A Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel: Part 1

We’ve got a guy named Nigel joining Marquette men’s basketball this fall, so let’s celebrate with a tour through the best Nigel McGuiness matches from Ring of Honor.

I haven’t been particularly shy about the fact that I enjoy watching professional wrestling on this website. I don’t post about it much, but there’s a reference or two that drops in here and there. So, much like when Sandy Cohen and Dawson Garcia joined Marquette Golden Eagles men’s basketball, the addition of Nigel James in the 2025 recruiting class tripped a wire in my brain. “Hey, Nigel! Just like former Ring Of Honor champion Nigel McGuiness!”

I had a very good idea for a silly summer series: Check out Nigel’s page on Cage Match, find the top rated ROH matches on ROH Honor Club, subscribe to Honor Club, watch them, write about them.

And then I found THIS:

Shouts to All Elite Wrestling, ROH’s current parent company, for posting a NEARLY TWELVE HOUR LONG compilation of what they’re calling The Best Of Nigel McGuinness. 25 Nigel matches, just sitting there for free on YouTube.

Yeah, I’m doing that.

We’ll go a match at a time, and they’re all in chronological order in the video, which is neat.

A CELEBRATION OF GUYS NAMED NIGEL: PART 1

Nigel McGuiness vs Colt Cabana

May 7, 2005

ROH Manhattan Mayhem
New Yorker Hotel Grand Ballroom
New York, New York

Ring Of Honor had been running shows since 2002, and by this point, Samoa Joe had already completed his 645 day run as ROH World Champion to put the promotion on the map. Nigel McGuinness had started working for the company in mid-2003, and earlier in 2005, he had teamed up with Colt Cabana to challenge Dan Maff and BJ Whitmer for the ROH Tag Team titles. They came up short, but that led to the two squabbling with each other, leading to this match where the winner would receive a championship match against the winner of the ROH Pure Championship match that same night between the champion Jay Lethal and the challenger, former ROH World Champion Samoa Joe.

After a slight bit of confusion over which hand the two men were going to use for the pre-match Code Of Honor handshake, Nigel McGuinness grabs control early out of the gate with a wristlock out of the opening tieup. After they trade reversals, Cabana draws some laughs from the crowd as he gets the first couple of pinfall attempts in the match with a crossbody crucifix pin, where he holds down one of Nigel’s wrists…… but that leaves Nigel’s other shoulder unpinned and between Cabana’s legs, so he easily raises his arm to break up the pin over and over, even as Colt changes sides and hands.

Trying for the laughs is pretty standard for Cabana, as we’ve seen his career over the years, and in case you didn’t know that, the Colt 45 malt liquor themed singlet lets you know, too. Nigel leans into Cabana’s shenanigan attempts a little bit, almost seemingly leaving the door open for Colt to try shenanigans just so Nigel can easily counter it and make Colt look silly for even trying it in the first place. For a second it looked like Cabana was starting to get a bit more serious as Nigel got a little sillier, but that was the opening that McGuinness needed to start using his power advantage and a couple of Divorce Courts (a DDT, but with a hammerlock instead of a headlock) started pushing this thing in Nigel’s direction.

Cabana started trying to find his way out of this match with a series of rollups, but he could only get a two count on the pin attempts. A kick to the face as Cabana tried to do his step up the turnbuckle/turnaround/scramble through the legs move turned to McGuiness doing his own step up in the corner into a sliding dropkick to take out Cabana’s legs, and then he mixed that move up and kicked Cabana in the breadbasket instead. A little bit low? Maybe, but it stunned Cabana enough for McGuinness to hop up onto Colt’s shoulders from behind and execute the victory roll for the three count and the win. Elapsed Time: 11:51

That was fun, as you would expect a 2005 Colt Cabana match to be. Nothing super crazy, a lot of mat grappling and simple power moves along the way, and ultimately a pretty definitive win for McGuinness. The Cage Match average rating for the match is 6.85 out of 10.

NEXT TIME: We jump one month forward to that ROH Pure Championship match that Nigel McGuinness earned with this victory. The champion after Manhattan Mayhem? None other than Samoa Joe.