Back over a decade ago when Shimmer first got started it was the show  you'd go to/watch/ to see great women's matches, and see women wrestlers get the time and spotlight they deserved to showcase themselves. The  big matches in Shimmer for most of it's first several years were seen as usually being the best North American Women's matches of the year and featured the most prominent wrestlers on the Indy scene of ten in matchup pairings you wouldn't see elsewhere frequently.  Shimmer also provided lesser known and up and coming wrestlers to get their name out there and introduce themselves toa slightly bigger audience who might not be aware of them otherwise, you saw this with names like Madison Rayne, Bayley, Tenille, Serena, Paige, Dakota, Ember Moon and many others getting their first big exposure by wrestling in shimmer.  The events themselves felt like big deals too, with a lot of buzz around them by indy show standards, and people speculating about who would be announced for the show. 


In recent years though it seems like most of its buzz and prestige has died unfortunately. With WWE and other promotions fairly regularly giving women lots of time for their matches , while also hiring the best female talent for themselves, it has made what shimmer offers nowadays seem lacking. Their big matches are no longer considered to be the best female matches of year by most , and their talent poll seems very depleted with not very good wrestlers like ThudnerKitty being given an oversized focus. Even the talented wrestlers they do use nowadays don't seem to get much of a popularity/profile boost from being in Shimmer. For example, Nicole Savoy was Shimmer's main champ for awhile and no one really cared. People just seemed to wonder where she went after being in the MYC. 


I don't know it justs seems like a promotion without any buzz or momentum, and with not much of a purpose anymore.  No one might argue that some of the downturn can be attributed to Covid and how it has hampered the whole wrestling scene, but I feel Shimmer's downturn has been going on for a while longer than that.     


Do you see a way for Shimmer to return to form and relevancy, or do you believe it served it's purpose in bringing women's wrestling to the forefront and showing what giving women's wrestlers adequate time could produce , and that it's just not necessary anymore?

Short answer is no, not so much. It's also hard to gauge anything during covid. We've had the better part of 12 months with little momentum, any where. So in terms of relevancy in 2020, it's difficult to call.

SHIMMER has been dying due to the model of profit dying. DVD sales are not really a thing anymore, and streaming is not really that profitable, nor are indy gates when wrestling as a whole is down. Going to be hard to recover. And if they do, may need to cut back on flying out talent.

They definitely lost their point of difference when WWE started booking women's wrestling remotely competently. Shimmer really went to the next level in terms of hype and anticipation when they started bringing in Joshi, and now WWE (and I guess AEW) have picked that up, and Stardom has become very accessible.

Speaking of accessibility, they definitely didn't help themselves when they went through that spell of being like a year plus behind on their DVD releases. I think they've got they're act together with everything on demand now but once the hype and attention is gone it's difficult to get it back. Like their old partner company ROH I think they've lost their pre-eminence in what was once their niche and consequently don't have a clear lane in today's wrestling landscape.

That DVD model was brutal. It seemed like only somewhat recently did they start the stream/on-demand. They must've seen results from Shine and the Mania Shimmer shows that were on that network. Feeled like a relic still churning out DVDs and never in a timely fashion either. Been considering seeing what I've missed over the years, but it's been YEARS since I thought about Shimmer. Became a non-entity once NXT and 4HW started up.

I have most of the DVDs. The very slow release time between Shimmer DVDs is ridiculous. 1 of the last times I bought a 4-pack of Shimmer DVDs, they arrived about 2 & 1/2 months later & I received a letter from DP & Allison Danger apologizing for it. As far as relevance goes. I don't know. I'm just glad Shimmer still exists because the indies are dead right now. At the ones I like.

Nov 26, 2020 0:05:41 GMT Ed said:

I have most of the DVDs. The very slow release time between Shimmer DVDs is ridiculous. 1 of the last times I bought a 4-pack of Shimmer DVDs, they arrived about 2 & 1/2 months later & I received a letter from DP & Allison Danger apologizing for it. As far as relevance goes. I don't know. I'm just glad Shimmer still exists because the indies are dead right now. At the ones I like.

What have the recent years been like quality wise in your opinion? As Dex alluded to I can't remember the last time a Shimmer match got any sort of response online, even though they've fallen off the radar you would have expected something to have gone viral in the past few years.

Last time I remember Shimmer catching my radar (minus remembering they exist and seeing who the champ was every few years) was praise on a Nicole Matthews/Madison Eagles heel/heel feud. Now this was around when I stopped following much in the way of indys in general, minus that hot NXT period with Owens/Balor/Etc.

It probably didn't help that a lot of their super fans fell by the wayside. John Hyperion put out a lot of good content but he seemed to drop off the face of the earth, Martin Bentley was cancelled during #speakingout, Diva Dirt stopped being relevant when the original team left the site, Casey Michael died earlier this year, etc.

That late 2000s, early 2010s period was the most fun time to be a part of the WoW IWC.

Nov 26, 2020 1:00:15 GMT @admin said:

Nov 26, 2020 0:05:41 GMT Ed said:

I have most of the DVDs. The very slow release time between Shimmer DVDs is ridiculous. 1 of the last times I bought a 4-pack of Shimmer DVDs, they arrived about 2 & 1/2 months later & I received a letter from DP & Allison Danger apologizing for it. As far as relevance goes. I don't know. I'm just glad Shimmer still exists because the indies are dead right now. At the ones I like.

What have recent years been like quality-wise in your opinion? As Dex alluded to I can't remember the last time a Shimmer match got any sort of response online, even though they've fallen off the radar you would have expected something to have gone viral in the past few years.

From what's been released, I still think the quality of Shimmer matches has remained good. Any match with Nicole Savoy stands out. I enjoyed what I was able to watch Kellie Skater's climb to the Shimmer title. Madison Eagles' 2nd title reign was full of good matches.