A Chicago Weekend at SHIMMER pt. 1

Submitted by EdinSanAntonio

This past weekend, I made my way to Chicago to attend the SHIMMER DVD tapings. Twice a year, Dave Prazak and his crew bring in the best women’s wrestlers from around the world (U.S., England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, etc). 

Many women wrestlers in WWE and NXT have made stops there over the years. If you think NXT has great women’s wrestling, you can see 60 to 70 matches as good or better at these shows.

The tapings are usually held at the Berwyn Eagles Club on Saturdays and Sundays, but this year, a Friday night show was added. The Saturday show was held at Logan Square, and if I have one complaint from the weekend, it was damn hot waiting in line to get in to the show. It didn’t help that the show was running a little late. I’m from Texas and I’m complaining about it, so that tells you it had to be hot!

Thankfully, once we got in, it felt fine. As soon as I entered, I ran into Dr. Keith Lipinski of this website and also Dave Prazak. I spoke with them and then made my way to my front row center seat.

Veda Scott defeats Nixon Newell

Veda is the perfect person to start the show. The fans here hate her with a passion and she plays it up big time. This was Nixon’s first time with SHIMMER and she did not disappoint. She did a great job and is a very attractive girl.

Shayna Baszler defeats Rhia O’Reilly

Shayna made a great debut here and won with a TKO that caused me to text Lance Storm and tell him Shayna just killed his girl. Rhia is awesome, and has one of the best intros with kick ass ring music and circles the ring carrying the Irish flag.

Kellie Skater defeats Vanessa Kraven, Shazza McKenzie, and LuFisto in a 4-way match

Over the past couple years, Skater has become one of the best women’s workers in the world. Kraven is a monster, Shazza is really good and has one of the cutest faces you will ever see. LuFisto is a legend and is still great.

Viper defeats Jessica Havok

This was one hell of a “mean guy” match, or should I say “mean women’s” match. Viper from the UK and also made her debut here. She is a female version of Earthquake, only better. Havok was also good in the match.

Mia Yim & Kay Lee Ray Defeat Yumi Ohka and Melanie Cruise

This was the debut of Team WDSS (We Do Stupid Sh*t) of Mia and Ray, and they make one hell of an awesome team. Cruise was taking the place of Cheerleader Melissa and kind of looks like she is Melissa’s bigger older sister. Ohka is always good.

Arisa Nakajima defeats Nicole Matthews

Arisa brought her JPW title with her, and had a great match with the former SHIMMER champ Nicole. Matthews is one of the best heels in wrestling.

Ruo Mizunami defeats KC Spinelli

Ruo is a veteran of the ring and is still going strong. KC danced to Ruo’s music and was having a great time. No one has more fun at a show then her.

Heart of SHIMMER Champion Nicole Savoy defeats Crazy Mary Dobson

Nicole has become one of the top workers in a very short time, and like Shayna, she uses a lot of BJJ in her match. She almost has a counter into a submission for everything. I love Crazy Mary and she is awesome, but how do you get a title shot when you are 1-4 in your last SHIMMER matches? I guess it’s about heart and not win-loss records for this title.

SHIMMER Tag Team Champions The Kimber Bombs (Kimber Lee and Cherry Bomb) defeat Team Slap Happy (Evie and Heidi Lovelace)

This is the match I really came to see and it is also the match where I wanted to kick Prazak after. This match was built up from the past tapings and looked like it was time for new champs, but sadly, it wasn’t as the Kimber Bombs cheated to win using the title belts. The bombs are incredible heels, and Heidi is one of the top women in the US. Evie is one of my favorites, and is just amazing in everyway. Her offense is incredible, her kicks are the best, and she is such a great babyface in peril. I love this woman.

SHIMMER Champion Madison Eagles defeats Courtney “The Demon” Rush

Last taping, Rush started to change into a vampire or something. She has since become a possessed demon from hell. This match featured an attempted exorcism as Eagles used forks as a cross and started yelling, “The power of Christ compels you!” Sadly, this did not work so Eagles then poured salt all along the ring to keep the Demon from getting back in, and it worked until Rush grabbed the ref and pulled him out, moving the salt in that area away and was able to get back in the ring.

After Eagles won, Arisa came out to challenge Madison and we have a main event for the next tapings.

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After the show, the girls came out to sell their gimmicks and take pictures with the fans. I always make it a point to buy stuff as this is a big part of their pay, so I bought Mia Yim’s newest T-shirt and 8×10’s of other girls. Some of the performers I talked to that night were Mia (who’s been a friend of mine for awhile now), Solo Darling (who didn’t wrestle on this show but was going to on the next ones), Shazza (who was very accessible), and Kellyanne (who was not able to wrestle because of an injury which is sad because she stole the show last year and became one of my favorites).