I first met Nigel McGuinness in 2001 at Les Thatcher’s Main Event Wrestling Camp. He was kind enough to give me an interview shortly before a weekday Heartland Wrestling Association show.

I was one of maybe 10 people in the crowd. The camp recently changed locations and Nigel recently returned to the United States. When ABC’s 20/20 recorded a segment on professional wrestling, they came to Thatcher’s camp. Nigel was featured in one portion of the segment, telling his story how he was now on his second VISA, working to resume training and looking for his shot, which at the time was his end-all, be-all goal of working for World Wrestling Entertainment and winning the world title.

McGuinness was a prototypical athlete, but in 2001, he wasn’t a prototypical pro wrestler. He was tall, but he didn’t have the bodybuilder look of most talent of the time. He was too tall and too big to be one of nameless spot specialists, the type of wrestlers who watched WCW’s Cruiserweight division and cut out all of the wrestling and psychology.

When Nigel returned to the states, the wrestling industry had been cut to a third. ECW was out of business, WCW was out of business and WWE was the only major company. HWA, which previously was a developmental territory for WCW, would soon have a developmental deal with WWE. Nigel didn’t get a developmental contract himself (much to the chagrin of Thatcher, and from what I heard, other WWE developmental mainstays like Jim Cornette and Tom Pirtchard).

Even though the HWA was soon invaded by former WCW wrestlers and WWE developmental stars-in-the-waiting, they didn’t wrestle as well as the HWA talent, paying their dues and tuition. When developmental talent arrived, HWA was already drawing hundreds to shows, wrestling in three different states and put on matches that were making news across the burgeoning online wrestling scene.

But professional wrestling is not always about being better. Somestimes, it’s seldom about being better.

I watched Nigel wrestle dozens of times. During any other era he was a sure star in the making on personality alone, but during the early days of the monopoly, it was almost impossible to see where he would fit into the picture. For him to make it, a total re-invention of the business would have to take place. Physicality, psychology, promos, natural charisma – those were the tools he had in his toolbox, but he didn’t fit the mold. And as my own extremely inexperienced outlook would learn many times over the years, those who don’t fit the mold tend to be the wrestlers who are the most special.

Roll On

McGuinness had this strange ability of finding a way to be the most over person on any card. If it was a new town or audience, give him two shows and people paid good money to listen to his rants at the crowd or see him take his shots. His natural heel personality, the punk rock, blue collar look, and the instantly recognizable entrance music by The Living End, made it easy to know when he was coming.

I have several favorite Nigel stories. One, at first, was quite distressing. I was told privately that his green card had ran out and he was sleeping on Shark Boy’s floor while trying to stay in the country (the veracity of this, I believed at the time. Later, not so much. Wrestlers love working reporters). A week later, I wake to emails and voice mails saying Nigel had been arrested and hauled out of an HWA show by men in ICE jackets and tossed in a van. Nobody knew where he was. Fans told me they saw this. What in the hell.

A few weeks later, a valet who accompanied her storyline brother to the ring on a regular basis had an announcement that she was engaged. Her brother demanded to know who this guy was and couldn’t wait to meet him. “Roll On,” by The Living End began cranking its iconic intro.

Pro wrestlers talk about different levels of heat. When fans are angry, into it, hate the heels. The HWA training faciiity, which was now drawing 75 to 100 fans for its weekly weekday shows and hundreds on weekend shows at other places, sounded like a prison riot.

Like all bad guys, when you’re really good at being bad, that’s when the crowd starts to see you as good. Within a month Nigel was a babyface. Confused former WCW talent and WWE developmental dealers couldn’t understand why the crowd loved this guy with the spiky blond hair more than them. They had the deals and were the chosen ones, but that doesn’t mean you’re good.

Ups and Downs of the hyper motivated

McGuinness was the most focused pro wrestler I’d ever covered. I interviewed dozens, talked to dozens, became friends with dozens, but Nigel made it clear to everyone, his career goal was to make it to WWE and become WWE world champion.

By this time, I knew how politics worked inside WWE. The last thing you wanted the company to know is how badly you wanted to be there. This was setting yourself up for major problems.

The company never admits it, but the talent that plays hard to get or has options tend to get the best deals and tend to get the most effort. It’s a strange thing, but this was how the company worked, and Nigel’s vocal mindset helped him grow and keep focused and grew him fans throughout Ohio and the indies, but it was a negative as far as how backstage politics worked in WWE.

Before the first Pillman memorial show, I talked with Nigel for about half an hour. He was down on his prospects, which is normal for anyone that’s highly motivated the ups and downs in making it any tough business are tremendous. Having this mindset in pro wrestling, which is subjective and is determined in totality on a few people, has to be torture.

This was the last time I talked to Nigel. Around this time, to make up for the gaping hole left by two major companies, independents began picking up steam. In the spirit of the Super J Cup, or the G1, tournaments started popping up on the east coast, featuring the best unsigned talent in the country. A couple guys, who sold ECW tapes online through RF Video, attended and saw how much talent was at these shows and realized there was enough to start a company.

