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A Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel: Part 22

2025-08-04T09:45:00-05:00

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 22

Nigel McGuinness vs El Generico

ROH World Championship

August 15, 2008

ROH Age Of Insanity
Cleveland Gray’s Armory
Cleveland, Ohio

This contest is Nigel McGuinness’ very next match after the Elimination match we watched last time, so we’ll swing our attention over to El Generico’s path to a title match here. Generico’s 2008 had mostly been spent in tag team matches with his usual partner of Kevin Steen. The tag titles had eluded them, although they reached the final of a tournament to crown new champs in early June after The Briscoes had to vacate the belts. They were inching closer to the belts after matches against The Age of The Fall, just not against the pairing of Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black, the co-holders of the championship. Apparently, if you watched all of Death Before Dishonor, you got to see Kevin Steen fired up about pursuing gold after a win over the Motor City Machine Guns, and that was Generico’s most recent match before this encounter.

Why did Generico (who is definitely not WWE wrestler Sami Zayn, because El Generico retired from wrestling in 2013 and works with orphans in Mexico now) get this title shot? Ehhhh, other than ROH needed a main event on the show and Nigel just beat three guys at once two weeks ago? I got nothing for you here. I will say that McGuinness does hold three wins over Kevein Steen since April alone, all in title defenses, while this is his first singles match ever against Generico.

We open with both men in the ring and the ROH crowd in Cleveland firmly on Generico’s side, singing his OLE song already. The announcers tell us that McGuinness actually wanted this match because of his wins over Steen, as he is looking to prove that he’s better than both halves of the Steen/Generico team. Nigel gets the grappling advantage to start out, and his size and strength edge allows him to start working in the direction of putting some damage on Generico’s arm and shoulder to set up all sorts of future offense. The announcers note that McGuinness is now the fourth longest reigning ROH champion out of the 10 men who have held the belt, trailing only Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, and Takeshi Morishima.

Nigel starts to get a little too arrogant and cocky, just straight up taunting Generico. That fires the luchador up, who rains down strikes and dumps the champion outside to the floor with a clothesline over the top rope. A couple of flippy dives from the ring to the floor help Generico maintain control of the match, and he’s still on top of McGuinness back inside, right up until a counter gives Nigel a Divorce Court, and now it’s time to wreck that shoulder and arm. He gets a little careless again, and that gives Generico an opening, at least until McGuinness heads back out to the floor to regroup.

Nigel leads Generico on a chase around the ring, and then pulls the timekeeper’s table in front of his challenger to cut him off. That’s followed up with a shoulder into the post, and the ROH champ is sure to let the fans, both in person and watching via video that he’s the best. Back inside, a few pinfall attempts show that Generico’s nowhere close to staying down, but Nigel’s got a few more tricks for attacking the shoulder. Generico’s showing spirit as he’s taking this beating, sometimes literally, as McGuinness is directing knife edge chops not to his opponent’s chest, but to the damaged shoulder for extra impact.

The fans start singing Generico’s OLE to try to encourage him, and it seems it works. After he ends up the corner, he fends off McGuinness, and then scores with a flying headscissors, which either shoots Nigel out of the ring or at least lands him nearby so he decides to take another break. Generico tracks the champ’s movements, and when he gets the space, he flies with a springboard moonsault to the floor. Nigel’s back inside, and Generico follows with a flying crossbody..... but that gets just a two count, same for a counter into a Blue Thunder Bomb. Generico tries for the running boot in the corner, but McGuinness dodges, gets the kick/lariat combo, and then the double kick out of the headstand in the opposite corner, too. That still only gets a two count, so McGuinness has some work left to do.

Generico elbows out of a Tower of London inside, and so Nigel says “okay, your funeral,” and changes it up to the Tower to the apron instead. That’s the hardest part of the ring, after all. After a two count, McGuinness sets up for the crotched lariat, but Generico gets a boot up, and then when the champ goes for the headstand in the corner again, the masked man gets that Yakuza Kick running in! Only a two count, though. Generico gets another two count by countering the Jawbreaker with a big boot before Nigel can get close.

