Shimmer adds a huge name to next round of shows

While the next round of Shimmer Women Athletes tapings doesn't happen until November, the tickets are already on sale. With more international fans than many independent bookings, the company often sells out quickly on front row seats. But this time around, they're doing with a big name coming to join the festivities.

Back at the dawn of the 2000s, independent women's wrestling was not nearly as well respected as it was today. WWE still had semi-trained wrestlers regularly working their women's division and the indies had only a handful of talents that actually could wrestle a ten minute match. Into that fray walked a young woman named Alexis Laree. Starting in the Washington, D.C. area, she quickly expanded to work most of the west coast as news of a major women's talent started to spread.

Image credit: Shimmer Wrestling website.

In many ways she helped innovate women wrestling on the indie scene and in her wake more young stars started to appear. She worked the earliest TNA tapings, before finally signing a WWE contract where after over a year in development, she would debut as Mickie James.

Since that time Mickie's career has been legendary, as she's become the most decorated women's wrestling champion of the modern era. With 5 WWE Women's titles, a Divas title and 3 TNA Knockout titles under her belt along with a bevy of independent titles, she's easily one of the most rewarded female wrestlers ever.

And now she'll be at three of the five shows of the Shimmer weekend.

This comes in the wake of rumors of a possible return to WWE for Mickie James as a recent article on WWE.com named her "one of the hottest free agents" in wrestling.

Shimmer remains on my bucket list of shows to see live. I'm not a fan of their sales structure with DVDs of full shows and matches sold separately through the mediocre ClickWrestle service (with only one streaming show a year being made available past the first 20 events.) But they put on some epic events with some amazing talents. They were the first promotion to bring Asuka and Paige to the US after all.

Mickie and Shimmer seem like a match made in heaven. Expect great things come November 11th and 12th.

ESO-PRO presents the Wrestling Weekday Top 10 Wrestlers of 2015: Honorable Mentions Part 2

As the list gets ready to debut #8 later today, it is time to take a look at some of the other talent that didn't quite make it into the top ten. Today we will cover the wrestlers that came in between thirty-first and thirty-fifth place.

Image credit: WWE.com.

35. (2 way tie) Paige: While 2015 wasn't quite as solid as 2014 for Paige, she continued to be a dominant force in the Divas division, even though she spent most of the year chasing Nikki Bella for the title. She sparked the Diva Revolution in many ways thanks to her non-traditional style in the ring.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 11: Proof of NXT's power with the TLC card

One look at the TLC card shows exactly how far former NXT talent have came in WWE. Out of the twenty-three talents announced as wrestling on the card, a full thirteen of them have served as NXT regulars at some point in their careers. Of those thirteen, four are former tag team champions, two are former women's champions and two are former NXT champions.

Image credit: WWE.com.

So here is the rundown of the card from bottom to top and a few thoughts on the NXT talents involved.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 7: Back when Becky Lynch managed Paige... and Paige's mom

Interesting cross sections have started to appear on WWE programming now that the promotion has signed so many independent female wrestlers. With Shimmer serving as an amazing showcase for so many of these talents, it often becomes a very odd cross section where future WWE stars first make their connections.

Image credit: WWE.com.

We all know Paige and Becky Lynch were partners in Team PCB, but I am not sure how many people remember their original alliance from four years ago with a very different talent than Charlotte.

Top 10 stars of WWE, October edition

After Night of Champions I debuted the site's first Top 10 list. Now as Hell in a Cell enters the rear view, we move on to look at where the standings lie in its wake. Welcome to the second edition of the WWE Top 10 as we look where the stars of the roster sit this month. Numbers following names are ranks from last month.

Paige went even more goth in a Halloween themed
WWE shoot. Image credit: WWE.com.

That weekend I ran into Paige and Rob Schamberger

Apologies to regular readers of The Wrestling Weekday, as we went quiet for Monday. Yours truly spent all of the weekend at Wizard World Des Moines. And while I didn't get to watch any wrestling action (I even missed Money in the Bank, for shame), I did get to see a couple wrestlers take the stage in two panels within twenty-four hours.

First up was Rob Schamberger on Friday night. For those folks not in the know, Rob is the guy behind all those amazing WWE (and wrestling in general) paintings all over the internet. He officially works for WWE producing many of them. The current WWE Auctions site is built around his originals. Rob covered a lot of territory about why he creates art, how he got into drawing figures of professional wrestling and his strange journey into WWE employment.

He also painted a Paige original piece (part of his Champions series) during the show which was fun to watch take shape as I walked by a few times over the three days.

Via Rob Schamberger on Twitter.

As seen in the picture above, Paige also made her appearance the next day at the show. She appeared in a panel on Saturday afternoon, packed to the gills with a few too many smitten fans. But it was a lot of fun to hear some of her insights into wrestling. Paige is madly in love with wrestling and it shows in everything she says. Unfortunately the panel only ran about thirty minutes so it wasn’t too in depth, but it proved very interesting to hear her thoughts on WWE, the Divas division and the likelihood of #GiveDivasAChance really making a major momentum shift in WWE. She definitely implied certain individuals in the current main roster regime do not want to see it happen. Take that to mean Kevin Dunn, Vince or whoever you would like, but we can all just hope it will change over the coming months.

