Nicole Matthews vs. Madison Eagles, SHIMMER Volume 74 (4/12/2015)

This was for Matthews’ SHIMMER Title.

It doesn’t quite have the same bite as the two draws did, but that’s less the fault of anything that happens here and more that a great classic style title match with a villainous champions trying to fend off a superior challenger is far less interesting than two great versions of a heel/heel draw. That’s just down to simple economics, there’s far less of the latter than the former, one is more special than the other.

However, it is a wonderful continuation of all previous meetings, and a great match all on its own.

Eagles’ quest for revenge largely works out early on, since she is actually better than Matthews, but it makes her sloppy in a way she usually isn’t. Matthews takes advantage and spends the match attacking the head and neck. It’s a simple point of focus that anchors the match at all times. These are the two who I always make time for over the course of this 2010s project when it comes to SHIMMER because they always have matches like this, that are always grounded and understandable, even if they don’t result in great matches every single time, and this is no exception. They commit to the bit in the same way they’ve committed to every bit over the course of the match.

The offense is all wonderful and interesting, and for as good as Eagles has been in the past as a dominant heel champion, she’s even better now as someone on a mission. She’s better than anyone else in SHIMMER at this point and maybe ever (the only competition is perhaps Del Rey) at conveying anger while kicking ass, and also at doing so from a position of total strength. On her end, Nicole Matthews is one of the great chickenshit heels of the decade in her time around the top of the card as a singles act here. Everything about her that was endearing and charming about their first draw, such as Nicole being in over her head and hanging on through wits alone, is turned around and repurposed to make her as loathsome as possible, and it absolutely works.

After a series of genuinely gnarly throws onto Matthews’ neck, Eagles hits the Hellbound to win, only to have Nicole’s foot on the ropes. They make a big show out of it with Eagles even wearing the title again before Portia Perez brings other referees down to point it out. The match is restarted, as it ought to be. A lesser mind might have her put the foot on the rope after or even have Portia come down and do it for her, but there’s something even more frustrating about it being an entirely legitimate reason to take it back away from Eagles.

In her frustration, Eagles turns her back on Matthews, who goes right to the neck again and hits the Vancouver Maneuver to just barely hang on one more time.

It’s no longer about being better. It’s about being smarter, and with Eagles is still mad as hell, it’s finally a fight that Nicole can win.

A wonderful stopgap in the middle of one of the best stories in wrestling over the last several years.

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