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 McGuinness 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 17
Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson
ROH World Championship
February 23, 2008
ROH Sixth Anniversary Show
Manhattan Center
New York, New York
Last time out, we saw Nigel McGuinness square off against Bryan Danielson in a first round match in Survival of the Fittest 2007. That was Nigel’s first match since defeating Takeshi Morishima for the ROH World Championship, and after going to a draw with Danielson, McGuinness set about defending that title. Before the year was out, he had wins over Jay Briscoe, Chris Hero, and Austin Aries. He started out 2008 with a tour of Japan with Pro Wrestling NOAH, including a defense against Go Shiozaki in his final match. Then, back in the states, there was a renewal of the rivalry with Hero, defeating him in a cage match in Dayton, OH, and in his most recent ROH match before this one, McGuinness beat Roderick Strong to retain the world title.
It would have seemed that the draw with McGuinness should have earned Bryan Danielson a shot at the ROH World Title, but things didn’t quite work out that way for the man who would be known as Daniel Bryan in WWE eventually. He was in the middle of losing a two out of three match series with Austin Aries, then got himself disqualified in a match against Takeshi Morishima, and then lost straight up to Jimmy Jacobs. Still, he’s the American Dragon, and so, it couldn’t be much of a surprise that Danielson closed out 2007 with a win in a #1 Contender’s Four-Way over Aries, Morishima, and Chris Hero at ROH Final Battle. One night before this match that we’ll watch today took place, Danielson was in a #1 contender’s tournament — yes, as the reigning #1 contender — and lost to Kevin Steen in the semifinals.
This match was, quite obviously, the main event of the 6th Anniversary Show, and the fourth straight title match to close out the card. In the first three, Sara Del Rey beat Daizee Haze to retain the SHIMMER Title, No Remorse Corps beat The Vulture Squad to retain the ROH World Tag Team Titles, and Roderick Strong retained the FIP World Heavyweight Title in a No DQ three-way against Erick Stevens and Necro Butcher. Three straight champs retaining their belts, heading into McGuinness/Danielson for the ROH championship.
We get ring introductions from Bobby Cruise, with Danielson interrupting to make sure everyone knows he’s proud to be a part of ROH for six full years and McGuinness getting in a note that he’s the best wrestler in the world. Based on the crowd reactions, Danielson is the crowd favorite here, both by way of the boos for Nigel and the YOU’RE GONNA GET YOUR F***IN HEAD KICKED IN chant, which is a pro-Dragon chant. After referee Paul Turner calls for the bell, a LET’S GO DRAGON/LET’S GO NIGEL call and answer chant breaks out from the crowd, so there’s more than a few McGuinness supporters in the Manhattan Center tonight as the two guys grapple for a while to get things started.
The announcing crew discusses McGuinness and head injuries/concussions as a part of his title reign. Apparently Danielson — who himself has his right thigh taped up — has proclaimed that he will do his best to avoid assaulting Nigel’s head during this match. I’m not 100% sure I trust Danielson’s word on this issue here, he’s not been the most trustworthy figure, especially when it comes to interacting with McGuinness, both in the ring during matches or outside of competition as well.
Danielson has been holding the advantage in the grappling, pushing McGuinness to a rope break to get out of a single leg Boston Crab. Bryan’s more than happy to release before the 5 count, not even a moment of noting that he has until 5 to the ref, and then cheerleading the crowd in a U-S-A! chant against his opponent from England. McGuinness backs Danielson into the corner, makes the “UNTIL 5!” proclamation himself, then goes for the headstand in the corner. This gets him dropkicked — in the chest, not the head, Danielson’s being careful as promised — to the outside, and Dragon follows up with a tope suicida.
Danielson follows up back on the inside with a backdrop suplex, and McGuinness takes off to the outside because he bonked his head on the landing. He takes offense to Danielson going back on his word, albeit accidentally on a suplex, and after an argument with Turner, McGuinness SHOVES TURNER TO THE MAT. The ref’s not out, though, and he calls for the bell. Danielson wins by disqualification in 8:31, and of course, the belt does not change hands on a DQ.
McGuinness calls the crowd wankers over the house mic, declares that they got the title match that they came to see, and leaves.
And gets cut off in the aisle by Austin Aries, with Delirious, Kevin Steen, and Roderick Strong backing him up. Aries gives McGuinness an ultimatum: Get back in the ring and defend the title with honor….. or fight his way out of New York. McGuinness takes the first option, but is keeping an eye on Aries as he gets back in the ring, so Danielson pounces on him with chops. Bobby Cruise announces that ROH President Cary Silkin has ordered the match restarted, Todd Sinclair hops into the ring to ref the match and calls for the bell, Danielson celebrates, and Nigel pounces on him, throwing Dragon into the turnbuckles and through to the post.
All of this starts a F*** YOU NIGEL chant, of course.