I ended my wrestling parts of the weekend by picking up a print you will probably see referenced a bit on this site, just because I consider it so freaking awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, Finn Balor.

Seth Rollins and Paige take Des Moines!

Iowan wrestling fans like myself don't get tons of chances to see WWE superstars. The roster makes maybe a half dozen stops anywhere in the state on any given year, so having any chance to actually meet the stars is rare.

With the advent of Des Moines first Wizard World convention that changes.



Despite a busy Sunday being planned for both stars, WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins and Divas Championship #1 Contender Paige will both be in Des Moines for the convention. Seth Rollins makes his appearance on Friday from 5:30 to 8. Paige will come on Saturday, with her appearance starting at noon.

So, fellow Iowans stop in for a chance to see two great talents before they both have major matches this Sunday at Money in the Bank.

It's time to give the Divas a chance

#GiveDivasAChance trended on Twitter a few months back and with it came an increased attention on how WWE treats the women of its roster. WWE accepted the message with a promise that things would change, but in the months since that time, little has. Admittedly, the women of WWE are treated as athletes far more now than ever before and often get more than five minutes at most pay-per-views. But we all know WWE could do better. And I am here to help with that. They have a simple solution to up the level of attention played to the WWE Divas and they can do it at their very next pay-per-view. That one big first step can come in the form of this:

The massive structure that is the Elimination Chamber will be used for both an Intercontinental and a Tag Team title defense, but if you really want to show the value of your Divas, let them have their own twenty minutes inside the steel. While a three way match between Naomi, Nikki Bella and Paige is already set for the upcoming show, WWE could easily implement the change between now and next Sunday. A simple angle with the involvement of the three women alongside Brie Bella and Tamina instantly can set up five women for the match. Involve Natalya or NXT standouts Charlotte and Sasha Banks to round out the card. Suddenly you have six solid female wrestlers in a battle over their prize.

It’s a simple equation: if you want the women of WWE treated by the fanbase as more than eye candy, you have to book them as more than just that. Letting the Divas show up for a brutal battle inside the most foreboding structure in wrestling history seems the simplest of solutions. With only five matches announced for the card, they should have plenty of time to fit it in.

If you like my suggestion, let WWE know with a tweet of #GiveDivasAChance in the #EliminationChamber" and this link. Or just click on this link to populate the message directly in your Twitter account.

Tough Enough gets staffed

So WWE finally announced the wrestling staff that will work on the new season of Tough Enough. One exciting thing for me is that the judges and the trainers are separate as of this season, something they desperately needed to do since the beginning. Now the talented in-ring guys can do the training while stars of today and yesterday can serve as judges.

The new judges!

I know some folks groan when they see his name, but Chris Jericho really is the perfect guy to host any non-wrestling show from WWE. He has tons of charisma, knows how to keep the narrative moving live or recorded, and has a fanbase outside WWE television. His times at the top make him a strong judge, second only in legacy to Hulk Hogan.

Hulk Hogan as a reality judge show might give some folks flashbacks to this, albeit with less Brian Knobs or Brutus Beefcake. But while Hogan is out of touch with the modern wrestling audience, he does have tons of credibility with his charisma and his insanely natural ring presence. And thankfully the new format doesn’t force him to stand at the edge of the ring and act like he is actually training anyone. (Looking at you, Steve Austin.)

Daniel Bryan is probably the biggest fan favorite in WWE. But like Eddie Guerrero before him, the fandom’s absolute love for him makes him hard to carry a storyline these days. Coupled with his mounting injuries, it might be best for him to more regularly take non-wrestling roles in order to save himself for higher profile matches. Days off the road to work Tough Enough will only elongate his career.

Paige seems an odd choice personally for the final judge, as she is such a young competitor. But on the WWE roster, she also has close to the most experience thanks to her legacy as part of the Knight family. No offense meant to Trish from last season, but I think she also brings a greater understanding of the squared circle than the admittedly great Ms. Stratus.

Booker T is the sole returning trainer this season, although Billy Gunn is a superb back-up. Billy can still go in the ring and has all the skills to help hone a new champion. I am a bit worried about Lita being the third name in the trainers as she hasn’t wrestled in over half a decade, but what she might not have to share in ring can certainly be made up for in helping the young talents find a way to move forward as characters as well as wrestlers.

Overall, the new format complete with promised live segments and fan interaction creates a Tough Enough far more interesting than previous seasons. It will also avoid the blindspots of previous seasons (Matt Cross, anyone?) while opening up the Performance Center in new ways to fans.

Here’s hoping we get a great bunch of young superstars to make the show a true winner.