SHIMMER

SHIMMER is an all women's wrestling fed based in Berwyn, Illinois, run by commentator Dave Prazak and wrestler Allison Danger. Established in 2005. It describes itself as "American Joshi" and has close ties to Ring of Honor. The SHIMMER Championship is recognized as The ROH women's championship and is defended on ROH shows. SHIMMER does their shows on DVD only but fans are allowed to attend tapings.

Several SHIMMER wrestlers have gone on to wrestle for the major promotions.
 * WWE: Beth Phoenix, Nattie Neidhart (Natalya), Nikita (Katie Lea), Krissy Vaine and Shantelle Taylor (briefly), Serena Deeb (Serena), Kharma (Amazing/Awesome Kong), Brittani Knight (Paige), Tenille.
 * TNA: Cheerleader Melissa (Raisha Saeed/Alyssa Flash), Nikki Roxx (Roxxi Leveaux), Shantelle Taylor (Taylor Wilde), "Dark Angel" Sarah Stock (Sarita), Ashley Lane (Madison Rayne), Rain (Payton Banks), Josey (Sojourner Bolt), Nikita (Winter), Daffney.

Tropes associated with SHIMMER
""I hear babies come from Mommy, but you like green so much, I think you came from a cabbage, ya think?"
 * Aborted Arc: Mercedes Martinez made a Face Heel Turn as part of her feud with Sara Del Rey in the early volumes, but then got sidelined by injury. When she returned, she was back to being a face.
 * Action Girl or Dark Action Girl: Pretty much the whole roster.
 * Action Mom: Allison Danger, Madison Eagles, Sweet Saraya
 * All-American Face: Sara Del Rey in her American Angel gimmick.
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: returning at the last round of tapings.
 * Ax Crazy: "Sweet" Saraya Knight. Even her own manager, Rebecca Knox, is deathly afraid of her.
 * Boisterous Bruiser: Hiroyo Matsumoto is very strong, has no qualms about dropping her opponents on their heads and will do it all while wearing a perpetual smile.
 * Canada, Eh?: Averted - The Canadian wrestlers run the gamut from the friendly and good natured to the cartoonishly evil. This is probably because a large percentage of the Shimmer roster are Canadian. So much so that Allison Danger once mused that it should be renamed Shimmer - Canadian Athletes.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: LuFisto. From a exchange with MsChif:


 * On the one hand, when LuFisto said that, she may have been seeing if MsChif would respond positively to anything LuFisto said, which allowed LuFisto to get a title shot. On the other hand, this is the same woman who cries out for help to her doll Peegaboo...
 * Combat Pragmatist: Tomoka Nakagawa has no problem using such tactics as biting, eye poking and choking with her belt in order to get a leg up on her opponents.
 * Companion Cube: Shimmer allows wrestlers to have "managerial objects," such as LuFisto's doll Peegaboo and Malia Hosaka's "partner" Lexie-Fyfe-on-a-Stick.
 * Cool Mask: Allison Danger wears one as part of her entrance gear.
 * Cat Power has recently introduced this into her entrance, and seems to have enjoyed a marked increase in popularity partly as a result of it.
 * Jamilia Craft is the first actual masked wrestler to compete in Shimmer.
 * Cosplay Otaku Girl: Part of LuFisto's gimmick are her many anime inspired costumes.
 * Leva Bates seems to be going for a similar gimmick.
 * Crowning Match of Awesome: The match between LuFisto and Cheerleader Melissa in Vol 20, which earned a standing ovation from the audience.
 * Ayako Hamada's bout with Sara Del Ray in volume 28, characterized by the sheer brutality and tenacity displayed by both wrestlers has become the stuff of legends amongst fans.
 * SHIMMER's mission statement was to prove that women's wrestling was worth being taken seriously, and didn't have to just be blatant T&A. On the very first volume, the Mercedes Martinez vs. Sara Del Rey match managed to do exactly that.
 * In Volume 5, Amazing Kong made her SHIMMER debut against Nikki Roxx in what most presumed would be a Curb Stomp Battle that would be over in a couple of minutes. But Roxx managed to hang in for almost fifteen minutes, at times giving Kong a significant amount of trouble, before she was finally pinned. Roxx gained a big fan following and higher profile from her performance in that match, which eventually led to her being signed by TNA (where she would be known as Roxxi Laveaux, and later just Roxxi).
 * The weekend of tapings for Volumes 27 and 28 were a Crowning Moment for MsChif.
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: In a match at Volume 40, the crowd starts chanting at Portia Perez "die, Portia, die!". Dave Prazak's reaction is priceless.
 * Corpsing: Watch Cheerleader Melissa trying to keep a straight face when the chant starts.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Senior referee Bryce Remsburg is exceptionally popular given the fact that he's well...a referee.
 * He did have a Big Damn Heroes moment during Portia Perez's Moral Event Horizon...
 * Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Kacey Diamond's French diva gimmick revolves around this.
 * Evil Foreigner: Jetta (from England), Wesna Busic (Croatia), The Canadian Ninjas (Canada), Rebecca Knox (Ireland), Kelly Skater (Australia), Madison Eagles (also Australia), Tomoka Nakagawa (Japan).
 * Face Heel Turn:  goes from a polite, hand shaking, friendly babyface to an obnoxious, arrogant cheater all in the course of one match.
 * Fearless Fool: Kellie Skater may weigh in at 68 kilograms of PURE ADAMANTIUM, but she never seems to catch on that she should maybe shy away from taunting and mocking wrestlers like Amazing Kong, Cheerleader Melissa, and LuFisto.
 * Fingore: Volume 35. Sara Del Rey vs. Rachel Summerlynn. Non-stop finger-destroying action from Death Rey.
 * Fun Personified: LuFisto, Leva Bates, and Jessie McKay all qualify.
 * Genki Girl: Jessica James.
 * The Giant: Amazing Kong.
 * Girl Posse: The Minnesota/International Homewrecking Crew. Team Blondage even more so, in their brief appearance.
 * Glass Jaw Referee: In addition to the universal weakness to any physical contact whatsoever that all referees share, Shimmer referees have also been knocked off their feet simply by being shouted at.
 * Granola Girl: Daizee Haze.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: Lacey and Rain of the Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew are this, with a significant helping of Ho Yay between them. They later team up with Jetta, forming a much rarer three person variant of this trope.
 * Lacey even introduces Rain as "The love of my life!"
 * Ho Yay: Again Lacey and Rain. They've also been known to invoke this with their merchandise in past occasions.
 * Hiroyo Matsumoto is a walking Ho Yay...even by the standards of professional wrestling, her match with Lufisto was...shall we say...wonderfully homoerotic.
 * Hypocritical Humor: On commentary, Portia Perez is outraged whenever a face does something vaguely illegal (or that she thinks should be illegal). She has no problem with heels blatantly cheating (or doing the same herself when she's wrestling).
 * Lovely Angels: The Tag Teams.
 * MacGuffin: The Singles and Tag Team Champion(s) belt. There is absolutely no logically conceivable reason why these women put each other through hell time after time for those silly things.
 * Made of Iron: The legendary bout between Ayako Hamada and Sara Del Ray on volume 28 has cemented this into the reputation of both women.
 * Kelly Skater seems to think she is.
 * Moral Event Horizon:
 * McNinja: Portia Perez and Nicole Matthews, the "Canadian Ninjas".
 * Ms. Fanservice: Rayna Von Tash, going hand in hand with her burlesque gimmick.
 * Nightmare Fuel: Cat Power licking Amber Gertner's cheek following a backstage interview. Something usually erotic was instead just flat out scary, enough so that the commentators were shuddering following it.
 * Noodle Incident: Cat scratch fever.
 * Not Listening to Me Are You: LuFisto fast-talked her way into a title match by catching an inattentive MsChif with this.
 * One of Us: Leva Bates for too many reasons to list.
 * McChif is also a microbiologist.
 * Our Banshees Are Louder: MsChif, bane of the aforementioned glass jaw referees.
 * Panty Shot: A staple of Cheerleader Melissa's matches.
 * Parts Unknown:
 * MsChif is from "The Inferno".
 * Leva Bates is from the Bates Motel.
 * Rachel & Jessica's Excellent Tag Team are from the International House of Paincakes.
 * Lufisto is from Montreal, Japan.
 * Ayako Hamada is from Tokyo, Mexico.
 * Re-Generation X (Allison Danger and Leva Bates) are from "Paris, via the TARDIS."
 * Amazing Kong has a regular hometown (Tokyo, Japan), but weighs "None of your damn business".
 * The team of Ariel and Nikki Roxx has a total combined weight of "Awesome".
 * Pint-Sized Powerhouse:
 * Portia Freakin' Perez!
 * Misaki Ohata, the Princess of Submissions. Also, cuter than a cat macro crossed with another cat macro.
 * Precision F-Strike: Ayako Hamada got one on the Volume 39 tapings when referee PJ Drummond kept hassling Hamada to get back in her corner while she was trying to make PJ aware of her partner, Cheerleader Melisa, being repeatedly double teamed by Madison Eagles & Sara Del Rey. Finally, fed up, Hamada screamed at PJ to "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Keep in mind SHIMMER is billed as a family-friendly show so this caused quite a reaction from the crowd.
 * Scary Black Woman: Amazing Kong.
 * Shout Out:
 * Cindy Rogers' Bret Hart-esque leather jacket.
 * After, Sara Del Rey starts channeling the Undertaker.
 * Rachel Summerlynn and Jessica James team up as Rachel and Jessica's Excellent Tag Team.
 * Dave Prazak is apparently a fan of Veruca Salt - the promotion's name comes from their song "Shimmer Like a Girl", and prior to Shimmer, he ran a women's wrestling show called "Volcano Girls".
 * Tempting Fate: Kellie Skater's schtick - she walks out to the ring about every other show making an open challenge, which is promptly answered by someone who can and does destroy her.
 * Treacherous Advisor: Daffney to Rachel Summerlyn.
 * Viewers in Mourning: Semi-example, a number of fans reacted like this to.
 * The Voiceless: Amazing Kong does not speak.
 * Waif Fu: Notably averted - WWE's "Divas" are trained to wrestle a more gymnastic wrestling style with lots of handsprings, headscissors, and Matrix dodges. In Shimmer, the women are more likely to trade forearms, exchange painful holds, and generally wrestle a strong ground game.
 * World of Action Girls
 * X Meets Y: Has been described as "All Japan Womens Pro Wrestling booked by Jim Cornette".
 * You Gotta Have Green Hair: MsChif
 * You Gotta Have Green Hair: MsChif