Nigel’s pretty astute though, and when Generico heads to the ropes for a head of steam, McGuinness follows in with a nasty lariat. Tower of London, running European uppercut, monster lariat...... TWO. McGuinness isn’t surprised by the kickout, but he’s in a bad mood now. He grabs the London Dungeon to try to take advantage of that bad arm, and Kevin Steen comes flying out of the locker room to encourage his partner. That helps, it seems, and Generico gets a boot onto the ropes. As Nigel keeps an eye on Steen on the outside, Generico takes advantage of the split attention and scores with a running.... was it supposed to the the Yakuza Kick again or a running dropkick while Nigel was climbing the turnbuckles? Anyway, this is Generico’s biggest opening of the match, and he hits a flying forward flip kick, going from post to post as the champion dangles off the turnbuckles, and then he gets THE BRAINBUSTAAAAAH

and Nigel gets his foot on the ropes.

Generico calls for the BRAINBUSTAAAAAH on the turnbuckles, but McGuinness starts fighting him off. Generico gets crotched on the ropes, Nigel wrecks him with the lariat, TWO. The crowd is delirious (but not Delirious), Steen is thrilled, Nigel keeps smashing with lariats, and he can’t get that three count. McGuinness goes back to the London Dungeon, but Generico counters into a pinfall attempt for two. Generico big boot, but Nigel gets the Jawbreaker, and hooks the London Dungeon in the middle of the ring. Generico’s got nowhere to go, and no amount of encouragement from Steen is going to help. He taps out, and Nigel McGuinness retains by submission in 25:46.

A fun match, not entirely unlike the contest with Tyler Black, where the challenger’s got a lot of fight and a bunch of big moves in their arsenal to stay in the thing, but ultimately, Nigel being a bit of a mean guy is enough for him to push through all of that and keep on winning and showing himself to be one of the best ROH champions ever. Cage Match users give this match a rating of 8.20 out of 10.

NEXT TIME: We skip forward a month as Ring of Honor goes to Japan again. Nigel McGuinness’ opponent there in a non-title match? The American Dragon, Bryan Danielson.

The 2025 Marquette Men’s Soccer Season Preview!

2025-08-03T11:54:07-05:00

What’s up for David Korn’s second season in charge at Marquette? | Marquette University

Make sure you’re up to speed and ready for the second season of David Korn’s tenure as head coach of the Golden Eagles!

We’re less than three weeks away from the start of the 2025 Marquette men’s soccer season!

Down below, you’ll see our collection of articles that make up our season preview for the second season of David Korn’s time in charge of the program. We’ve got a look at the schedule, a note on the new Big East contract with ESPN+, and some conference award picks! Coming up between now and the opener against Bradley on August 21st, we’ll look at the returning players from 2024, take a gander at the new faces on the Marquette roster, and then ask three big questions facing the Golden Eagles this fall! At some point, the Big East will release the results of the preseason poll, and we’ll talk about that, too!

Bookmark the page and then keep swinging back to make sure you’ve seen everything before first kick at Valley Fields!

The 2025 Marquette Women’s Soccer Season Preview!

2025-08-03T11:43:23-05:00

Marquette University

Chris Allen’s second season in charge of the Golden Eagles is getting closer by the day, make sure you read everything in the stream to get ready!

We’re less than two weeks away from the start of the 2025 Marquette women’s soccer season!

Down below, you’ll see our collection of articles that make up our season preview for the second season of Chris Allen’s time in charge of the program. We’ve got a look at the schedule, a note on the new Big East contract with ESPN+, and some conference award picks! Coming up between now and the opener against Northern Illinois on August 14th, we’ll look at the returning players from 2024, take a gander at the new faces on the Marquette roster, and then ask three big questions facing the Golden Eagles this fall!

Bookmark the page and then keep swinging back to make sure you’ve seen everything before first kick against the Huskies!

The 2025 Marquette Volleyball Season Preview!

2025-08-03T11:29:17-05:00

Marquette University

A lot has happened since last season ended, so be sure you’re ready for the 2025 campaign to start with all our preview articles, all in one spot!

Before we even really get to doing any season previewing for Marquette volleyball in 2025, we have FIFTEEN articles in our season preview thread! FIFTEEN! That’s a 1 followed by a 5!

That’s what happens when you have some transfer action happen BEFORE the coach with the best winning percentage in program history takes a different job in the offseason, AND THEN the coach of the perennial favorite in the Big East ALSO leaves her job, too.

A lot happened.

