitting Tiana by accident which was quite funny. Eventually Tiana is knocked from the ring and Rogers takes advantage of O’Neil shouting at Ringer to get back in the ring to help her by hitting Amber with an X Factor for the first elimination. Now Rogers has beaten both members of Team Blondage and completely avenged her loss to them from Shimmer 1. I’m still not feeling Cindy to be frank with you, but I think Ringer is great and she hits Rogers with a nice looking spinebuster. She used a similarly nice one in her first match with Shantelle too. Sadly for me it is Rogers however who wins with a TCB submission finish from nowhere really. Cindy is unbeaten in singles match now whilst Tiana and Amber are yet to win one. This isn’t horrible or anything, but all three women could have probably had a better match if they had a one-on-one contest with either of the other two and this is the worst match of the show.

Lorelei Lee vs Malia Hosaka

I was dreading this match as I’m not a fan of either woman, but I was actually surprised. For someone with just a year and half worth of training Lee isn’t too shabby and I was actually very impressed with Malia given by low expectations going into it. Her spinning kicks are excellent and she was very entertaining. She came through the curtain so angry that I really wish I knew what it was in kayfabe that pissed her off so much! There are technical issues in this match where the volume of the show goes silent leaving just the sound of the commentary. During this match too Dave says “It’s time to pay the bills” and then shills ROH’s hotline. Ugh, okay I know he has to do that, but does he have to make it so obvious that he’s advertising ROH, their then sister company? How about something like “If you like what you’re seeing why not log onto www…..”? This match is much longer than I expected it to go given its position on the card and surprisingly it is the newbie Lee pulling out the victory over the veteran. Malia doesn’t take it well however and she motions to the back for someone to help her garner some revenge and Lexie Fyfe runs out for a two-on-one beatdown. Hater of tag teams Cindy Rogers runs out for the save however at which point Lee completely stops selling the injuries from the beatdown which although a minor point does put a little black mark against what was actually a decent debut performance.

Lexie Fyfe vs MsChif

Fyfe comes back out and grabs the microphone giving us our first proper in-ring promo. She doesn’t say much of note before MsChif’s music hits and Fyfe looks frightened. Not quite as scared as Beth on the previous volume, mind you, but pretty timid and her reactions to the screams of MsChif are priceless. I notice around this point that ring announcer Joey Eastman has done away with his cheat cards now and has either remembered everyone’s home towns and weights or he has a sneak peek at them during the entrances, either way fair play to him. Eastman was completely brilliant in his role and is often unsung for his work. Referee Laura Mattano goes to check MsChif for foreign objects buy she is screamed away, something that every referee will try to no avail in every one of her matches. When I first started watching Shimmer MsChif was my favourite and watching these early shows allowed me to see why as she is so athletic and with her crazy gimmick character I think it’s often overlooked at how good of a wrestler she was in her prime. There’s one part where she’s in a hammerlock and she does the most beautiful forwards cartwheel to get out of it. Her back is arched so much during it, it’s stunning. She also utilizes a picture perfect octopus hold later on.

Eventually Cheerleader Melissa, obviously sick of randomly walking around the arena in a hopeful attempt at randomly bumping into MsChif comes up with the bright idea to come to the ring during one of her matches. This distracts MsChif momentarily, but she recovers from it and regains the upper hand until Melissa grabs her foot when she runs the ropes allowing Lexie to pick her up for the Attitude Adjustment and the three count. Yes, Lexie Fyfe beat MsChif! MsChif who beat Cheerleader Melissa on Volume 1! This may just be hindsight and knowing the future Shimmer runs of both women but this has to be the most shocking result to a Shimmer match ever. Decent match, Fyfe’s best one so far, but not one I’d rewatch.

Cheerleader Melissa vs Shantelle Taylor

Thanks to the ending from the last match Melissa has a lot of heat from the crowd and receives a “jerk!” chant from the fans. She also gets more than a couple of catcalls when she removes her duster. I guess some haven’t grasped the “Women’s Athletes” part of the Shimmer manifesto yet. Melissa’s changed her attire since we last saw her, sadly her dress that looked like a nightie is gone replaced by a horrible cheap looking dress that seems to have some kind of silver lightning pattern on it. I don’t like it. Shantelle Taylor’s outfit is made to look like The Punisher and once again meanwhile in Australia Madison Eagles takes more notes. I like how this match came together. Taylor faced Ringer on Volume 1. On Volume 2 they faced off again in a tag match with Ariel in Shantelle’s corner and Melissa in Tiana’s and due to that match we are now seeing this. It’s just simply storytelling that works very well.

The story of the contest was Melissa outsmarting Taylor at first, but then Shantelle eventually getting the best of it and then outsmarting Melissa. At one point Melissa actually runs away from Shantelle which is something you never see Melissa do usually. We also once again see Melissa attempting and failing to connect with the Kudo Driver as Taylor avoids it and rolls up Mel for some exciting near falls. The finish comes when Shantelle climbs the turnbuckles looking for her missile dropkick only for Melissa to crotch her on the top and pick her off of them for the Air Raid Crash and the victory. This match was brilliant and not to take anything away from Taylor, who held her own, but Melissa made Shantelle look like a star here. She was signed by the WWE shortly after this and I wouldn’t be surprised if this match had something to do with it. It certainly was nothing to do with the Volume 4 match anyway…

Allison Danger vs Rebecca Knox

Here we go this is one of the ones I’ve been waiting for! Rebecca Knox is of course the future Becky Lynch and here she is some nine years ago aged just 19 and looking much thinner. Seriously she must be all muscle back here. Rebecca comes out second in the customary babyface position and slaps the hands of everybody in the crowd, taking especial delight in seeing an Irish flag that someone brought in her honour. She climbs into the ring and shakes hands with Bryce Remsburg, Joey Eastman and then Allison Danger and we begin with what is an excellent display of catch-as-catch wrestling. At the five minute mark Knox has Danger in a figure-four leglock and it appears that she thinks about using the ropes for leverage for a split second before thinking better of it. Ten minutes go by and we are still treated to a superb show of submission wrestling. At around twelve minutes the pace quickens when Knox leaps over Danger and lands awkwardly on her foot. Bryce senses she’s in trouble and makes the X sign and referees run to the ring ending what was simply a masterclass of counter wrestling.

