Nicole Matthews vs. Jessie McKay, SHIMMER Volume 33 (9/11/2010)

One of those matches.

You know the kind.

The sort of match that is, objectively, sort of a borderline case, but that I liked, and found exactly interesting enough to write about and hopefully bring some larger attention to.

It is not totally perfect. McKay maybe never became the world’s most proficient mechanical wrestler and Nicole is not yet what she would become in a few years. The match comes more to the border of what it feels like it can be than it does actually step over and totally realize it.

For the most part though, I like too much about what it is to focus on what it is not, or on what it is not fully.

McKay is a genuinely great babyface, and as someone whose only real experience with her was on random CHIKARA shots or work from her NXT debut on, it really caught me by surprise. It feels odd to say, especially when talking about someone who also had a real natural gift for being a character first annoying heel on a larger stage, but there’s something naturally likeable about McKay in this match, not only as a sympathetic seller, but as a babyface capable of fist pumping comebacks that genuinely felt good. That’s also made real easy for her by the performance on the other end too though, as Nicole Matthews is once again just unbelievable at this sort of a thing. Her crowd work and interplay with the referee is immediately annoying and perfect at casting her opposite the opponent, and she spends the match riding this line in between loudmouth heel and bully, creating an ideal scenario where McKay is both put upon by a better and more violent opponent, but also on this struggle to shut up one of the most abrasive wrestlers in the entire world.

The match is great on a character level, but it’s even more impressive when handling the larger scale mechanics.

It’s a stellar try at the classic elevation of a young babyface over someone who it feels great to see defeated. Nicole is just vocally annoying enough throughout the match that it feels great for someone to shut her up, if only for a moment, and more than domineering enough in the match itself that Jessie genuinely gains something through being able to succeed not only where she had failed on the last set of tapings earlier in the year, but in general at the end of a real physical and mean spirited match, where she fights through what feels like a real malicious beating, including a real God damner of a Lariat from Nicole in something of a rarity. The nearfalls are even really great, feeling like a fully fleshed out and realized match, which a lot of earlier years SHIMMER often really struggled with.

Nicole and Jessie seemingly have one singular goal, and it feels impossible to say that they didn’t achieve that and then some.

McKay scores the upset with the Boyfriend Stealer, her Uranage Sky High, and to the match’s absolute credit, it manages to totally walk that line of feeling like something of an upset, while also because of the work put in up until the three count, also feeling like something totally and completely earned.

Imperfect but charming and, at least in terms of people I see, real underrated and/or underdiscussed. The exact sort of match I love to stumble across and that the SHIMMER archives are full of.

three girl

Daniel Makabe vs. Nicole Matthews, NEW 1 (9/11/2021)

Not the main event of the show, but the wrestling blog writers’ main event of the show.

The reasons for such a billing are made clear for the entirety of this match, as two wrestlers who often make it very easy to write about their work have a pleasant little match that is fairly easy to write about.

While more of an exhibition than a series that either are best when sinking their teeth into, it’s a match that lives up to the number one and only rule of a match like that. It has something worth exhibiting. In this case, it’s a riff session between two wrestlers who once again put a lot of thought into what they’re doing and come up with a lot of cool ideas. This doesn’t offer any long term point of focus and in fact makes a point of Makabe stopping Matthews’ leg work before it can become a hindrance instead of just a nagging ache, but there’s something to it. If there is a story to it, it’s that Nicole Matthews hasn’t wrestled, prior to today, since before the pandemic started. Makabe hasn’t exactly been working every weekend since the world collapsed, but there’s more ring time there, and the match makes that clear as he’s able to pull tricks out of his bag with greater success. Late in the match, he’s able to move in between things with a greater ease as well, eventually predicting Nicole’s counters and adjusting his legbar into a kind of cross heel hook for the submission.

Above all, it’s a contest full of neat little tricks. If not a lot to fall in love with, it’s the sort of match that’s filled to the top with things to like. Small counters, successful or unsuccessful attempts at fighting things off, and little facial expressions here and there as two ill-tempered wrestlers gradually test and wear upon the patience of each other. It’s the latter, as is often the case, that I find myself most impressed with. For Matthews, it’s an annoyance at times with Dan’s entire thing, and for Makabe, it’s a smug kind of frustration at moments when Nicole is able to succeed.  Little tics and shifts here and there that express more than vocal outbursts are often capable of and that often feel more natural to me. It’s how people react, and when wrestlers react in more realistic ways, the seams become a lot less visible.