But we’ve got a season to preview, so there’s even more coming down the pike at you between now and Marquette’s season opener against Hawaii very late at night on August 29th. We’ll talk about the Big East preseason awards and picks when those are released, we’ll talk about who’s coming back from last year, we’ll talk about who’s new on the roster, and we’ll ask some big question for Tom Mendoza’s first season in charge of the Golden Eagles.

Keep swinging on back for new stuff over the next three weeks!

Unscientific Predictions: 2025 Big East Men’s Soccer Preseason Awards

2025-08-03T09:45:00-05:00

Look kids, Akron keeper Mitch Budler! | PHIL MASTURZO / USA TODAY NETWORK

There were A LOT of seniors in the league last season, so this was not a particularly easy task.

Time to keep previewing some Big East fall sports!

We’ve already made preseason picks for volleyball and women’s soccer here at Anonymous Eagle, so go click those links if you haven’t seen those yet. Today, we’re going to take a crack at predicting how the Big East coaches will vote in the preseason awards for men’s soccer. This is important: We’re going to TRY to figure it out and probably come hilariously short of getting anything right. Why? Because the Big East is incredibly short on returning players from last year’s end of season all-conference players.

GOOD NEWS: Lots of new faces are going to be given a chance to shine all across the league. BAD NEWS: It’s very hard to figure out who those guys are going to be ahead of time.

Alright, let’s just dive right in and muck about to see what happens, shall we?

Preseason Big East Offensive Player of the Year: Noeh Hernandez, DePaul

The Big East has just three guys returning who were 1) on one of last year’s three all-Big East teams and 2) top 10 in points per game last season. Hernandez is the top returning guy in points per game, coming in second overall last year behind the absolutely absurd numbers that Akron’s Emil Jaaskelainen put up. Hernandez also led the Big East in assists per game, and I always love to give attention to the guys making the play that set up the play when I’m putting these lists and awards together. Is there a chance this could go to Butler’s Josemir Gomez, who was second in the BE in goals per game behind Jaaskelainen last season? Sure, but Hernandez was fourth in that category at the end of last season.

Preseason Big East Defensive Player of the Year: Agustin Resch, Seton Hall

There are no All-Big East First Team defenders returning from last season. There is only one Second Team defender returning. Congrats to Agustin Resch for being that guy.

Could this easily go to Georgetown sophomore Tate Lampman, who was Freshman of the Year last year and got a call-up to the United States U-19 team training camp in May? Sure! There’s those two reasons as well as the “the coaches will probably just favor a Georgetown guy anyway” reason.

Preseason Big East Goalkeeper of the Year: Mitch Budler, Akron

Ah, finally, an easy one. The Big East coaches said Budler was the best keeper in the league last year, and he returns for 2025. Done and done.

(Pssssst. Georgetown’s Tenzing Manske had a better goals-against average and a better save percentage than Budler did last year, and he’s back for 2025, too. Not saying, just saying.)

Preseason All-Big East Team

Miguel Arilla, Creighton, M
Mitch Budler, Akron, GK
Joost de Schutter, Butler, M
Josemir Gomez, Butler, F
Noeh Hernandez, DePaul, M
Tate Lampman, Georgetown, D
Agustin Resch, Seton Hall, D
Bruno Rosa, Providence, F
Scott Testori, UConn, F
Matthew Van Horn, Georgetown, M
Zach Zengue, Georgetown, F

We’ll start with the easy part, as Hernandez, Resch, and Budler get the escort to the front of the line to this 11 man squad. From there, things got a little squishy, particularly because there are just two defenders returning from last year’s end of season all-conference teams. With that in mind, Lampman goes straight into the list here, not just for that reason, but for the reason that I pointed out that he might actually be the preseason DPOY, too.

With only two defenders that I can legitimately point at as best in the league — stats on “best defender” are hard to come by to figure out who the coaches might like, and so on — that leaves me with seven more spots to fill with forwards and midfielders. I made the call to push Gomez into the list even though he was a Third Teamer last season because of his actual production even if the coaches didn’t vote for him. Same goes for Arilla, who is the aforementioned third guy who is returning from an all-BE nod while finishing top 10 in points per game last year.

That gets me to five more spots. Two of them go to Zengue and Van Horn, who were First Teamers last season. Three to go. Conveniently, there are three guys — de Schutter, Rosa, and Testori — who were Second Team last season, and that rounds us out at 11. I feel comfortable saying that I’ve gotten at least one of these picks wrong, because I suspect the coaches have a third defender that they’ll vote for, but such is life.

