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.
EXCEPT TODAY
TODAY, WE’RE TAKING A BREAK FROM THAT LIST
BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT
A CELEBRATION OF GUYS NAMED NIGEL: PART 15
Nigel McGuinness vs Takeshi Morishima
ROH World Championship
October 6, 2007
ROH Undeniable
Inman Sports Club
Edison, New Jersey
Since losing to Morishima in Japan, Nigel McGuinness has been on a bit of a wander in Ring of Honor. He ended up on the losing side of a tag team title match, falling to the Briscoes while teaming with Bryan Danielson of all people. He lost a pure wrestling rules match to Chris Hero, who he’s had a feud going with for a little while. In August and September, he was on the losing side of some tag team matches, but kept coming out the winner in Four Corner Survival matches. First he beat future WWE Raw General Manager Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer, and Delirious, then it was a win over Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, and Naomichi Marufuji. One night before the match we’re about to watch, McGuinness came out ahead in Boston in a Survival match against El Generico, Hallowicked, and Tyler Black (aka the future Seth Rollins). I guess losing those tag matches didn’t slow down Nigel as a singles contender, and that propelled him to a title shot against Morishima in New Jersey.
As expected, Morishima was bouncing back and forth between Pro Wrestling NOAH and Ring of Honor after beating Nigel McGuinness in July. He beat Claudio and Brent Albright on back to back nights to defend his title, then went back to Japan for a month. Then a three-way against those same two guys and one day later, a defense against Bryan Danielson (WWE’s Daniel Bryan). He participated in a NOAH top contender tournament, ultimately losing to Marufuji, and while he was back in Japan, Morishima had an ROH title defense against Katsuhiko Nakajima. After that, it was back to ROH where he beat Erick Stevens and Danielson in title matches. On that same show where Nigel wrestled in Boston, Morishima had a ROH title defense, beating Kevin Steen (the future Kevin Owens in WWE) in just over 18 minutes.
And that brings us to Inman Sports Club.
Yes, we’re skipping outside the AEW produced highlight reel here, for reasons that you have probably figured out if you’re paying attention to our whole series here. That means that the match is not clipped down to just the bell to bell parts of things, so we get the full ROH DVD production here, including Nigel McGuinness’ entrance. Sadly, it’s to a generic easy to license song as opposed to I Fought The Law, Roll On, or F***in in the Bushes. Man, that reminds me of seeing the reaction to the London crowd hearing Oasis start up when Nigel made his entrance at the 2024 Casino Gauntlet Match at AEW All In at Wembley Stadium.
ANYWAY
I like that the graphics package shows us highlights of both men as well as identifying their goal for the match. This one is simple for both men: Nigel’s trying to win the title, and Morishima’s trying to build his legacy as champ. The announcing crew notes the schedule that Morishima’s been working, bouncing back and forth between Japan and the States, and wonders if the big man is wearing down.
Just like we saw last time, Nigel goes to the Jawbreaker early, and Morishima blocks it and tries for the backdrop driver, and in a twist, Nigel converts that into a small package pinfall attempt. Morishima gets out, way too early to try and catch a guy like that, and it’s a stalemate so far. Nigel tries for the Jawbreaker again, but Morishima catches the arm and drives McGuinness to the mat. Nigel bails outside to try and reset, but the champ’s not going to let him rest. McGuinness tries the ring apron variant of the Jawbreaker, but Morishima dodges and he’s already sick of Nigel’s lariat. It’s time to attack that arm over and over so even if Nigel scores with it at some point, he’s not going to be able to get to a pinfall quickly. Very astute work from Morishima, who did get pinned by the Jawbreaker back in that tag match where Nigel teamed up with Bryan Danielson. A good note from the announcers: Morishima is not a guy who likes to work a hold or work over a body part all that much, usually relying on his power and size as well as his impressive athleticism for a guy with the power and size. Morishima knows that he’s got to impact what McGuinness wants to do to beat him.
The ROH World Champion knows he can’t be predictable either, so he’s battering McGuinness a bit in what you would call his regular type of offense. That battering leads to referee Paul Turner counting Nigel down in the corner, and Turner gets all the way to nine before he regains his feet. Morishima sees a chance to end this, and goes straight to the backdrop driver but Nigel might have been playing possum a bit! He quickly counters the driver attempt into a pinfall, and after Morishima kicks out, Nigel takes over with a flurry of offense. That flurry ends with a Jawbreaker attempt, but Morishima blocks and scores with an elbow, and now Nigel’s reeling a bit. A missile dropkick gets a two count, and Nigel’s attempt at a sunset flip reversal of the backdrop driver gets him squashed with Morishima sits down on him….. for two.
