"Know Your Indie Wrestler" is forthcoming. I've just been busy as hell lately. Sorry for all the lateness!I have a confession to make. Up until a couple of years ago, I never took women's wrestling serious at all. Never. Call me a chauvinist, call me lazy for not looking at anything outside of the WWF/E/WCW comfort zone. However, I just never took it seriously. I mean, yeah, there were flashes of brilliance here and there. The WWF employed Bull Nakano for awhile, and Trish Stratus was kinda cool, but I wrote it off. I mean, yeah, there was joshi, but I wasn't even keeping up on the puroresu of the time as much as I liked. I guess I could thank the WWE Divas for my attitude. I mean, yeah, wouldn't you think that the best American women's wrestlers would be in the WWF/E?
Then again, it was two WWE Divas that opened my eyes - Mickie James and Beth Phoenix. When I came back into the fold as a wrestling fan in late 2007/early 2008, these two were having a series of matches that was good as anything I was watching on RAW at the time. It was amazing. They wrestled as well as the men did, not the awkward, "catfight" style that was famous in the WWF/E historically. It really opened my eyes.
And then I discovered Sara del Rey, and my world was really blown wide open. SDR was really my first indie woman wrestler that I had been exposed to, and she's blown me away so far. Whether wrestling men or women, she's really awesome, and she's made me want to check out more female indie wrestlers.
That's why I'm so bummed that I haven't checked out SHIMMER yet. I've heard really good things about them, and even better, all-around awesome dude and requisite TWB mancrush Bryce Remsburg is the senior referee there as well as in Chikara. So I guess my question is, what from SHIMMER is worth checking out the most? What wrestlers should I be seeking out to be featured the most? Also, what other indie feds, or eras from the TNA Knockouts, should I be looking into getting into?
I know I usually try to be authoritative about all things wrestling, but I'm admitting here that I'm woefully unaware when it comes to female wrestling. I want to change. So please readers, help me change! Help me erase the memories of Jacqueline and Medusa/Alundra Blayze and Miss Kitty and all the other terrible women's wrestling over the years!
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography
Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!