Top Teams

East Division

1 — Georgetown
2 — Providence
3 — UConn
4 — Seton Hall

Midwest Division

1 — Butler
2 — Akron
3 — DePaul
4 — Creighton

Okay, we’ll start here: Yes, I have picked Butler to go from 1-7-0 in Big East play last year to win the Midwest Division. They’re the only team in the division with more than one guy on my all-conference team, so there you go. Is it likely that Akron repeats after going 7-0-1 and generally being a national power in men’s soccer? Sure. Do I have any evidence for that based on returning players? Not really! DePaul and Creighton round out the divisional picks because they’ve got returning firepower on the offensive end. I was tempted to go full homer and say Marquette is in there somewhere, but Miguel Arilla exists, and that’s that.

In the East Division, Georgetown has three preseason all-BE guys on my list, best in the conference, so that’s my pick over there. The rest of the division is a bit of a jumble, partially because everyone not named Villanova finished within five points of each other last season, including a tie for first between Providence and St. John’s at 17 points. Yep, no mention of the Johnnies in this top four because they don’t have any all-Big East guys heading into the season.

I went out to four teams on both sides of the league because there is an eight team Big East tournament this season, at least according to Georgetown’s schedule release. It’s not four from each side, just the two division winners and then the next six best point totals, but this is the best way to approximate who’s going to get into the postseason.

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Unscientific Predictions: 2025 Big East Preseason Women’s Soccer Awards

2025-08-02T09:45:00-05:00

Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

A whole bunch of top end returning players might mean that the league looks a lot like it did in 2024.

AUGUST CONTINUES!

And as such, we continue to move closer and closer to the start of fall sports. We’ve already taken a swing at some preseason picks for volleyball in the Big East, and today, we turn our attention to women’s soccer. The Marquette season starts in just 12 days, believe it or not. Unlike volleyball, this is a sport/league that’s heavily populated by players who are returning from the 2024 campaign, so a lot of the awards we’re about to talk about were pretty straightforward to figure out.

Let’s go!

Preseason Big East Offensive Player of the Year: Maja Lardner, Georgetown

When the Big East coaches vote you as OPOY at the end of last season and you return next year, you get to be the preseason OPOY. We’re trying to predict how they are going to vote, not make picks here, after all. With that in mind, we have to point out that Lardner was not the most prolific scorer in the Big East last season. Even with the benefit of postseason production — Georgetown reached the second round of the NCAA tournament — Lardner finished 2024 at 2nd in points per game, third in goals per game, and tied for third in assists per game. We have to acknowledge that Butler’s Talia Sommer is the one tied with Lardner in assists and top of the charts in the other two categories. Lardner won the trophy last year probably largely because Georgetown was 8-1-1 and Butler was 5-2-3. Impact of points and so on.

Preseason Big East Defensive Player of the Year: Natalie Bain, Xavier

Same as Lardner: Postseason DPOY = Preseason DPOY. Bain is the anchor of a Musketeers defense that allowed just 7.8 shots per match on average last season. Goals not going in is largely impacted by your keeper, while shots getting fired off at all is on the field defense, and XU’s defense is terrifying.

Preseason Big East Goalkeeper of the Year: Cara Martin, Georgetown

KEEP THE STREAK GOING! Postseason GKOTY = Preseason GKOTY, just like the first two awards here. I told you these started to get straight forward. It’s hard to argue against the woman who finished 2024 leading the Big East in save percentage and goals against average. The only real knock on her last year is that Martin spent most of the season splitting time with Anna Karpenko and thus only logged 1,035 minutes.

Preseason All-Big East Team

Natalie Bain, Xavier, D
Regan Dancer, Xavier, M
Amelie Darey, Butler, D
Lucia Englund, Butler, D
Samantha Erbach, Xavier, F
Lizzie Heller, Georgetown, M
Anaya Johnson, UConn, M
Maja Lardner, Georgetown, F
Cara Martin, Georgetown, GK
Chioma Okafor, UConn, F
Talia Sommer, Butler, F

The obvious picks are obvious: Lardner, Bain, and Martin all get in with their individual awards. Sommer easily slides in as the Big East scoring leader last year. That gets us to 4 of 11 without even needing to engage the ol’ prefrontal cortex.