The match is ultimately more of an appetizer more than a main course, given what one imagines these two could be capable of together. This is more in the middle of the card than at the end of it, and it’s very much wrestled in that sort of a style. A lot on the table, but still a sturdy and satisfying kind of a match. Given both the fact that both compete in the same region and the fact that both wrestlers rarely have thoughtless matches, one is left feeling like they’ll meet again (some sunny day), and the result will be something even better.

If so, it’s a great appetizer.

If not, hey, you can fill up on a great appetizer sometimes.

The sort of rich and easy showcase that displays why both are so easy to like in the first place.

***

Nicole Matthews vs. Madison Eagles, SHIMMER Volume 77 (10/10/2015)

PHOTO CREDIT TO FALCON JOSHI BLOG

This was a No Disqualification match for Eagles’ SHIMMER Title.

Two years ago, these two had one of the more charming matches in company history and of the decade, in which best in the world Madison Eagles took Nicole exactly lightly enough to allow a time limit draw that accidentally legitimized her as a top level wrestler. They spent a year buddying up to each other, but constantly also quietly insulting each other, before a rematch happened. In that match, there was still no conclusion, this time because they went to the classic simultaneous pin and tap out draw. The next show, at the end of a four way elimination match for the belt, they executed a perfect turn when Matthews used a fireball, of all things, to beat Eagles definitively while also becoming SHIMMER Champion, as Eagles focused on proving something while Matthews gave up after the second draw and focused on pure careerism. A third match in the spring of 2015 saw Eagles absolutely beat Matthews’ ass, only to now lose definitively one on one because she got too caught up in delivering a beating and nothing else.

After two years, SHIMMER’S greatest feud comes to an end. Given that this match, I think, works best with a lot of context, it’s worth saying that and worth discussing that for newer readers (especially given SHIMMER’s schedule).

Once again, these two deliver.

In discussing their last match, I wrote about Eagles and Matthews that, “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” (HANDWERK, 2021). Once again, they have the perfect match for the moment and this time, the moment calls for them to knock everything off the table that they’ve spent the last seven hundred and twenty one days setting up. If not the endearing and novel concept of that first match, it is a blowaway great finale. Something more common, but no less admirable and in many senses, a more difficult landing as a result.

As always, Matthews and Eagles display a gift for getting immediately to the heart of the matter and for never straying.

The match never loses sight of the story of the matter and it’s here where the match really succeeds. Nicole Matthews deserves a beating, and Madison Eagles badly wants to give one out. It’s simple enough, but the devil is in the details, as always. Eagles is always just on the edge of once again getting too comfortable and getting caught like she did in April, but the match offers a new story in the end as well. As Nicole is more able to trap Eagles and outsmart her as a result of the occasional overzealous nature of the beating, her schemes also get too complex and fall apart. Being unable to best Eagles now that she a.) 100% sees her coming & b.) everything is legal causes Matthews to revert back to the place of insecurity that this all started from, giving Eagles the exact specific opening that she needs to finally get her.

To their credit, the match more than holds up the other end of that too. It’s just just the stellar execution of the story, it’s a genuinely brutal and violent match that’s spent years earning all of that. Eagles’ offense on Matthews early on when she’s beating her around the building is all incredibly nasty and interesting, even going to the back to find the first woman she can (Kay Lee Ray) and hurling her into Nicole as a weapon. Matthews’ offense is similarly fitting, bordering between desperate and nasty. At every moment, the story is told through offense that she’s not as good and has to resort to either lower lows (trying to use her sash belt to tie Eagles to the ropes for a fireball) or riskier attacks (a dive), almost all of which either fail or take as much out of her. At all points, there is a sense of struggle present that’s so important in a match like this.

Following a clear and firm advantage after an absolute God damner of an apron brainbuster to Eagles, Matthews finally has the clear advantage. Fittingly and naturally, she blows it trying to prove a point. She tries to make a show of hitting Eagles with the title while she sits in a chair to win, adapts to do something else when Eagles blocks it, only for Eagles to get out and hit a flash Hellbound onto the title belt on the seat of the chair to both finally beat Nicole Matthews and also finally win her title back after four years.

It’s the perfect ending for the feud. Nicole eventually gets there, even if it takes her way more effort than Eagles, but insists on getting dirty with it. The schemes finally fail and Matthews takes the loss she’s spent two years avoiding. Questions initially raised by those two draws are answered, and the answers benefit each of them. Yes, Nicole Matthews can be as great as a top level talent. At the same time, she hung on against Eagles because of plots, schemes, and plans. Without any of that, the truth becomes clearer and clearer. Madison Eagles is the best in the world.

