LadySports ::: Shimmer 2 Report...

Story and photos by Chevy Bellaire

Outside, it was a cold, gray day with temperatures in the low 20's, but inside the Eagles Hall in Berwyn, Ill., the wrestling action was smoking hot as the women athletes of SHIMMER put on a rousing show that lasted almost five hours.

Sixteen of the toughest and most talented women in professional wrestling gathered to test their skills against one another. Action was intense and frequently brutal before a crowd of about 150 vocal fans who were into every match.

Snowstorms on the East Coast stranded three wrestlers: Ariel, Lacey, Mercedes Martinez and some of the other girls literally caught the last flight out of town to get to the event. Irish star Rebecca Knox didn't get to the hall until the show was already half over.

Those who showed up were ready to fight.

The show opened with Rain vs. PGWA Champion Nikki Roxx, who has ditched her blonde hair color for a reddish brown tint. Both women worked each other over with chops and heavy shots to the body that left red welts for all to see. Rain got the win with her finishing hold, the Acid Rain.

A foul-tempered Malia Hosaka came out for the second match, fuming that her opponent was a relative newcomer in Lorelei Lee, a golden-haired country girl with a mega-watt smile. Hosaka decided to punish her young rival, slamming her into the turnbuckles and delivering vicious chops, punches and headbutts that had the blonde reeling. Lee took all Hosaka threw at her, cinching in a Figure Four leglock that had the veteran from Hawaii screaming in pain, before an Oklahoma Roll nailed Hosaka to the canvas. Hosaka was furious and began stomping Lee as Lexie Fyfe rushed to the ring to help attack Lee. The blonde took a tremendous beating until Cindy Rogers ran in from the dressing room area to make the save.

Fyfe returned for the third match to face the terrifying battler from The Inferno, Ms. Chif, who showed from the start she would not be intimidated by the wily veteran. Ms. Chif has a dark heart and is no stranger to bending the rules –her green mist has been known to blind many opponents... but she's also a highly skilled technical wrestler, which fans saw when she locked into a reverse bridge that had the fans chanting for Fyfe to tap out. Things were going Ms. Chif's way until Cheerleader Melissa made her way to ringside, where she taunted and distracted the woman with black and green hair. It was all Fyfe needed to grab an advantage and take the pin.

Cindy Rogers took out both Amber O'Neal and Tiana Ringer in a three-way elimination match. O'Neal was eliminated at the 4:54 mark with a facebuster while Ringer shrieked her surrender at 7:15 when Rogers applied her devastating finisher, the TCB.

The next bout looked like a mismatch as the powerful veteran Cheerleader Melissa, who has traveled and fought the toughest women around the world, was matched against the petite Shantelle Taylor, a feisty young battler from Canada. It was anything but a mismatch as Taylor took everything Melissa threw at her over the course of a match that ran more than 18 minutes. The end came when Taylor mounted the top turnbuckle and attempted a flying body press, but Melissa simply caught the smaller girl, dropped her like a sack of potatoes, and began laying in a series of devastating punches to the head and body that left the blonde stunned and vulnerable to Melissa's Air Raid Crash finisher.

Another pairing of power vs. petite followed as Sara Del Ray took on Daizee Haze, the mischievous but tiny hippie chick with an enormous fan following. The bout began cleanly with a handshake but both girls fought with passion and concentration. Del Ray was able to shake off many of Haze's offensive maneuvers because of her strength and height advantage as the match devolved into a slobberknocker at the 15-minute mark. Del Ray used her potent head butts to blast the Flower Power girl from pillar to post. Finally, after 25 minutes of sweat-soaked action, Del Ray won with a powerslam. Both girls were slow to leave the ring as the crowd gave each a standing ovation.

After a brief intermission, the women returned with new opponents and some old scores to settle.

PGWA champ Nikki Roxx, who was beaten like a dog at the last SHIMMER show by Team Blondage, gained revenge on one-half of that team as she roughed up Amber O'Neal in singles competition. Roxx put away O'Neal with her Cruncher finisher, the same maneuver she recently used to pin Christie Ricci at Holiday Havoc.

