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 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 McGuinness!”
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 12
Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson
ROH World Championship #1 Contender Match
June 9, 2007
ROH Domination
Pennsylvania National Guard Armory
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Last time out, we saw what amounted to an impromptu tag team main event stemming from the fact that both Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness believed they deserved the next shot at ROH World champion Takeshi Morishima. And so, for Driven, ROH’s next Pay Per View event (which actually didn’t air until September it seems, weird, sure, but not as weird as this match actually happening two weeks before the rest of Driven), management put the two men in the ring to settle their differences. For those of you scoring at home, yes, this is the FIFTH McGuinness/Danielson singles match that we’ve covered and the sixth match involving Danielson. No, it won’t be the last one, either.
Spoilers, sweetie.
It’s the American Dragon and Nigel McGuinness, so yep, after all this time, they’re still going to try to out-grapple each other because Nigel doesn’t believe that Bryan’s ever truly beaten him and Bryan knows that Nigel thinks that and wants to prove he’s the best pure wrestler on the planet. Danielson seems to be the first one to get a little frustrated with how that grappling is going, and he starts diving into the strikes, including trying to work in some MMA-style ground and pound. They ultimately end up even, and Danielson offers a handshake…. but that’s just an excuse for Danielson to fire off an open hand slap and keep firing off strikes. Eventually Nigel gets the double boots off the headstand in the corner, and that helps him get the advantage and start attacking Danielson’s shoulder. That’s affecting both his surgically repaired shoulder, but also his ability to try to get Cattle Mutilation or the crossface chicken wing down the line here.
Nigel connects with a short clothesline, and Danielson takes a powder to the outside to take a break. McGuinness is right on top of him, using whatever’s around at ringside to punish the future Daniel Bryan in WWE, but the tables get turned on him…. literally. Danielson counters McGuinness and then dumps the time keeper’s table over on top of him. After a plea from referee Todd Sinclair to get this back in the ring, Danielson tries to send Nigel in, but he’s figured out how to do a variation of the Jawbreaker lariat and sends Bryan tumbling over the ringside barricade. And so, that’s how we get Nigel hitting the High Fly Flow off the post to the outside. Sweet Christmas.
He takes too much time getting back to offense on Danielson, and an elbow strike sets up Dragon to hit a standard vertical suplex….. straight onto the barricade. Not on a flattened out one, but dropping Nigel’s back over the top edge of the standing barricade. Ow ow ow ow ow ow, and Danielson suplexes him back to ringside over the barricade, and back inside….. and all of this gets two. Danielson transitions to the LeBell Lock and starts working over McGuinness’ back.
Danielson keeps the offense going, but he honestly gets a wee bit too overconfident and cocky, just lazily shoving his boot into Nigel’s face, and a few open hand slaps make McGuinness angry, and a rolling lariat turn the match in the Englishman’s favor. It seems like he was pushing his way towards the Tower of London, but that means lifting Danielson’s body up to the top rope, and with his back not quite right, he can’t get there. That lets Danielson get control for a little while, but a clever series of counters for both men ultimately becomes a Danielson dropkick attempt becoming a McGuinness powerbomb…. for two. Nigel stays on top of Danielson with a single leg Boston Crab until Bryan gets to the ropes.
The headstand in the corner means Danielson dropkicks McGuinness in the face, setting up a big ol’ backdrop superplex, which gets two, and Bryan pounces with the crossface chickenwing. McGuinness rolls around to his feet, uses the turnbuckles to break the hold, powers through his back pain and hoists Danielson up for the Tower of London AND CONNECTS…..
….. but he can’t follow up with a pinfall. Todd Sinclair starts counting both men down.
McGuinness catches the advantage as they regain their footing, and he scores with the rope crotched lariat, and even though he drags Danielson away from the ropes, Dragon still gets his foot out to break the pin count. Nigel tries to drag him away, but Bryan counters with an enziguri kick, and they’re both down again.
Sinclair gets to a count of six before they climb back to their feet face to face, and a slap strike becomes a headbutt fight which busts Danielson open, and McGuinness dodges one to get a lariat, then Danielson catches an elbow to set up a dragon suplex and a Cattle Mutilation attempt, which Nigel rolls through for a pin attempt. Bryan switches to the hammer and anvil elbows, then slips back to the Cattle Mutilation…. and Nigel McGuinness is OUT, presumably with the elbows knocking him out before Danielson gets the submission hold. Danielson wins and becomes the #1 contender, face bathed in his own blood, by referee stoppage one way or another, in 24:31.
A very determined match by both men, maybe a little bit more high risk than we’ve seen from them, perhaps because both guys know that it’s going to take just a little bit more than it has in the past to put the other guy down for the count. Cage Match users rate this match at 9.58 out of 10, and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave it four and a half stars. I don’t think it’s my favorite of their series, but that’s a lot of pretty high scores.
NEXT TIME: How’s this for a weird arrangement of a match? The next edition in this series will be Nigel McGuinness teaming with Bryan Danielson against Naomichi Marufuji and Takeshi Morishima. We’ll be back in a couple of days to figure out exactly how these guys end up on the same side of the ring against the Pro Wrestling NOAH guys.
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