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A Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel: Part 18

July 22, 2025 by Anonymous Eagle

Commentator Nigel McGuinness during AEW Collision on June 15, at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, OH.
Photo by Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

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 18

Nigel McGuinness vs Tyler Black

ROH World Championship

March 16, 2008

ROH Take No Prisoners 2008
Pennsylvania National Guard Armory
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This is Nigel McGuinness’ first title defense since defeating Bryan Danielson at the Sixth Anniversary show, which was the match we looked at last time out. That’s not surprising, it’s only been a couple of weeks since then. In the interim, McGuinness did take a pinfall in a Four Corners Survival match when Claudio Castagnoli beat him with the Ricola Bomb, and then tapped out to Danielson’s Cattle Mutilation the very next night, although I’m not clear if that was the actual finish or if it was Go Shiozaki tapping out to Austin Aries’ Last Chancery at the same time. Still a loss, and still a visual tapout to Danielson for the ROH champion.

Each of those matches were the two previous days to this contest, for the record, and the challenger was busy on those shows as well. Tyler Black, whom you may know currently as Seth Rollins in WWE, partnered with Joey Matthews, his compatriot in Age Of The Fall to beat The Briscoes in a tag team match on the first show, and then beat Erick Stevens in a #1 contender’s first round match the next night. That advanced Black to a Four Corners Survival match early in the night at Take No Prisoners against Castagnoli, Shiozaki, and Delirious. He won in just 9:30 with a corner powerbomb/Phoenix Splash combination on Delirious, and that sets up the show’s main event.

For the record, Black had only been working for Ring Of Honor since late September 2007 after debuting as a wrestler overall in 2004, appearing alongside Jimmy Jacobs and Necro Butcher in a street fight pitting The Age Of The Fall against Irish Airborne and Jack Evans. This wouldn’t even be Black’s first ROH title match, as he and Jacobs had defeated The Briscoes for the Tag Team titles at Final Battle in December 2007 before losing them to No Remorse Corps about a month later.

We get started hot as the two men adhere to the Code of Honor, and as soon as Black turns his back on Nigel and retreats to his corner to wait for the bell, McGuinness attacks him from behind and hurls Black through the turnbuckles to the post shoulder first. Referee Paul Turner calls for the bell as this happens, and McGuinness whips Black to the mat with an armwringer. The offense from the champ continues as he alternates between attacking Black’s arm and shoulder and taunting the ROH fans.

Nigel gets a little bit careless with his taunting breaks, and that allows Black to dodge a charge into the corner and get a bit of offense in. McGuinness eventually cuts him off with a stomp to the head and it’s right back to the arm and shoulder. The announcing crew discusses the fact that McGuinness has named the submission hold he had on Danielson at the end of the Survival of the Fittest match “London Dungeon,” and it’s clear that McGuinness is working his way towards getting that hold onto Black at some point in the match.

This is going quite poorly for Black, which is letting the Englishman get a little bit more arrogant both in his nonchalance in dealing with his opponent as well as how much he’s mouthing off at the fans. Things end up outside and Black goes back first into the ringside barricades. Black eats a running European uppercut on the other side of the ringside area, and it’s time for Nigel to start using a chair. As mentioned, McGuinness is being careless, and so Black gets an opening for a superkick, popping that chair right into Nigel’s face and toppling the World Champion over the barricade into the crowd at ringside.

Black sees an opening for a big risk, and so he goes for a springboard from the ring to the outside, but he hasn’t watched his Nigel tapes: Don’t springboard attack Nigel when he has a chair. We learned this back in Part 6 of this series, which was over two years ago for Nigel.

Anyway, Tyler Black’s dead as McGuinness waffled him with the chair on the way in. Paul Turner seems inclined to just let the champ attack a guy with a chair on the outside like this, which I’m sure Nigel’s not against. Generally speaking, there’s no count outs for ROH title matches, or at least that’s been something that’s been said in the past, so all Turner’s doing is just checking on Black’s welfare, and eventually he drags his nearly dead body back in the ring, and Nigel pounces with a pin.

For two.

My guy, perhaps dragging your opponent’s dead body into the ring while Paul Turner’s not going to count him out was a better plan.

Nigel is annoyed with this development and stomps about the ring for a moment, and as he goes for a ripcord lariat, Black ducks and gets a rollup for a two count. McGuinness is, of course, now just mad. European uppercuts into the corner, and a lariat….. gets two. He’s not pleased, and it’s time for the London Dungeon. The crowd chants PLEASE DON’T TAP and Black gets his foot on the rope. The chant evolves to F*** YOU NIGEL as he sets up for the Tower of London, but Black escapes, hits a flying stunner, and drops McGuinness with a running boot.

Turner counts both men down, and McGuinness is the first to his feet. Nigel’s smashing Black with European uppercuts, and Black flails back with chops. The challenger has just enough in the tank to dodge an attack, hit a Pele kick, and then drop McGuinness with a spinny DDT-ish move the announcers call Paroxysm. Did I look this up to spell it? Yes. Tyler: I am asking you to calm down with the move names, thank you. Anyway, that gets two.

Black’s fired up now, but Nigel dodges in the corner, kicks Black in the back, and lariats him to the ground….. for two. McGuinness goes up to the high rent district, which is rare for him unless he’s going for that crotched lariat. Of course he gets cut off as Black suplexes him off the top, and then rolls into a fireman’s carry facebuster, which gets two. The crowd declares THAT WAS THREE as Black moves for his signature Phoenix Splash. The champ’s not done for yet though, and he crotches Black on the top turnbuckle. That sets up the Tower of London, which gets two.

Nigel does not like the youngster’s ability to kick out over and over, to say the least.

Black ducks the Jawbreaker and hooks McGuinness for the package driver he calls God’s Last Gift (again: Tyler, calm down), and that gets two. Feels like kind of a quick count from Turner, but hey: That’s what happens when you assault the ref and he gets assigned your next title defense, I guess. Black feeds off the crowd’s excitement of the near finish and goes up top for the Phoenix Splash…. and crashes and burns. McGuinness pounces on him for the London Dungeon, but Black won’t give in. Eventually he manages to get enough leverage to counter and roll to a pin on Nigel for two.

The champ seems slightly staggered from that, but he recovers for the crotched lariat, and that gets two. Nigel is very shocked by all of this, and the crowd explodes into a THIS IS AWESOME CHANT. He pulls Black to his feet, Black spits in his face, and Nigel destroys him with a ripcord lariat. That’s it, get a spatula, Black’s finished…… and kicks out at two.

Nigel goes over to pick Black up, gets kicked in the head, but goes straight into the Jawbreaker, the crowd collectively says “ah, well, it was fun while it lasted,” AND BLACK KICKS OUT OF THE JAWBREAKER. THINGS ARE UP FOR GRABS IN PHILADELPHIA.

Black gets to his feet, eats a lariat, and gets shoved straight into the London Dungeon. McGuinness really cranks back on it, and finally, Black is forced to give up and tap out. Nigel McGuinness retains in 21:23.

The crowd boos this result because they were very impressed with young Tyler Black’s resilience. I think they’re chanting for Tyler as the announcing crew wraps up the show. Cage Match users liked this one a lot, giving it a rating of 8.71 out of 10, and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter really liked it, giving it 4 1⁄2 stars out of five. I don’t know if I’d go that far. It was pretty good, but it was mostly Black refusing to die while Nigel beat his ass for most of 20 minutes.

NEXT TIME: We scoot forward about a month for another ROH title defense and the first ever Ring of Honor encounter between Nigel McGuinness and Kevin Steen.

Filed Under: Marquette

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