1. Takeshi Morishima vs. Nigel McGuinness- Undeniable 10/6/07
****
Ah yes, this is THE Morishima vs. Nigel match! A well built tale of the man who EVERYBODY wants to win the title but he just can't derail the monster champion, even after two previous attempts. Both Nigel and Morishima are on their game here and it's quite clear they don't mind knocking the living shit out of each other. As you can expect from probably every match on this DVD, there are A LOT of lariats. That plays well into this match though as Morishima is just a beast so every lariat he throws is deadly anyway. The match is worked at quite a pace for these two, bearing in mind the more technical nature of McGuinness's usual matches but that works well though with the stiff style as they batter one another and neither man really takes charge for long periods of time. It almost boils down to a stale mate and that's shown well with the fighting spirit spots. The crowd were RED HOT for this one as Nigel's their boy and my god do they wanted him to win here!
Several very believable false finishes including a spot where 'Shima nails a backdrop driver only for Nigel to pop up and hit a jawbreaker lariat that had SO many people in the crowd standing and counting along with the ref that it reminded me of older ROH classics such as Aries vs. Joe from Final Battle 2004; that moment when the crowd were counting along after the 450 from Aries and the rush from the urgency of the scenario mixed with the audiences reaction is exactly what wrestling is about.
But here's something to debate, I've long sang the praises of the first Morishima vs. McGuinness match from Fighting Spirit as being their best encounter. After a few years gap and a rewatch this match is better than I remembered but still not quite as good as the one from Fighting Spirit in my opinion.
Post match, American Dragon Bryan Danielson comes out to piss all over Nigel’s celebration which causes Aries to try and brake up the situation. This leads nicely into...
2. Nigel McGuinness vs. Austin Aries- Rising Above 12/29/07
*****
What an atmosphere! This is a prime example of the amazing atmosphere ROH shows can create and it's especially fuelled by the New York crowd beginning to turn on Nigel. It starts off innocently but after only a few minutes one of THE sickest spots I think I've ever seen occurs as Aries hits the heat seeking missile from behind on an unaware Nigel McGuinness. His head goes straight into the top of the guard rail and you can see up close the large and deep cut right over his eye. Yikes! He then can't stand up straight and proceeds to stagger everywhere due to the prevalent concussion. What an extra dimension to the match that adds! But that aside, this is an all out classic war of attrition. Technical wrestling with a lot of high impact moves is a staple of the ROH style around this time and this match maybe one of its finest examples. There's SO many dangerous moves in this match...the tower of London off the apron to the floor, the lariat off the top rope which flips Aries TO THE OUTSIDE rather to the inside, the brainbuster on the freakin' guardrail plus loads more! The crowd come UNHINGED at times during this match, case in point the brainbuster/450 combo by Aries, the lariat block and counter and the Horns of Aries all points where the crowd had now fully turned on Nigel and were aching for a new champion! Nigel’s final lariat is sickening, poor Aries lands like a sack of potatoes right on his head and neck!
One of the best ROH matches ever and a personal favourite of mine!
3. Nigel McGuinness vs. Bryan Danielson- 6th Anniversary Show 2/23/08
****1/2
So here we are only a few months down the line from the previous match and we're back in New York with Nigel still trying to stay face, despite a now larger portion of the crowd booing him, facing Bryan Danielson in their first meeting with Nigel as champion. Coming into this Dragon had promised to not strike Nigels head as he was still recovering from his concussion and Dragon is kind of still recovering from his detached retina. After about 10 minutes of counter hold wrestling Nigel takes a somewhat dubious back suplex and is pissed off that it's close to his head so in turn decks the referee after the ref insists there's nothing he can do about it. This REALLY annoys the crowd as Dragon is declared winner by DQ.
Nigel's about to walk off when Aries, Strong, Steen and Delirious block his exit and threaten to do him over if he doesn't get back in the ring and restart the match. Of course he does and then the match is really on but now Nigel has fully turned on the fans. To be fair to Nigel, I'd have turned on them too as, being the xenophobic lot the NY crowd are, they earlier began chanting USA USA at him, you know just because he's not American. It's this little bit of storytelling early on that adds a tonne of extra heat to the match (like it needed any!) which is just filled with drama. From Nigel working on Dragons arm for the London Dungeon to Nigels head being busted open and Nigel even putting Dragon in his own Cattle Mutilation submission, this is one of ROH's all time greatest matches. Dragon keeps to his word and hesitates striking Nigels head multiple times such as the MMA elbow spot and you can't help but think at that time that ultimately it will cost him but then for a solid 5 minutes every submission hold and move Dragon does has that urgency and feeling that the match is about to end. The crowd can be heard getting quieter as they get burnt out from cheering so much. Eventually Nigel commits the ultimate sin and goes for Dragons eye just to add even more heat to his heel turn.
