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 5
Nigel McGuiness vs Samoa Joe
ROH Pure Championship
August 27, 2005
ROH Dragon Gate Invasion
Amherst Pepsi Center
Williamsville, New York
This match takes place one week after our previous installment, although I’m not sure how/why Nigel McGuiness earned this Pure title shot against Samoa Joe after losing to Colt Cabana in the Soccer Riot match. With that said, Joe had been Pure champion since defeated Jay Lethal on May 7th, 2005, and was coming off a successful title defense against The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels on the same show with that McGuinness/Cabana match.
Same Pure title match rules as before: Only three rope breaks, no closed fist shots to the head with a warning after the first one, and a 20 count on the outside of the ring. Joe dodges low off the opening attempt at a tie up, and the two are at a standstill on the grappling front for a stretch. The announcers say that Nigel got this shot at Joe because of his effort in that Soccer Riot match as well as his previous victories against Cabana, meaning he wasn’t thaaaaat far off from deserving a title shot of his choice by way of a victory over Cabana. I’ve seen sillier logic used in wrestling before, so this is fine by me.
Grappling positioning shifting and moving puts referee Todd Sinclair slightly out of position for a second as McGuinness strikes Joe in the head while in a sidehead lock, and McGuinness insists it was an open hand, even protesting to the crowd to side with him. Nigel works himself back into that position, realizes he’s got Sinclair behind him again, and absolutely drives the closed fist into Joe’s head. Once again, he insists it was an open hand, but the crowd isn’t quite on his side again. No official warning, because Sinclair can only call what he sees.
Nigel gets away with it AGAIN, and as Sinclair tries to talk to McGuiness about it, Joe fires off with his trademark jabs to the face, and Sinclair sees that cleanly. Looked like he struck McGuinness at least twice before Sinclair stops it, and that is both Joe’s warning and his first rope break spent. In any case, Nigel’s flouting of the rules has infuriated Joe and he’s motivated to hold control of this match. Lots of big power from the former ROH World champion, and a kickout of a powerslam lets Joe grab McGuinness with a cross-armbreaker, and Nigel easily and quickly grabs the ropes to get out and burn his first rope break.
Joe’s trademark “Nope, not letting you do that” walk away dodge of Nigel coming off the ropes allows the champ to retain control of the match, and McGuiness eventually ends up on the outside. His head ducks under the ring for a moment, and as Joe winds up for a dive to the outside, McGuiness plasters him with a chair as he comes through the ropes. Sinclair elects to deduct a rope break from McGuiness for that, and Nigel takes over. He starts working over Joe’s arm, which we’ve seen is a pretty typical direction for Nigel, no matter if it’s a Pure match or not. McGuinness hesitates on his seesaw lariat off the ropes as Joe tries to counter with another powerslam, and that allows Nigel to grab a Fujiwara armbar and prompts Joe to spend his second rope break.
Joe’s frustration with Nigel, in general yes, but specifically over a boot to the face, leads to a jab, and since he’s already been warned, that’s Joe’s third and final rope break out the door. McGuinness uses his headstand in the corner to bait Joe to charge in, and he avoids the charge and gets Joe tied up in a wristlock underneath the ropes. No more breaks for Joe, so he has to fight his way out of this. He does, Nigel tries to maintain control, goes for the headstand in the corner again, but Joe is too fast and boots Nigel in the head. Both men are down, Joe recovers first and goes for the Musclebuster, his finisher. But Nigel’s work on his arm may have paid off, as he can’t hold on. Nigel turns it around, sets up and hits the Tower of London elevated cutter off the top turnbuckle, and because he doesn’t care about Joe getting the ropes any more, pins him pretty close to the corner.
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Joe gets his foot on the rope but has spent all three rope breaks, two on punches to the head, both because he was pissed off at Nigel’s behavior.
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NEW ROH PURE CHAMPION, NIGEL MCGUINNESS!
A mixed reaction from the crowd at the very least, possibly because it’s weird to watch a pinfall scored with a foot on the ropes…… and also because Nigel clearly cheated repeatedly to win the Pure Championship in 14:46. The video cuts away to the next match pretty quickly, and while there is a stand alone version of this match that ROH put on YouTube in January of 2019, that one ends before we see any kind of post match reaction from either man, too.
Fun match, fun story with Nigel being a jackass the entire time and effectively baiting the champion into putting himself into a bad spot in order to get the victory. Nigel’s Tower of London finisher is particularly effective when he doesn’t have to take an extra second to worry about the ropes, so that’s a pretty solid strategy. Cage Match users give this match a rating of 7.16 out of 10.
NEXT TIME: The first ever singles meeting between Nigel McGuinness and The American Dragon Bryan Danielson.