NIGEL MCGUINNESS’
TRIUMPH AND HEARTBREAK
“My Injury Couldn’t Have Come
At A Worse Time”

By Al Castle

Whether at ringside or in the worst seat in the house, the sound is unmistakable. The thunderous, cringe-inducing “snap!” of a signature Nigel McGuinness lariat has been heard several times a night during nearly every match in the popular Brit’s four-year career in Ring of Honor.

But it was a far less recognizable sound that startled McGuinness when he threw a routine left hand during a recent IPW U.K. match against James Tighe in his native England.

“Well, I suppose it wasn’t so much what I heard, but what I felt,” recalled McGuinness. “I swung up and caught him in the neck, and I felt a ‘ping!’—almost like an elastic band snapping in my arm.” McGuinness went on to be disqualified in the match, yet that didn’t matter that much to him.

“At that point, obviously, I couldn’t have cared less, because I knew something was up with my arm.”

The “ping” that emanated from just above the southpaw’s left elbow was the distinctive sound of a biceps muscle tearing completely from the bone. Although a simple left uppercut was the immediate cause of his injury, there is no doubt that his lariat was the true culprit for putting him on the sidelines. “It’s little by little that you weaken that tendon,” he said. “It wasn’t one huge impact that made it sever clean.”

It was an injury that would go onto to sideline McGuinness and, worse yet, it came just one week after McGuinness accomplished his career goal of winning the ROH championship.

“It couldn’t have come at a worse time for me, of course,” McGuinness said from his home, where he was going through a six-to-eight week rehabilitation process. “And how ironic that after the long, hard road chasing the belt—throwing lariats aplenty—it’s that arm that goes a week after I finally get the belt.”

McGuinness’ defeat of Japanese monster Takeshi Morishima on October 6 in Edison, New Jersey, proved to be his biggest victory in a breakout year filled with career-defining performances.

Even going into 2007, McGuinness was already heralded by many wrestling observers as one of the most innovative and exciting performers in the industry. With his rock star style and imposing 6'1" frame, McGuinness already looks the part of a superstar before he steps foot in the ring, but the nine-year veteran, who grew up idolizing stars such as The British Bulldogs, has sought to forge a legacy not built on flash, but on grit. Combining a traditional European style that includes a significant dose of forearm strikes and dizzying mat work with the hard-hitting, progressive style that has become the signature of Ring of Honor, McGuinness has become a standout, even on a roster saturated with world-class athletes.

More than his blond, spiked locks, his Union Jack trunks, or his Cockney accent, McGuinness is known for a left-armed lariat that is more sudden and deadly than any the wrestling business has ever known. In fact, it was McGuinness’ middle-rope rebound lariat that allowed him to do the seemingly impossible and pin Morishima’s massive shoulders to the mat.

“It was a fantastic night for me. It was amazing and euphoric,” said McGuinness, who realized that his career milestone comes at a time when Ring of Honor continues to make headway as a national promotion through its video-on-demand pay-per-view deal. “There’s definitely a sense of pressure, arguably more so than in any other company, because that belt means everything to Ring of Honor. Guys like [Samoa] Joe and [American] Dragon have built it up to where now the expectations for a major champion are huge. You can’t get away from that.”

And so it was especially disheartening for McGuinness when his long-awaited ROH title reign began not with a bang, but with a “ping.” Days after his arm injury, McGuinness successfully defended his title against Danielson in Las Vegas and Jay Briscoe in San Francisco. After the stint, McGuinness realized he was far from 100 percent and chose to take the necessary time to heal his injury. He opted against getting surgery on the arm, a prospect that would keep him out of the ring for at least four months and would not necessarily guarantee far better results than just allowing his torn biceps to heal in place. “The doctor said, ‘It’s already torn off, so you can’t tear it more than it already is,’” said McGuinness, who called the injury “one of the least painful, but most debilitating of his career.”

A few days later, McGuinness was backstage at a ROH show in Philadelphia, where Chris Hero—who had just won the promotion’s Survival of the Fittest tournament in Las Vegas—called the Brit “a fluke champion” and demanded a match immediately. McGuinness, against doctor’s orders, jumped into the ring in his street clothes and ran through Hero with several right-armed lariats. He eventually defeated Hero in the wild brawl. The match was not a mat classic, and that worked to McGuinness’ advantage.

But maybe that win has given McGuinness a false sense of confidence. The champ says he won’t necessarily take a four-month layoff and that he will choose individual dates as they come … and he wants to be making title defenses by the end of 2007. He wants to work through the injury for the most part.

McGuinness might have faltered at the start of his first ROH title reign, but he tries to look at his injury not as a curse, but a blessing in disguise. He’s using the time away from the ring to heal not only his biceps, but other long nagging injuries.

“2007 is when they threw me the ball, and it was fantastic. But 2008 is going to be when I run with it,” McGuinness said. “There are very few people in the world who can say, ‘I was Ring of Honor champion.’ When that opportunity comes, you’ve got to run with it … If it doesn’t work out, and I don’t set the world on fire, then at least I can say I gave it my best shot.”