Rebecca can be heard crying about her injury as a hush falls upon the fans, who must feel robbed that such a great match was ended just when things were going up a gear, but they mostly seemed concerned about Knox’s ankle. Rebecca tries to stand up and see if she carry on, but she can’t and Allison holds the ropes open for her so she can exit the ring when BOOM! Rebecca kicks Allison out of the ring and does an Irish jig in the ring showing that her ankle was just fine all along and that the last minute and a half was an inspired acting job on her part. The crowd are incensed at being manipulated by her like that and Prazak is irate on commentary.

Rebecca Knox is instantly transformed from the happy-go-lucky babyface into a screaming mental heel and it’s glorious to watch it happen. The next 10 minutes now have a completely different feel to them as Knox is doing whatever it takes to try and earn the victory and she’s now public enemy number #1. Danger kicks out of Knox’s trademark T-Bone suplex and tries to stage a comeback, but Rebecca ducks her Shimmering Warlock and hits her with a Falcon Arrow and pulls off a very controversial victory and thus ends Allison Danger 2-0 Shimmer streak.

This match is outstanding! For my money it is easily the best Shimmer match thus far in our retrospective reviews and while it seems that every year a new match is hailed as the best in Shimmer History this one still holds up. I went on and on about Knox as this is her showcase match, but Danger was no slouch it in either. If you’ve seen Becky Lynch’s matches in NXT and liked what you saw then you need to see this as you’ve still not seen Rebecca at her best and what is even more crazy is that her best is yet to come in Shimmer.

Sara Del Rey vs Daizee Haze

Main event time and it’s the final two from last volumes four way match squaring off. Good luck following that last match though girls! The Final Countdown plays and during the stupidly long intro highlights of Sara’s matches from the first two volumes are shown which is a great idea and beats staring at the curtain for 30 seconds. Sara is wearing what I’d reckon would be her ‘Player 1’ outfit if she was in a fighting videogame, her USA patterned top and skirt. We see similar highlights of Haze’s victory from Volume 1 over Lacey before Daizee walks to the ring with her usual trademark flower in hand. The fans seem split over who to cheer for but Del Rey seems the more popular, especially with the ‘Final Countdown’ obsessed fan who’s returned for this set of tapings.

There’s a funny part of the early going when Haze nips up to escape a submission and and then Del Rey fails to do the same. She claims she can do a nip up and with the crowd cheering her on she just about does one. The fans then start egging on referee Bryce to try it himself and he does it, even better than Sara in fact who receives a “You got served!” taunt from those in attendance! Upset about being overshadowed Del Rey leaves the ring before our first ever Shimmer “Please come back!” chant breaks out with a “Welcome back!” when she does so. It’s so great seeing how much fun early Shimmer Del Rey was having in the ring. This is the Sara I loved most.

Sara uses her size advantage to dominate parts of the match and nearly snaps Haze in half with a devastating looking stranglehold and as she works more heelish the fans begin to switch over to Daizee’s side. After a stunning series of near falls, which cost Dave Prazak his voice Sara connects with a German suplex for the victory and keeps her undefeated streak going. I think I preferred the Volume 1 main event, but this was better than the Volume 2 and a brilliant contest. Sara is just a superb all-round wrestler and Haze is such a technically gifted athlete too. Sadly this is the last we’ll get of these two wrestling each other, but is a great match.

Before the DVD ends we get a promo with an out of breath Sara Del Rey who issues a no-time-limit challenge for Mercedes Martinez whenever she returns to Shimmer. This was a much better promo from Del Rey as any stumbling over words could be played off as exhaustion rather than a fluff. It is also announced that whilst the the main event was going on Cheerleader Melissa has gotten her rematch she wanted when MsChif agreed to it and they will have a falls count anywhere match on Volume 4. Lastly Daizee Haze, who unlike Sara was allowed to freshen up before her promo, says she was not impressed with Rebecca Knox’s cheating ways and issues a challenge to her for the next volume to see who the better technical wrestler is. Oh hell yes to that one!

Overall Show:

Really enjoyable actually. Seeing as how Ariel and especially Mercedes Martinez and Lacey being unable to make it last minute must have thrown a spanner in the works the show was really decent and their absences allowed all the matches to have more time. The last three matches were especially good and well worth checking out but none of the other ones were bad either.

Match of the night: Allison Danger vs Rebecca Knox. Brilliant, just brilliant. The chain wrestling here is unreal and is almost HBK/Bret or Angle/Benoit good at times. I love how the match is two halves that feel like separate matches and I don’t know if the moment where Knox almost grabs the rope but doesn’t was Rebecca forgetting she was a face or subtle foreshadowing but it works superbly well.

MVP: Rebecca Knox. Rebecca didn’t actually arrive at the venue until Volume 4 was underway and her match with Allison actually took place after the Haze/Del Rey main event, but thank goodness she made it! With Lacey off these tapings K-Nox has become the #1 heel in Shimmer and gave us our first turn in Shimmer too! After these set of tapings Dave, so impressed with her, said he pulled her to one side and told her that she's going to be booked on every Shimmer show from here on out!

That's it for now, but with MsChif/Melissa II and Daizee Haze taking on Rebecca Knox Volume 4 looks like it could be the best show so far. Will it? Find out next time!