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 25
Nigel McGuinness vs Jerry Lynn
ROH World Championship
April 3, 2009
ROH Supercard Of Honor IV
George R. Brown Convention Center
Houston, Texas
Last time out, we saw Nigel McGuinness pin Bryan Danielson clean in the middle of the ring with the Jawbreaker lariat, which is maaaaaaybe the first time in nine encounters that we’ve watched that either man has won cleanly, and it’s definitely the first time that McGuinness has beaten The American Dragon without a single question mark hanging over the match. That was in late November of 2008, and before the year was out, McGuinness had two more title defenses. First against Jerry Lynn, the man he’ll face here, in early December, and then against Naomichi Marufuji at Final Battle to close out the year. That means Nigel was the champ for all of 2008, and as the calendar hit January 6th, he had been ROH World Champion for 15 months.
In 2009, McGuinness’ first title defense went to a time limit draw against Tyler Black. He beat El Generico to retain to close out January, beat D-Lo Brown a week later, and then survived a Four Way Elimination match against Lynn, Black, and Jimmy Jacobs in late February. By this point in the calendar, Black and Jacobs are no longer on the same side in The Age Of The Fall, so this is much more wide open than it looks at a glance. Nigel retained by pinning Lynn with a boot hook on the outside from Jacobs, Black gets counted out after a Tower of London to the floor — remember, these matches have tag rules — and then he Jawbreakers Jacobs to end it. A liiiiitle bit assisted, but otherwise a fairly dominant performance by Nigel to retain.
After that, ROH started their TV show on HD Net, and Nigel’s first title defense in that era of the promotion led to him getting disqualified in 22 minutes against Brent Albright. That’s just Claudio Castagnoli attacking Brent Albright though, nothing shenanigans-related on McGuinness’ end. Nigel had one last title defense before this one at the 7th Anniversary show, and he beat KENTA to retain even though he had injured his arm the night before — leaving him with zero 100% healthy arms after a bicep tear waaaaaaaay back in 2007, believe it or not — and set up this rematch with Jerry Lynn.
Why does Lynn get the rematch? Well, if for no other reason that he picked up the pin on McGuinness in a tag match on March 14th, as Lynn and Tyler Black beat McGuinness and Austin Aries. It’s a big spot for Jerry Lynn, who actually had his ROH debut back in 2002 in the original World Title tournament, where he lost to AJ Styles, and then a pair of contests in 2004, losing a tag title shot to the Briscoes while teaming with Samoa Joe and then beating — hey, look at this — Nigel McGuinness for a #1 contender’s spot for the Pure Title, which he apparently never cashed in? Anyway, Lynn has been appearing regularly for ROH since mid-2008, just past his 20 year anniversary as a pro wrestler. He had won the ECW World Title back in 2000, had a run as the WWE Light Heavyweight Champion in 2001, and he’s a 2-time TNA X Division champion from back in 2002. He also had a pair of NWA Tag Team Championships back in 2002 and 2003, first with AJ Styles and then with The Amazing Red back when TNA was partnered with the NWA. He had been working with TNA up until 2007 in addition to independent work around the country, but it had obviously been a minute since Lynn had worn singles on a big platform.
And alllll of that brings us to Supercard of Honor IV, ROH’s fourth outing running a show over WrestleMania weekend in the same town as WWE’s biggest show of the year. This hasn’t been a devastatingly great show up until this point, but apparently the KENTA/Davey Richards GHC Junior Heavyweight Title match was pretty great, and no duh, those two are in fact great wrestlers.
Bobby Cruise does ring introductions as the video segment gets started. Nigel’s left shoulder and elbow are taped up, and there’s clearly tape sticking out of the sleeve on his right elbow, too. Referee Todd Sinclair calls for the Code of Honor, and the two men stare at each other for a moment before shaking, and Nigel shoves Lynn’s hand away after a moment. After an opening tie-up, Lynn goes straight after that very taped up left arm because Jerry Lynn’s not an idiot. Bunches of counters as McGuinness would prefer to not have his arm yanked on, of course, and even a back elbow with the right arm causes a bit of a shout and a grimace from the champ.
After a cross-arm breaker attempt by Lynn, McGuinness tries to take some time outside to recover, but again: Lynn’s not an idiot, and he’s right on top of him outside, using whatever’s nearby to attack McGuinness’ arms and shoulders. Nigel uses the ropes to pop Lynn in the face as he tries to come back inside, and then he jumps out there to send Lynn into the barricade shoulder first himself. Sure, working towards the London Dungeon is a good plan, but that requires strength from Nigel’s own arms to crank on Lynn’s arm. Then again, if Nigel can make it 1% more annoying and painful for Lynn to use his arms to attack McGuinness’ arms, then that’s good news for the champ.