With Bain as the only returning non-forward on the all-BE list at the end of 2024, I decided to tilt things towards the forwards since I had so many returning. Okafor was tied for third in points per game and second in goals per game last year, so she’s an easy pick. Erbach was fourth in goals per game, so that wraps up the forwards at four, and apologies to Georgetown’s Natalie Means, as I can’t justify putting her on the list of 11 when she was T-6 in assists last year.

There’s only three returning midfielders on the All-Big East Second and Third Teams from last season, so there’s Dancer, Heller, and Johnson for you. That left me with two more defenders to keep things even. Darey is the only Second Team defender coming back, and I gave the nod to Englund for the last spot because I’m pretty comfortable with her being a defender for Butler in 2025. Providence’s Ella McBride was Third Team All-BE last year, but she was listed at midfield/defense..... and PC lists her on the roster at forward/midfield. Felt unfair to give her a defensive spot if she miiiiiight not actually be playing defense this fall.

Top Five Teams

1 — Georgetown
2 — Xavier
3 — Butler
4 — UConn
5 — Creighton

If you look at the all-Big East list up there, the top four spots here are pretty obvious. Georgetown gets to be in the top spot because they have two of the three individual award winners, and since Xavier has the other one, they’re second. I’m curious about what Butler can do on defense this season if they have two of the better returning defenders in the league, and they have Sommer, so that’s #3. UConn has too much to ignore, and I dropped Creighton into #5 because they were actually slightly better off than the Huskies in the RPI when they made the NCAA selections last season. I think the Bluejays have too many questions to challenge UConn when we’re making picks here, but I think they’re also in front of everyone else in the conference. Keep in mind that the Big East changed the format on the conference tournament this year, and only the top four teams will qualify.

Yes, this is mostly just typing out last year’s standings. No, I can’t bring myself to make changes to it based on what these teams are bringing back. Yes, I thought about just throwing Marquette in at the #5 spot just to be an optimistic homer about the whole thing, but I’m going to need to see Chris Allen’s team put the ball in the net a lot more before I start getting very optimistic about the Golden Eagles.

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Unscientific Predictions: 2025 Big East Volleyball Preseason Awards

2025-08-01T09:45:00-05:00

Marquette’s Hattie Bray, seen here on the attack in the 2024 NCAA tournament against Utah. | Marquette University

The two best teams get new head coaches as most of the all-conference performers from last season depart. GET READY FOR CHANGES!

HELLO AND WELCOME TO AUGUST!

The Marquette volleyball season starts 28 days from today, but history has shown us that the Big East tends to like releasing the volleyball preseason all-conference honors first out of the three fall sports we cover here at Anonymous Eagle. As such, it’s a good day to publish some predictions for the league in volleyball this fall.

We’ll get into it a little bit more in a second, but 2025 has a chance to be a wild and wooly year in Big East volleyball. Creighton and Marquette have separated themselves as the clear top two programs in this league over the last several years, but both squads changed head coaches in the offseason. Marquette’s Ryan Theis moved on to take the Florida job in the wake of Mary Wise’s retirement, while Creighton’s Kirsten Bernthal Booth stepped down from her position. It was Next Man Up in Omaha, as associate head coach Brian Rosen was promoted to the top job, while Marquette lured away South Carolina head coach Tom Mendoza to take over their program.

Anyway, the sense of the league for this coming season is definitely one of questions that need to be answered by the time we get to the Big East tournament in Milwaukee the week before Thanksgiving. Until then, though, it seems like an awful lot is going to be Business As Usual until proven otherwise.

For example, our predictions of how the Big East coaches are going to vote for the preseason honors starts exactly where you think it should: A Bluejay.

Preseason Player of the Year: Ava Martin, OH, Creighton

She’s the Big East’s leading returning attacker from last season after averaging 3.66 kills per set and ranking in the top 10 in hitting percentage. As we’ll get to in a second, there are no returning setters in the Big East that could challenge Martin’s spot here, and neither of the two best middle blockers coming back were even in the top 20 in kills/set last season. Unless I’m missing an incoming transfer somewhere that’s an All-American, Ava Martin is the only possible choice here.