McGuinness continues the assault on Danielson, focusing on the shoulder that went into the post, and that of course is the same shoulder that he needed to have surgically repaired after he lost the ROH title. Eventually, McGuinness’ ego gets the best of him and he gets a wee bit lackadaisical. Danielson catches a European uppercut, counters, and pops Nigel with that flying kick we saw at Survival of the Fittest. Have to note that it’s a strike towards Nigel’s head, even if maybe he didn’t quite make contact to his head, can’t tell for certain. Big knee strikes and kicks from Dragon here, and after one sends Nigel to the floor, they fight over a suplex back inside. Nigel gets the reversal, sending Bryan out hard to the floor.
It seems like McGuinness has the advantage on the outside, but Danielson cuts him off, sends him into the barricade, and then backdrops Nigel on a outside-in Jawbreaker attempt, sending the champ into the crowd. Look at how exited this guy is to have nearly gotten crushed by Nigel McGuinness’ flying body:
YouTube/AEW/ROH
The fans clear out of the way, and Danielson hits a springboard forward flip dive over the barricade onto McGuinness, and then high fives everyone within reach. Dragon goes for a missile dropkick, but Nigel catches him possibly for a Figure Four, but Danielson turns it into a triangle choke. McGuinness escapes, smashes Danielson with a lariat, both men are down, and the crowd chants SAME OLD S*** at McGuinness’ reliance on lariats.
McGuinness gets dumped outside, Danielson goes for another tope, but gets cut off by a European uppercut. McGuinness gets the Tower of London off the apron, even though he’s bleeding from around his eye now, and back inside, he gets a two count. He goes for the Jawbreaker, Danielson dodges, Nigel throws him into the ropes, drags him crotch first on the ropes, crotched lariat, Tower of London, and allllll of that gets two.
Time to yank on Danielson’s arm, the same armlock that Danielson frantically tapped out to after the time limit expired at Survival of the Fittest. Bryan gets the ropes, McGuinness reapplies, but Danielson turns it into a pinfall on reversal, and then gets a Chaos Theory rolling German suplex….. for two.
Danielson fights his way into a big top rope backdrop suplex, but takes a second to follow up with a pin. Two count, and he goes straight into Cattle Mutilation. Todd Sinclair is hollering at Nigel, you can hear him asking the champ if he quits. Nigel rolls through, setting up Danielson to batter him with the hammer & anvil elbows….. but he won’t do it, holding to his word about striking Nigel’s head….. and instead holds the double underhooks and scores with a tiger suplex. Serious question: Is throwing Nigel over your head to land sharply shoulders first on the mat and bridging into a pin actually less of an impact to Nigel’s head than elbowing him in the head?
McGuinness kicks out, Dragon fires elbows to his midsection — avoiding the head! — and then tries an armbar. Nigel rolls out, but straight into a triangle choke attempt. Danielson could be scoring with elbow strikes to the head here, but he won’t do it. Nigel’s fighting, but it looks like he’s out. Sinclair checks his arms, he responds on the third check, and then fights to the ropes to escape.
Danielson punishes McGuinness with body shots into the corner, and the challenger demands that Sinclair start counting for a referee’s stoppage. The champ gets up at 8, more body shots, and Nigel headbutts his way out. And headbutts Bryan again. And headbutts Bryan coming off the ropes. Danielson’s down, clutching at his eye, and Sinclair repeatedly waves McGuinness away instead of letting the assault continue. I usually hate this type of thing in a match, but Sinclair legitimately can’t see what Danielson’s eye looks like so he can’t make a clean decision about stopping the match until he does see it. Eventually Danielson gets up and takes his hand away, he’s visually fine, and apparently he’s refusing to quit. Huge lariat from McGuinness, and he starts throwing those hammer & anvil elbows. Shot after shot after shot after shot, one more hard one to the eye, and McGuinness grabs that armhold to yank at Bryan’s shoulder. It doesn’t matter, because Bryan went out a long time ago. Sinclair calls for the bell, and Nigel McGuinness retains on referee’s stoppage. Cage Match says that’s in 30:05, although the timer on the YouTube video has it at 31:39, but that includes the stoppage when McGuinness tried to leave.
Big difference in the first eight minutes and the last 22 minutes, the first eight was exactly the first eight minutes you would have expected from McGuinness/Danielson based on their previous encounters, the next 22 were quite heated after McGuinness tried to bail out of the match on a cheap DQ by shoving Paul Turner. The fans wanted Nigel’s head on a platter after that, and both men were much more physically aggressive than they’ve been in previous matches that we’ve watched in this series, and it all builds to the reveal that Nigel was lying about his head the whole time and used it to his advantage to beat Danielson. Yet once again, with the double whammy of McGuinness misleading everyone and Danielson passing out, we still don’t have a decisive finish between these two men even though it’s the seventh time we’ve watched them here. Cage Match users give this one a rating of 9.50 out of 10, and I can’t disagree. Might not be my favorite match of theirs, but it deserves the rating.
NEXT TIME: We skip forward about a month and get a new face to add to the list of opponents for Nigel McGuinness. For the first time in Ring Of Honor: Nigel McGuinness faces Tyler Black aka Seth Rollins.