The much-heralded Rebecca Knox made her SHIMMER debut against the glamorous and beautiful Allison Danger. A lovely Irish lass from Dublin, Knox won the hearts of the crowd, hugging and mugging for fans who showed up with Irish flags. The match with Danger was scientific and clean until it appeared Knox had blown out her right knee. As Danger backed away and refs and officials raced to the ring, Knox howled and sobbed in pain. But as Knox was helped to her feet, she revealed that she was “playing possum” and savagely attacked Danger, booting her from the ring. After battering the brunette to the floor, Knox heaved her back into the ring and worked her over like a heavy bag with punches, chops and kicks. Danger fought back valiantly, but it was Knox who emerged with the victory at the 25 minute mark.

Shantelle Taylor again found herself facing a much larger opponent, this time a blonde brawler named Ann Brookstone, who outweighed Taylor by almost 50 pounds. Once again, Taylor proved to have the heart of a lion as she countered each of Brookstone's moves with one of her own. Taylor won with an inside cradle.

Lexie Fyfe and Malia Hosaka, who'd assaulted Lorelei Lee in the first part of the show, took on Lee and Cindy Rogers in a tag-team battle. The crafty villainesses attacked their foes before the bell, before Lee and Rogers reversed the attack and tortured them with an old-fashioned rowboat. This highpoint was short-lived, however, as Hosaka and Fyfe separated Rogers from Lee and worked her over to a fare-thee-well. Rogers was literally mugged and virtually defenseless as a series of quick tags kept a fresh opponent on her back. Lee showed her rookie inexperience by not rushing to rescue her partner, who was reduced to a zombie by the onslaught. When Rogers finally stumbled toward her own corner, Lee took after Fyfe and Hosaka, clearing the ring, but again, the veterans withstood the attack and viciously double-teamed the country girl who was slammed into the mat with a double-team flapjack.

Allison Danger returned to face Tiana Ringer, whose attitude was even worse than in her previous match. Ringer attacked Danger from the start, choking and punching away and using the ropes to torture the pretty brunette. But Ringer showed more than a streak of meanness – her technical skills punished Danger's legs throughout the bout. It was all Ringer for most of the match, but a quick rollup gave Danger the victory.

The next match would set a new standard for intensity, endurance and brutality as Cheerleader Melissa faced Ms. Chif in a “falls count anywhere” match. In the first SHIMMER show last fall, Ms. Chif got the win over Melissa and, clearly, the Cheerleader had been obsessing over it. Neither woman is afraid of a brawl and that's what this match was – a stone-cold, balls to the wall brawl. Ms. Chif began working Melissa's gut with strong punches while Melissa responded with a series of chops and right hooks that spun her opponent in circles. Melissa maneuvered her black-and-green-haired rival into a corner and delivered neck-snapping, jaw-breaking uppercuts. After several minutes in the ring, the girls spilled outside, crashing into the seats as fans raced to get out of their way. Soon, Ms. Chif was bleeding from a deep cut above her right eye, which seemed to incite Melissa's bloodlust even more. Punches and kicks continued as they brawled up the steps into the lobby of the Eagles Hall, then out onto the icy sidewalks, where Melissa delivered a body slam on Ms.Chif. Still, neither girl would give an inch as they battled back into the building. The found their way back into the ring, but tumbled out again, beating each other to a pulp near the entrance to the dressing room. Finally, Melissa knocked Ms. Chif onto a table and was able to grab her leg in a painful and gruesome inverted cloverleaf, which caused Ms. Chif to tap out at just under 30 minutes.

Perhaps inspired by the brutality of what had just occurred, Sara Del Ray and Rain kept up the intensity level as each delivered and received thunderous body slams and stiff chops. A powerslam spelled victory for Del Ray and Rain was so exhausted, she literally crawled back to the dressing room.

Rebecca Knox, who displayed her true colors earlier in the evening, came out to a chorus of boos, but the Irish lass kept up a running commentary of slams and putdowns on the fans at ringside while she waited for Daizee Haze. Both ladies displayed dazzling technical expertise as first Knox, then Haze, took control of the bout. Soon enough, the Irish lass went dirty, pounding on the blonde hippie chick like a drum and hurling her from the ring. As Knox pulled Haze up with two fistfuls of hair, however, the Flower Power girl delivered an impressive series of shots to the gut and ribs to break the hold. Haze won with a heart punch followed by her Daizee Cutter finisher at the 20-minute mark.

The second SHIMMER show was even better than the first, from the size of the crowd to the skills of the wrestlers. The action will be edited into two DVD's for sale in the next several months. Watch for them. You won't believe your eyes.