Preseason All-Big East Team

McKenna Brand, L, Connecticut
Hattie Bray, MB, Marquette
Erin Jones, RS/S, St. John’s
Allie Korba, S, Marquette
Ava Martin, OH, Creighton
Kiera Reinhardt, MB, Creighton
Emma Workmeister, OH, Connecticut

Let’s just get straight to it: The Big East had 18 all-conference honorees last season. Six of them return for 2025. Five of them are on this list.

Three of the five were unanimous choices for all-Big East at the end of the 2024 regular season: Ava Martin, Erin Jones, and Hattie Bray. Boom, they’re in, no questions asked. Kiera Reinhardt is the only other returning middle blocker on the all-league list, and she led the conference in blocks per set last year. I needed at least one more middle on the list, done.

That’s two hitters — yeah, Erin Jones is listed as a right side/setter, but she didn’t really do much in the way of setting for assists last season — and two middles. I need to get to seven women, and two of the three I need to add have to be a setter and a defensive specialist/libero. The DS/L spot is simple, even without a returning player from the all-conference team: DePaul’s Rachel Krasowski was Libero of the Year last season while leading the Big East in digs per set, UConn’s McKenna Brand was second in digs/set. In goes Brand, beating out Rashanny Solano Smith from St. John’s by 0.02 digs/set.

The setter was a harder situation. All four of the setters who averaged over 10 assists per set last season are now gone. At some point, when you dip below eight assists per set, you’re starting to get silly when you’re trying to proclaim someone as the best setter in the league heading into next year. You know what’s not silly? Declaring the 2024 MAC Setter of the Year to be the best setter in the Big East heading into the 2025 season. Allie Korba’s at Marquette now, so in she goes.

That left me one more spot to fill, and I had two non-unanimous outside hitters on last year’s all-Big East squad. Emma Workmeister finished #6 in the Big East in kills per set last season, making her third amongst returning players, and she led the league in aces per set, too. Apologies to Villanova’s Abby Harrell, but you gotta draw a line somewhere, and “12th in kills per set last year” was the line.

Top 5 Teams

1 — Creighton
2 — Marquette
3 — UConn
4 — St. John’s
5 — Villanova

Yeah, I’m pretty much just taking the team names from the all-conference team and putting them down here. Two Bluejays, two Golden Eagles, two Huskies, and a Red Storm to get to seven all-Big East players, and there’s your top four teams. As it turns out, the top three are the top three from last year’s standings, and I’m keeping them in the same order here. I don’t think the gap between Creighton, Marquette, and UConn is quite as deep at 18-0, 16-2, and 12-6 like it was last year, not with the Bluejays and the Golden Eagles undergoing some notable roster changes on top of their head coaching changes. However, until I see something different happen in this league, I’m sticking with them as the top two teams.

Villanova gets the #5 spot as an apology for leaving Abby Harrell out of the all-conference race. The Wildcats have one of the six best returning players in the conference if you measure by last year’s all-BE honors, so it seems fair to have them here, even if 5th place would mean missing the conference tournament this year.

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A Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel: Part 21

2025-07-31T09:45:00-05:00

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 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:

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 21

Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson vs Tyler Black vs Claudio Castagnoli

ROH World Championship

August 2, 2008

ROH Death Before Dishonor VI
Hammerstein Ballroom
New York, New York

I presume the long and short of how this match came together is A) Death Before Dishonor is a big show for Ring of Honor and 2) There’s not a clear #1 contender for Nigel McGuinness about a week after the Claudio Castagnoli defense we saw in our last entry in this series. Shake all that together, and you get Nigel forced into defending his title against three men at once under elimination rules. Black comes in as one half of the ROH Tag Team Championship, teaming with Age of the Fall partner Jimmy Jacobs to win the vacant titles in early June after The Briscoes had to relinquish the titles due to an injury to Mark Briscoe.

Bobby Cruise does ring introductions, closing with the champ, which is answered by F*** YOU NIGEL chants, and that transitions into YOU’RE GONNA GET YOUR F***** HEAD KICKED IN chants, which is a pro-Danielson sentiment. Referee Paul Turner calls for the Code of Honor for Nigel, prompting him to shake hands with all three opponents. Danielson and Castagnoli follow policy, while Black just gives a brooding stare and retreats into his corner. This gets a “what am I supposed to do?” look from McGuinness to Turner, which is fun. The three challengers start closing in on McGuinness as Turner tries to settle who is going to start this match. It’s not a scramble match, it’s tag rules, where we start with two men in the ring and two men holding the tag ropes on the outside. It’s elimination rules, so you can only be eliminated if you’re in the ring. As you can guess, Nigel scurries outside and grabs one of the ropes in the corner, making it clear that he has no intention of starting. Seems fair, honestly. He’s the champ, he shouldn’t be exposed to being eliminated first. Black ducks outside to leave Castagnoli and Danielson as the opening combatants.