SHIMMER doesn’t often deliver the big great match to go with the quality of stories and performances in the ring, but this time they did. The result is one of the company’s crowning moments and a finale as brutal and satisfying as their initial match was charming. A wonderful and fitting end to one of the best and more underappreciated stories of the decade.

***1/2

Nicole Matthews vs. Candice LeRae, SHIMMER Volume 76 (10/10/2015)

This was for Matthews’ SHIMMER Title, following LeRae winning a battle royal earlier in the show.

While far from mechanically perfect, it’s yet another match from the Matthews reign that gets every other bit completely correct. A natural easy match up between SHIMMER’s best and most unscrupulous villain and one of the most natural and sympathetic babyfaces of the decade. A lot of taunting, a little bullshit, and it’s no surprise that it works out in the end when paired with great action down the stretch. As always, there’s a great sense of how to use the nonsense to fake people out, given that they expect it will always happen.

Following a phantom submission for the Gargano Escape by Candice with the referee down, a title belt across the head fails to steal Matthews the win, bringing the people out of their chairs. It’s an impressive thing for such a gimme win (as Matthews/Eagles IV is booked for the taping after this), and then doubly so when they’re able to break everyone’s hearts just a moment later. LeRae gets the hold on a second time, only now for Matthews to roll her way into a pin with a foot on the ropes to steal it in a way that’s both more impressive in its resourcefulness and also all the more crushing given the swiftness by which it comes.

If not all it can be, a perfect reminder going into Matthews/Eagles IV of why you should want to see Nicole Matthews finally get what’s coming to her.

 

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.

***

Nicole Matthews vs. Kay Lee Ray, SHIMMER Volume 72 (4/11/2015)

This was for Matthews’ SHIMMER Title.

It’s genuinely a blast.

This is pure formula through and through, but like the Rollins/Neville match on a recent episode of Raw, the formula just plain works. Daredevil throwing it out there against a more experienced and devious champion and going for broke. It’s easy, it’s a hell of a time, and it’s exactly the sort of match that a fan can parachute into and immediately get.

Kay Lee Ray’s initial burst of offense is thrilling, as is her bumping in transition, but the real standout is this one great little transition spot from Nicole back inside the ring:

Like most great new transitions that blow me away, it’s both super cool and brings up this thought that it’s so god damned simple and beautiful, and it’s stunning more people don’t do something like that. It’s the perfect little spot to get over the experience advantage and how the craftiness of Matthews is the hardest thing for a challenger to get past.

The offense itself is all really good. Neither is remarkably smooth and there’s a rough spot or two, but they’re very good at covering up and moving on. The key is just immediately adjusting to what actually happened, as opposed to pretending it didn’t or even worse, just trying to do it again. More than that, the offense they do is all INTERESTING. It’s diverse and cool, and it always feels like something is happening. Nicole’s shots aren’t all perfect, but it sort of fits with the character. Being petty and mean occasionally leads to one real nasty shot for every three or four thrown out in a mean-spirited fury. KLR’s offense is all wonderful too. Desperate and frenzied, real out of control stuff. The match is about trying to stop the leaking in a small canoe and eventually, there are too many leaks to plug up, and she can begin to go wild again.

It’s not exactly some epic, because that’s not SHIMMER and it’s not these two, but they have one of the better and more impactful endings in recent memory too (outside of the fireball). Nicole is a little better and avoids the big senton bomb, but Kay Lee Ray takes her pound of flesh on the way out with a beautifully meaningless and defiant one count kickout on the Vancouver Maneuver.

A second one keeps the title for Nicole, but having to hit two of them to begin with is exactly the sort of little win that does a lot for the challenger.

One of the more fun SHIMMER matches in recent memory, and a very easy recommendation.

***

Cheerleader Melissa vs. Madison Eagles vs. Athena vs. Nicole Matthews, SHIMMER Volume 68 (10/18/2014)

(photo credit to Falcon Joshi Blog)

This was an elimination match for Melissa’s SHIMMER Title.

It’s far from the best match possible. It’s not really even a great match. Stunningly, it’s the rare SHIMMER match that may have benefited from five more minutes, as the first segment with all four in winds up lasting too long, as opposed to the more dramatic sections following it. There’s a lot of those quirks that always bother me, beyond just sloppiness, the insistence on numerous elbow exchanges when nobody in this throws a reliably good elbow during it. The match just sort of goes a long for a while there, before the booking begins.