This, of course, means that the guys start trading kicks to each other’s arms. Nigel shouting “OH, YOU WANT TO KICK ME??!?” at Jerry Lynn is pretty hilarious as in-match commentary from the competitors goes. A couple of shoulder tackles sets up a flying lariat for Lynn and then a tornado DDT gets a two count, and that lets him get that cross-arm breaker again before Nigel gets the ropes with his foot fairly quickly. Nigel dodges a charge into the corner and scores with the kick/lariat combo, but that hurt his arm, and he can’t follow up. Tower of London attempt gets countered to a Scorpion Death Drop for Lynn, but again only two.
Nigel gets a boot up in the corner — oh, man, there’s like zero chance he’s going for the headstand, right? — and that sets up the Tower of London and he gets it this time. A little bit slow going after the pin, so Lynn kicks out at two. McGuinness drags him to the middle of the ring, and he applies the London Dungeon. McGuinness maybe can’t quite get it as strong as he likes, and Lynn scoots backwards to get a boot on the ropes to get out. It looked like McGuinness was going for the Tower of London, but he goes out to the apron, YEP, TOWER OUTSIDE, and after a couple of counters, Nigel scores with the Tower of London from the apron to the floor.
McGuinness gets back inside at an 8 count, and his right arm looks completely useless to him as he hops back onto the apron. Sinclair gets ready to say 20 before Lynn throws himself back in to avoid the countout. Nigel cuts him off and sets up for the crotched lariat. Of course, the champ is much too slow as his arms are driving him crazy, and Lynn dodges it. That lets him get a sunset flip bomb out of the corner, and the challenger transitions into the London Dungeon, McGuinness’ own submission hold.
You can tell that McGuiness REALLY wants to still be ROH champion because he’s in a tremendous amount of pain as he fights to the ropes with his feet. There’s a few pin counters, and then Nigel gets the London Dungeon, but he can’t get deep enough and Lynn gets out to get the LD back again, and Nigel gets the ropes again. They fight over a Tower attempt, and Lynn dives off the ropes and rolls into a cross-arm breaker…. and McGuinness gets the ropes.
Nigel goes for a Jawbreaker, and you can tell that he’s not getting the most out of the seesaw because he has to prop himself up with his arms and he’s so slow coming out of it. That’s why Lynn counters it with a clothesline of his own and gets an Air Raid Crash for good measure. JL counters a counter to his charge in the corner, and he gets his signature Cradle Piledriver, which is the Gotch-style piledriver if you know what that is….. and Nigel gets his foot on the ropes. He has nothing left in either arm, he can barely stand up, but that doesn’t mean that McGuinness is just going to let Jerry Lynn win. McGuinness counters a few things from Lynn, and SCORES WITH THE JAWBREAKER, but that REALLY hurt him. He’s slow to a pin, and Lynn kicks out. Lynn gets the cross-arm breaker with his own head pointing towards the corner and thus Nigel as close to the middle of the ring as he can get, but Nigel will just not tap out and eventually rolls to the ropes for a break.
Nigel has been very mean to the ROH crowds for some time now, and he’s even been giving them the English two fingered salute repeatedly here, but it’s clear that his absolute refusal to go quietly into the night is winning the fans’ hearts and minds here. This has not been the greatest title defense of his run, but the crowd is HERE FOR WHATEVER HAPPENS NEXT as a JER-RY and NI-GEL chant fuse together in the crowd to JER-GEL on the audio. The two trade strikes, Lynn hooks McGuinness for the Cradle Piledriver dead in the middle of the ring.
ONE
TWO
THREE.
JERRY LYNN HAS WON THE ROH WORLD TITLE IN 19:03. NIGEL MCGUINNESS’ REIGN ENDS AT 545 DAYS, THE SECOND LONGEST IN RING OF HONOR HISTORY BEHIND ONLY SAMOA JOE, A MARK THAT STILL STANDS TODAY.
Was it the best match of this run that we’ve been watching? No. Was it a very good match? Yep, sure was, and Nigel’s refusal to give up that ROH title until he was done for good was a big part of it. Cage Match users give this one a rating of 8.12 out of 10.
ROH president Cary Silkin presents the belt to Jerry Lynn and congratulates him, and then clearly also congratulates Nigel on his title run. Bobby Cruise makes it official, and Jerry Lynn gives a speech about his win. Maybe he’s been underappreciated in his career, but he’s got a passion for this, and that’s why he keeps on going. He tips his cap to Nigel for being an amazing champion, and a THANK YOU NIGEL chant starts as Lynn heads to the back. Nigel picks up the mic, and pays tribute to the crowds for coming out to support Ring Of Honor and professional wrestling in general.
NEXT TIME: We wrap up our Celebration Of Guys Named Nigel with one final entry….. and of course it’s Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson for the 10th and final time in the series.
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