We get our first tag of the match when McGuinness gets Claudio with a blind tag as he and Danielson go into the ropes, and he dumps Danielson outside. Black just comes into the ring and hits Nigel with a drop kick. This leads to Black and Castagnoli hitting big dives to the outside, and Black vs Nigel once things get back in the ring. Yeah, uh, Paul Turner’s wrong here. Nigel’s tag clearly hits Claudio, leaving Danielson as the legal man, and even if he thought he got Danielson with it, Black never touches Claudio either. I know, right? Pro wrestling refs missing things? What a time to be alive.

ANYWAY, Nigel bails out to a tag to the Dragon quickly, so it’s Seth Rollins vs Daniel Bryan in the ring for a bit. Danielson stomps Black down in the corner, Nigel runs over for the tag — Danielson’s trying to figure out how that’s allowed since he’s nowhere near the tag ropes — gets overwhelmed by Black, and tags out to Claudio. So now it’s Seth Rollins vs Cesaro in the ring, as McGuinness is the only guy who doesn’t have an in-ring career with WWE in his future. Black gets an advantage but isn’t paying attention to his surroundings and backs into a blind tag by Nigel as he seizes the advantage that Black earned. Claudio counters with a springboard European uppercut, and McGuinness bails to the floor. Oh, I see. My apologies to Paul Turner earlier. Apparently we’re using lucha rules if you go out to the floor, you’re abandoning your spot in the ring and anyone can claim it, as Danielson climbs in and Turner orders McGuinness to the corner.

Black tags himself in to replace Danielson, and then loses track of where he is in the ring again to let Nigel find his way into the match. The champ pauses in the middle of holding the advantage on Claudio to cheap shot first Danielson, then Black to make sure there’s no one for Claudio to fight towards for a tag. You will never guess what happens: Claudio tilts the tables in his favor, and now there’s no one for Nigel to tag because yeah, those guys who caught elbows from him aren’t his friends right now. Things get a little wild with Black illegally running in to dropkick Claudio to the outside and then hurled over the top ropes by Nigel on a charge into the corner, and this turns into everyone hitting moves in the ring and all four bodies laying on the mat. I thiiiiiiink this is supposed to be McGuinness/Danielson as the legal guys at the moment.... and eventually Danielson gets the flying kick and the Cattle Mutilation on Nigel and Turner looks for the submission. Black jumps OVER the submission attempt to hit Claudio with a big splash.... and Turner leaves to go count a pin.

Okay, I give up on figuring out who may or may not be the legal man here, Paul Turner doesn’t know. Guys are just In The Ring and Doing Stuff now, leaning much more towards the All Four Legal At All Times type of match. Eventually, all of the moves lead to Claudio and Black going to the outside, so we settle into Danielson/McGuinness..... at least until a running clothesline sends Nigel outside. Running kicks through the ropes topples Nigel backwards over the barricade and DANIELSON HITS THE FLYING SPRINGBOARD INTO THE CROWD.

I wouldn’t want to be Nigel right now, but relative to retaining his ROH title, it’s a pretty safe spot. Danielson and Claudio back on the inside, and they trade things back and forth as the offense remains heated in this match, but Mr. Small Package is Danielson’s nickname for a reason, and he hooks Claudio with that rollup for the 1-2-3 to eliminate the big man from Switzerland in 16:16 for the first of the three falls in the match. If this was one fall to a finish, Danielson is the new ROH World Champion..... but it’s not, and I presume Nigel’s not exactly upset about an elimination happening while he’s still scraping himself off the Hammerstein floor.

A HEY HEY GOOD BYE singing drifts into a GET THE F*** OUT chant as Claudio won’t leave. Danielson offers a handshake, and Claudio accepts.... and then drifts to the corner, and SMASHES Bryan with a running boot when he turns around. Ricola Bomb, ground and pound strikes, and ROH officials and other wrestlers fly into the ring to try to restore order. Nigel is, of course, thrilled.