Uncommonly for independent wrestling, it’s there that the match becomes a lot more interesting and worthwhile. You get the classic sort of Anarchy Rulz ’99 ending with the challengers teaming up and Athena eliminating Melissa with the O Face, forcing a new champion no matter what. Unfortunately, they then sort of rush through the section with her on offense against the other two, with Melissa blaming Athena and distracting her for a cradle with the tights by Nicole.

The final segment with Nicole and Eagles is the absolute best and most correct choice. It’s not on the level of either singles match, lacking the foundation that both of those matches built up with better and more focused first halves, but there’s still a chemistry here. It’s also the home to a great payoff, as Nicole now stops trying to prove anything and gets back to good old fashioned thievery. She manipulates three different referee bumps, each resulting in a phantom pin or submission by Eagles, answering all those questions. In a situation where preparation was a lot harder and with luck maybe not purely on Nicole’s side this time, Eagles is so obviously and clearly better.

Fortunately, it doesn’t matter in the slightest.

After their last two matches and after not being beaten in SHIMMER for the last three years, Eagles is comfortable doing it on her own while Nicole has a thousand different tricks up her sleeves. Portia Perez comes out to help after the third straight visual fall, and with help, Matthews throws a whole ass god damned FIREBALL at Eagles and covers her for the win. As someone watching these shows relatively blind, it didn’t come out of NOWHERE because it’s one of the things friends had told me about, but it’s still just so great. Building the thing up for a year, then not only giving out a big payoff for the title, but doing it in this way was so great. Beyond just the old idea that a great heel denies you of something, that thing being a clean finish between them finally, it also makes all the sense in the world. Eagles got caught up in the questions Nicole’s draws brought up in people, but Nicole only ever wanted to advance her career. It’s the difference between wanting to win in a certain way and wanting just to win period. Employing the greatest illegal tactic in wrestling history to do that didn’t hurt either.

The match isn’t great, but again, credit to SHIMMER for advancing the Eagles/Matthews story in an unexpected way like this. One of the finest pieces of booking in company history.

 

Madison Eagles vs. Nicole Matthews, SHIMMER Volume 67 (10/18/2014)

A long awaited follow up to their 2013 match, itself being one of the most entertaining and memorable matches in SHIMMER history. This is also a #1 Contender’s Match, with the winner going on to Volume 68 to wrestle the champion and Athena in a three way dance. It was also a match that, in story, SHIMMER had tried to put together for the last year, only to now see Nicole finally agree to it after miscommunication on the previous show and with something now on the line to make it worth it.

The result of that is a match that is immediately far more serious than the 2013 match.

I don’t enjoy it as much because it’s far less unique, but that’s also the sort of match that you could only ever run once. It was a wonderful and charming story of Nicole surprising Eagles, so to run the same thing over again would do a disservice to both women, as well as the story told from match to match. Instead, it’s a great little continuation of all of those elements, trading in that unbelievable charm for something more serious and with a lot more upper card level weight to it. Firstly, it’s about them knowing each other better now. Eagles can’t be surprised twice. At the same time, while Matthews is no ultra coordinated mat genius, she also has much more of a measure of Eagles than she did a year ago. The matwork is more serious and while Eagles still plays around a little, Nicole is a lot more aggressive as soon as she sees an opening with Eagles slightly hurting her leg. It’s a little mean and a lot great, and feels like something Nicole couldn’t have done as convincingly in this spot as a character a year prior and also probably not pulled off as well mechanically a year prior either.

To that point, it’s also a lot about the continued legitimization of Nicole Matthews. They get it pitch perfect once again. The mistake made so often with a character like this (“not super athletic but endlessly endearing dirtbag on the come up”) is to abandon elements of that as they move up the card. Someone stops being as comedic or becomes entirely serious, like human beings are ever just one thing. Matthews is the same, just now also able to genuinely hang with the maybe best female wrestler in the world. It’s through this anchor to pull on with the leg, but it’s also a weakness she created in Eagles, a little token of her own hard work. It’s a great choice they make to occupy so much of the contest with that, as it both represents Matthews being able to do this legitimately now, but also a soft transition to Eagles as a more sympathetic character.

They deliver the extended nearfall run now that they only really teased in the first match. It’s not over the top amazing or anything, but just good solid wrestling. The knee selling is good, the offense mostly works, and they pull off some real drama without sacrificing the initial shape of the thing. Matthews again proves something, but it’s primarily based on preparation, having the Hellbound entirely scouted and taking Eagles’ best shot away from her. Eagles is still probably better and keeps grabbing these big holds at will. Matthews can’t escape the sleeper, but is able to kick off the ropes for the Bret/Piper spot for a simultaneous pin and submission, with another referee coming out to tell Bryce, resulting in the second draw. Near simultaneous anyways, as Nicole seems to first tap the mat before the final count. That too works in a weird way, maybe even better than the true draw, with Matthews doing just enough to preserve this illusion and lucking out just enough in the end. She probably lost, but lost in all that is that she’s the first person in something like two or three years of SHIMMER shows now to get Eagles’ shoulders down for three.