Morishima goes back up top, waits for McGuinness to get to his feet….. and we get the Very Pro Wrestling Thing of “hey, what were you going to do when you jumped off?” as Morishima jumps off the top rope with apparently no goal in particular straight into a McGuinness lariat. Nigel’s attempt at the boots off the headstand in the corner gets him kicked in the face and a big lariat from Morishima turns into the backdrop driver, the move he won the ROH title with….. FOR TWO.
The champ goes back up top, which almost seems a little desperate from him, as he keeps going up there. Morishima’s not uncomfortable with flying as evidenced by the missile dropkick, but he’s going high risk more than you’d think. Nigel cuts him off and tries for the Tower of London, but gets stopped. The Englishman is quick on his feet and builds to and connects with a big superplex….. for two.
Nigel batters Morishima’s chest with standing lariats, and when the champ ducks one, he hits his back with one. Then another, and an attempt at another off the ropes gets countered into a lariat from Morishima. The champ tries to end this match with the backdrop driver, but McGuinness rolls through the landing, goes straight to the ropes for the Jawbreaker, and catches Morishima flush! The crowd rises to their feet and counts along with Turner: ONE! TWO!
And Morishima kicks out.
That earns a THAT WAS THREE chant from the crowd, and both men are down. Nigel regains his feet first, goes up top before getting cut off, but turns that into a sunset flip bomb in the corner, very carefully tucking his back up against the turnbuckles so Morishima can’t drop down onto his chest. That gets two. Nigel gets the best of a striking battle, unleashes a flurry of slaps, hits the ropes for a lariat — not the Jawbreaker, just a regular one — and goes for the pin.
Morishima kicks out AT ONE.
McGuinness hits the ropes, and gets caught with a hip attack from Morishima…. which just sends Nigel back into the ropes for the Jawbreaker! HE GETS IT! ONE! TWO!
THREE!
NEW CHAMP! NEW CHAMP! THE CROWD GOES NUTS! NIGEL MCGUINNESS HAS WON THE RING OF HONOR WORLD TITLE!
Maybe not the best match that we’ve ever seen between these two guys, but it was definitely a match where both men knew what the other guy had in the tank and it was a chessmatch brawl of sorts, if that makes sense. I think I get why this isn’t in the AEW compilation — it went just 14:24 — but it was still very good. Cage Match users give it a 7.91 out of 10 rating, and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave it three and three-quarters stars. This probably wasn’t the best match on the show — Austin Aries vs Roderick Strong got 8.59 and **** 1⁄4 — and this was fourth from the top on this card! Kind of fairly: The co-main events were a Loser Leaves For 60 Days match between No Remorse Corps and The Resilience and an Anything Goes match between Jay Briscoe and Necro Butcher. If you’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, then you know who Necro Butcher is and what Anything Goes means when he’s involved.
After the bell rings, the crowd’s waving towels, the ROH locker room empties to celebrate, they’re chanting NI-GEL, NI-GEL, Bobby Cruise gives him the AND NEWWWWWWWWWW announcement….. and noted jackass Bryan Danielson starts berating Nigel McGuinness. Austin Aries gives Danielson a “the hell is wrong with you?” grab and pulls him away, which leads to Danielson piefacing Aries AND McGuinness, and now A SCUFFLE breaks out in the ring. Not much of a scuffle, honestly, as some wrestlers grab McGuinness and Aries to hold them back and everyone else essentially shoves Danielson out of the ring.
Morishima confronts Paul Turner about what happened, and grabs the belt away from the referee. But it’s only to present the belt to McGuinness out of respect, including a traditional Japanese bow to Nigel, which he returns to the former champ. Morishima raises Nigel’s arm in victory, and the crowd goes wild. Nigel returns the arm raise, and after another deep bow, Morishima leaves the ring to a THANK YOU SHIMA chant from the fans.
NEXT TIME: Obviously it’s McGuinness/Danielson. But it’s not a title match, as the two men collide one week later in the first round of Survival of the Fittest 2007.