Claudio does get escorted out..... but then finds a chair, swings it to clear some space, gets back inside, drops it on Danielson’s head as he lays on the mat, and then STOMPS it into the back of Dragon’s skull. Claudio is overwhelmed and dragged out. Nigel pulls Danielson off the mat, hits a lariat, and pins Danielson in 19:55 to eliminate the former ROH champ from the match. McGuinness could not possibly be more pleased with himself.

He does, however, forget that the match isn’t over as he taunts Danielson’s unmoving form on the apron, and Black crushes him with a springboard forearm as he turns around. It’s all Black all the time, and a neckbreaker gets a two count. He takes too much time following up, and McGuinness rolls away from a frogsplash and takes over. Naomichi Marafuji wanders out to watch from the entry way, as his victory over Go Shiozaki ended about an hour earlier at this point. Black fights off a Tower of London and gets two off a splash. McGuinness counters Black’s offense into a Divorce Court as the champ knows this is a one-on-one match now, and it’s a good plan to start working over the arm. Tower of London gets two. We’re well past the 20 minute mark of the match, and the announcers remind us that Tyler Black just wouldn’t go quietly when he faced Nigel for the title as we saw back in Part 18 of this series.

Black counters a Jawbreaker attempt into a bucklebomb, and then what looks an awful lot like Brock Lesnar’s F5, and that gets two. Tyler Black is shocked that did not work to pin the champ. Nigel baits the contender into a charge into the corner and boots him, but as he climbs up, Black chases him and scores with a superplex and rolls through into Paroxysm. Yes, I went back to Part 18 to get the spelling correct. This is Tyler’s problem, not mine, much like Nigel kicking out is also his problem. He nails Nigel with a superkick while the champ is on his knees, which Black calls — and this is not a joke — Avada Kedavra. NERD ALERT.

Also a stupid name, as technically speaking, this means that Nigel has kicked out of The Killing Curse.

Counters and so on continue, and Black shifts a Jawbreaker attempt into God’s Last Gift, and that gets two. The New York crowd is stunned that it didn’t get the win. Black heads up top for the Phoenix Splash, but Nigel’s gone. HUGE lariat gets two. The crowd is firmly on Black’s side, just straight up chanting his name. Tower of London, charging European uppercut, lariat..... TWO.

The corner kick/lariat combo sets up the crotched lariat, but Black dodges and goes for a springboard something or other and gets lariated to death out of mid-air. Good night everybody HE KICKS OUT AT TWO. Nigel’s shocked, but not shocked enough to let this slip away from him, and he grabs Black in the London Dungeon. A PLEASE DON’T TAP chant erupts, Black counters into a pin, then a Pele kick after Nigel kicks out, but the champ dodges another attack and explodes into another lariat. And another one, following a whip into the ropes, and THAT is enough, 1-2-3, Nigel McGuinness retains in 30:45. Paul Turner retrieves the belt and the Hammerstein Ballroom crowd decorates the ring with trash.

Nigel talks about how great he is for beating everyone that’s been thrown at him, and he’s going to be ROH champion forever and no one can do anything about it. The crowd remembers Marafuji has been in the entryway for a while now, and they chant his name as McGuinness finally realizes that the Pro Wrestling NOAH star is there. SPOILER ALERT: We won’t be watching that match on this series.

All in all, a pretty fun entry into the series, and it was nice to get a change of pace from straight forward one-on-one encounters. Perhaps not quite as great of a match as it could have been given that the second fall was just fallout of Castagnoli’s meltdown, but 15 minutes of Nigel avoiding conflict and 10 minutes of McGuinness/Black was a pretty good match all smashed together. Cage Match users give this match a rating of 8.68 out of 10.

NEXT TIME: 13 days later, Nigel has to defend the ROH title again, this time against the masked man known as El Generico.

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A Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel: Part 22

A CELEBRATION OF GUYS NAMED NIGEL: PART 22

Nigel McGuinness vs El Generico

ROH World Championship

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A Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel: Part 21

A CELEBRATION OF GUYS NAMED NIGEL: PART 21

Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson vs Tyler Black vs Claudio Castagnoli

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ROH Death Before Dishonor VIHammerstein BallroomNew York, New York

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ROH Death Before Dishonor VI
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