4. Nigel McGuinness vs. Kevin Steen- Northern Navigation 7/25/08
****1/4
There's some good heat going into this one simply because it's ROHs first show in Canada and Kevin Steen is getting his second ROH World Title opportunity in what is pretty much his backyard. His first attempt ended with Nigel cheating to win so it's setup perfectly for his revenge.
To begin with it's all very feel good with Steens natural humour coming through as he messes up the champs hair then mockingly walks out of the way of a jawbreaker lariat attempt whilst looking at his pretend watch. It ends quickly though as Steen takes pretty nasty looking a slam on the apron. Seriously that sort of thing just looks SO painful! Nigel, being the methodical tactician that he has evolved into at this point, is a joy to watch as he works over Steens back. Steen however, is in best match of his career mode here. His comebacks just give us snippets of hope and he's clever in that he really saves all his best signature for his big comeback at the end whilst drop feeding us one or two moves here and there throughout the heat section. The ending sequence goes on for a long time and I think it's one of those almost overkill finishes where both guys literally use everything but the kitchen sink on each other but if you can put that aside it's a hell of a ride. Still this remains one of Steens top matches in ROH.
5. Nigel McGuinness vs. El Generico- Age of Insanity 8/15/08
****
Playing off the previous encounters between Nigel and Kevin Steen we now get Steens tag team partner El Generico getting a ROH World Title shot and he duly delivers a very good performance in this one. Nigel is merciless in his attack on Genericos arm and in turn Generico sells it like his life is on the line. The crowd, whilst behind Generico, certainly didn't seem convinced that this would be anything more than another token title defence but due to the hard work of both men they were sucked into every near fall towards the end. They even took a nod towards the crowd feelings by having Nigel fully underestimating Generico in the opening minutes of the match and of course Generico made it known that he is a real force to be reckoned with. A very good match and one those great hidden gems that not many talk about anymore.
6. Nigel McGuinness vs. Roderick Strong- Driven 2008 9/19/08
****
How can I say this without sounding negative...this is the same match as previous one but with a few tweaks and Roderick Strong taking El Genericos place. It's still very good though and for a lot of the same reasons as the previous match (crowd not buying Strong as a viable new champion but being convinced etc) yet this seemed to have a finish more akin to the Steen match in that it went to OTT levels. I found it quite amusing that after the Tower of London to the floor (and all the lariat near falls preceding that) the crowd just gave a normal kind of cheer whereas right near the end where Strong uses the Gibson Driver for the first time and crowd come unhinged! The extremely late kickout really helped too and had everybody on their feet chanting "THAT WAS THREE!", "THAT WAS THREE!".
7. Nigel McGuinness vs. Naomichi Marufuji- Final Battle 2008 12/27/08
***3/4
Whilst a shade behind their previous 2006 meeting, this was still a very good match. Marufuji and Nigel seem to have this chemistry together that means they can just go out there with an amount of time and put on a really good back and forth match. There isn't too much of a story here but they build up to each of the big spots well enough making several attempts throughout the contest. It was also good to see Nigel not use too many lariats...after 2 and half hours of LARIATS it gets a bit samey and that's coming from a big Nigel fan. The crowd was nice and hot for this and of course the Hammerstein looked amazing rammed with ROH fans. It's not a classic but certainly worthy of a viewing.
On first glance this DVD had a bit of an odd match listing but after getting into it, it appears the DVD is almost split in half. On one hand you get the epic matches where Nigel is kind of almost dead even with his opponents and then you get the other matches where they follow almost the same pattern with Nigel commanding whilst working a body part, fighting off a few comebacks and then going into a mega (and sometimes overkill) finish. There's no doubt that this isn't a necessarily a very best of (unlike the Tyler Black disc that came with Salvation that could be argued to contain his best matches) but it does contain some of his very best matches and some very good matches.
For me they omitted
-the first match vs. Marufuji from GBH V Night 2 (it was better than their Final Battle 2008 encounter)
- Vs. Tyler Black from Take No Prisoners
- Vs. Jimmy Rave from Fifth Year Festival: Finale
- Vs. KENTA from 7th Anniversary
Also you could argue that the inclusion of another Danielson match form Unified, Driven or Rising Above 2008 could have been included but I can understand the choices that were made as they involve some current ROH talent whilst the other matches are just outright classics.
9/10
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