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 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 3
Nigel McGuiness vs Claudio Castagnoli
July 16, 2005
ROH Fate Of An Angel
Connecticut Sports Center
Woodbridge, Connecticut
This match comes just a couple of days over a month following Nigel McGuinness’ loss to Samoa Joe that we talked about last time. In the meantime, Nigel had won a Four Corner Survival match against Azrieal, Homicide, and James Gibson, beat Vordell Walker quickly, and picked up a 2-1 win over Colt Cabana in a European Rounds match just one week before this contest. This match was Claudio Castagnoli’s Ring of Honor debut. He had broken into wrestling in his home country of Switzerland back in 2000 and had been working for Chikara since 2003 and CZW late in 2004, teaming with Chris Hero as the Kings of Wrestling in tag team matches. This is the first time in this series we’re doing — but it won’t be the last! — where Nigel’s opponent might be more familiar to you under a different name. At this point of his career, Claudio is still six years away from signing a WWE developmental contract and taking on the name of Antonio Cesaro, and nearly seven years away from debuting on SmackDown.
It’s slightly weird to see Claudio like this, and by “this,” I mean 1) with hair, much less long slicked black hair and 2) in slacks, a sleeveless dress shirt, and a tie. Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard on the call note that Claudio comes to wrestling from the Swiss banking industry, so he’s doing a “I am a very important Swiss banker” bit here. Nigel gets an early advantage with a bit of flipping off the ropes into an elbow that Claudio didn’t appreciate, but CC cuts him off with a European uppercut coming in off a whip into the ropes.
Claudio connects with a cross ring diving rolling European uppercut on Nigel in the corner, but he gets a little too showy and tries a second time. Nigel intercepts, tries to take advantage, but a standing European uppercut sends Nigel tumbling through the ropes to the floor. Nigel lands right in the ring entrance aisle, which gives Claudio a chance for a tope suicida and draw an appreciative cheer from the crowd in Connecticut. Back inside, Claudio starts working Nigel over, but you have to be careful with Nigel if you challenge him with technical wrestling, and he grabs an advantage with a Divorce Court. He keeps after Claudio’s arm with a hammerlock suplex and then an armwringer snapmare as well. Nigel gets a two count with not his seesaw lariat, but altering his attack by using the seesaw in the ropes to sling forward for a rollup. That mental advantage allows him to score with the seesaw lariat as well.
Nigel goes to the corner to set up for a tornado DDT, but CC uses his strength to stop him midway through then throws him off into a pop up European uppercut. Claudio goes up top in the corner for something big, but we don’t know what he has in mind. Nigel cuts him off by hitting the ropes to knock him down to the top turnbuckle, and then grabs him for the Tower of London elevated cutter, 1, 2, 3. Nigel wins in 8:07. Prazak and Leonard didn’t call the move the Tower of London, but that’s absolutely what Nigel calls that move at some point in his career.
That’s the shortest of the three Nigel McGuinness matches that we’ve looked at so far, but seeing as that was the opener on the show as well as the ROH debut for Claudio Castagnoli, that’s not surprising. Cage Match users give the match a rating of 5.79 out of 10, and that fine, perfectly acceptable professional wrestling. Given what’s on the rest of the card — Austin Aries vs El Generico, AJ Styles vs Roderick Strong, Samoa Joe vs Jimmy Rave for the Pure title, Matt Hardy vs Christopher Daniels, and CM Punk defending the World title against James Gibson — it’s pretty clear that Nigel and Claudio weren’t out there to do anything mindblowing, and that’s how it goes sometimes.
NEXT TIME: Nigel McGuinness renews his rivalry with Colt Cabana one month later in what is labeled a Soccer Riot match.
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