A year later Ring of Honor launched. After several shows around Philadelphia, they took a shot and went to Dayton, Ohio, where HWA had drew 500-plus crowds monthly on a regular basis. Nigel McGuinness wrestled his first match for ROH that night. I remember walking the parking lot and counting the license plates from different states. It was like ECW when it had its first Dayton show, it was a grand opening to the rest of the country. This was the night Nigel debuted for ROH.

TNA, WWE, Retirement

Ring of Honor inherited the renegade spirit of ECW, and it was the perfect intellectual fit for Nigel. McGuinness was a technically solid wrestler, but he didn’t take off until he built his own identity. BJ Whitmer, who trained with McGuinness in the HWA and worked with him for years in ROH, once told me it wasn’t until Nigel began watching World of Sport that he began to form his own wrestling psychological personality. It was perfect timing for him and ROH, which needed strong promos, strong personalities and charismatic faces, and Nigel had all of that.

Instead of adoptin the tropes of XPW, TNA and the other smaller companies that popped up or were around, Nigel wasn’t doing flaming table spots. He made his claim as the best wrestler in the world, adopted the lariat, and along with other workers in ROH and on the indies, began developing a new US style that drew on Japan, the Pillars, the Southeast, WCW’s Cruiserweight division and WWE’s main event style. It was perfect. It was true punk rock. If the TV companies were doing 5 minute matches, he was going an hour. If they were throwing themselves off balconies, he’d work snug with anyone and keep it on the mat.

He found the perfect opponent in Bryan Danielson. Danielson was considered too short for WWE. If you’re short and you can’t do a shooting star press, that’s a problem. He was physical, he wrestled on the mat, he liked to kick heads in. Nigel’s matches with Danielson began inspiring wrestlers around the world. His success inspired wrestlers in Europe and soon a strong independent scene appeared in the UK.

While WWE’s main event still held strong to psychology, the pomp and circumstance was what the company sold to fans. This wasn’t the case with Nigel, Danielson and others. This group saved psychological storytelling in wrestling. While they were doing this in. the US, Tanahashi was taking form in New Japan, a company that was near death.

McGuinness was a top performer for years, but it took WWE a long time before they offered him a developmental contract.

Things fell apart after he failed a physical, his deal was denied, as the story goes. He continued on the indies for a few more years, and over a decade ago, he retired.

He became the management face of ROH, a top color commentator and a valued voice.

The came WWE. They wanted Nigel, but as an announcer.

Nigel’s story was so compelling, it was the subject of a documentary on WWE Network just after he signed to be WWE’s color commentator for NXT UK.

Wembley

After WWE laid off Nigel from his NXT announcing gig, he landed in AEW and Ring of Honor, which was purchased by Tony Khan around this time. Immediately, he began taking shots at his former rival Danielson. Danielson advised Nigel to stay retired during a press scrum, but the seeds were already being laid.

Dave Meltzer said McGuinness’s addition to the All In card at Wembley came together shortly beforehand, but not in the mind of McGuinness. The shape he was in, the stamina he had, the level of his work, this was not someone who decided to do this just a few weeks before the show. Nigel was considered one of the highlights of the night.

It was nice, a one-night return. Except it isn’t one night. Nigel cut two amazing promos the following week, challenging Bryan Danielson to a non-title match at AEW Grand Slam. At the home of the U.S. Open, in the building named after Arthur Ashe, McGuinness wants Danielson. And it won’t end there. AEW may think it’s a one-off. I don’t know. I know Nigel doesn’t see it as a one-off.

In the movie Demolition Man, Sylvester Stallone is hunting down an escaped convict played by Wesley Snipes. “To catch a maniac, send a maniac,” Stallone mutters to himself at one point. Maybe it takes a maniac, to book a maniac. Nigel’s on the loose, and the Forbidden Door Tony Khan is the booker. Nigel isn’t letting off the gas, unless an unforseen injury comes up, he’s not going away.

You don’t come back after a decade and put in that work, not when you’re the highly motivated, and go back to the commentator’s chair with no plans to get back in the ring. Whether Khan knows it or not, he’s entering the Age of McGuinness.

It’s coming. No one will out-work him, no one will out-talk him. He’s going to be relentless. He’s not going to give you a great promo, he’s going to melt ears. He’s going to melt the ring, he’s ruthless and in his mind the AEW Title is probably a certainty.

Whether AEW knows it, the talent, the producers – it’s all over. Just make the plans. Line him up with Swerve, Hangman, Orange, the rest. Let him do his thing. Maybe he needs more time in between matches, but you’re talking about a real life mad scientist (he has the college credentials) who has watched Chris Jericho, CM Punk, Christopher Daniels and others wrestle into their 40s and 50s. He’s done his homework, he’s watched their work at ringside, he knows what he can do and he knows what they can do.

He learned wrestling and psychology from the best, Les Thatcher. He spent a decade wrestling the best, at the top of the list, Danielson. He’s had a decade to ponder a possible last chance. I haven’t talked to Nigel in 20 years. I left wrestling, got into newspapers and went on my own route, but I know the guy and just make the plans now – put the belt on him. Book it. He’ll be another on a list of colossal WWE flubs and horrible judges of talent (Athena, Swerve, what happened??), and AEW can laugh to the bank, and Nigel will laugh hardest.

He’s in it to win it, get out of the way.