In the end, they go to another draw, but in a different sort of a way and to a different sort of a feeling. A year ago, Nicole Matthews wound up legitimized by lasting twenty minutes against the best in the world, helped by Eagles not taking her entirely seriously, slipping up and accidentally giving her a reputation boost. Still, by the end of that match, Eagles felt a minute or two away from definitively shutting Matthews down. Here, that’s not the case at all. Because of the way it goes, the things that carry over from match to match, and the way it ends, there really is a question there now. It’s just that this prickly weirdo is actually a great wrestler too, but that through two draws, she might have genuinely figured out the best wrestler in the company. She also might just be that perfect combination of lucky and good, but that’s the beautiful part about a well executed draw, the fact that you don’t actually get to know just yet.

A fitting follow up to one of my favorite weird little matches of the decade, and like that one, more than worth your time. Across two matches and a year’s worth of shows, this one might be SHIMMER’s best story ever, provided they land the other parts as well as the two singles matches so far.

***

 

Madison Eagles vs. Nicole Matthews, SHIMMER Volume 58 (10/19/2013)

An absolute hoot.

It’s SHIMMER’s version of the famous (famous? famous among people who’ve seen it, I guess?) CM Punk vs. Steve Corino 20:00 draw from 2013, in which two heels at different stages of their careers have an incredibly fun and wholly inconclusive match.

There are differences, of course. These two are a little more hammy early on, with the near-immediate double cheating spots, and the characters are slightly different. Corino was a just barely over the hill dirtbag to Punk’s not super athletic but endlessly endearing dirtbag on the come up, much closer to mirror versions of each other. Here, Madison is still clearly in her athletic prime and a classical best in the world type still very much in the middle of that, to Nicole’s…well, not super athletic but endlessly endearing dirtbag on the come up. Nailed that part perfectly. The main difference comes out of that, as it’s very much a legitimization of Matthews as a singles wrestler after the long Canadian Ninjas reign, and it totally works.

It’s a slow transition, as Eagles never goes totally nuclear to try and kill Nicole by the end, but it’s surprising all the same that she’s able to hang in there as long as she does and take it to the draw.

Nicole’s super expressive, but Eagles goes down low with her and completely matches her with all the great little bits here. There’s some fun mirror stuff, but it always pays off with one of them cheating immediately after the show of respect. It’s everything a heel vs. heel match should be. Relentlessly charming, funny as hell, but then also just a really great match on top of that. It’s always moving forward, and Eagles does such a fantastic job of slowly taking Matthews more and more seriously, and Matthews does a great job of slowly getting more and more serious about it too. By the end, Madison Eagles is closing in as the natural order’s asserted itself, but when she can’t end it in time, Nicole suddenly has this gigantic boon, being the first one in a long time that Eagles wasn’t able to beat.

After the match, they don’t do the pitch perfect Corino/Punk “SCREW YOU, PAY FOR IT NEXT TIME” bit, but there’s another deeply endearing little bit they do instead, where Nicole keeps holding up a palm to signal for five more minutes, but when Madison Eagles echoes her, she just high fives her instead and leaves.

The most charming SHIMMER match I’ve watched yet, making up for whatever else it might have lacked in flawless execution or going a little long to get to the time limit. There’s always a good to great match or a handful of them on these shows, but this is one of the only ones I’m actually going to remember and think about in a month’s time, probably.

One to seek out.

***1/4

Cheerleader Melissa vs. Nicole Matthews, SHIMMER Volume 45 (3/17/2012)

This was for Melissa’s SHIMMER Title.

It’s not a great match, but it’s not a match without charm. Fitting for Matthews, who is perhaps not a great wrestler, but one who’s always entertaining to watch. What she lacks in great control work here, she makes up for with some fun heel bullshit and a few surprisingly good elbows and kicks. Melissa is Melissa. She’s solid at everything, and if not spectacular in any moment, there isn’t much in the way of real issues. While this is no epic and not quite a great match, it’s effect is much more in being a good television style first defense for Melissa.

Portia Perez’s interference backfires, Melissa keeps making Nicole eat it when she tries to play with magicks that she doesn’t understand, and she wins with the Air Raid Crash.

Not a great match, but two really good performances.