Top 10 ROH Stars of All Time
By Tim Sherry
Credit: WWE.com
8. Nigel McGuinness
England’s Nigel McGuinness may be the greatest wrestler of all time who has never won any of the 3 major American world titles, those being WWE, WCW, and TNA. McGuinness first arrived in Ring of Honor as an unheralded British wrestler who spent 6 years in Heartland Wrestling based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. But by the time he left ROH, McGuinness had become a full-fledged superstar.
A master mat technician, McGuinness was a perfect fit for Ring of Honor and that paid off in spades. During his second year with the company, he would win the ROH Pure Championship and go on to hold that title for 350 days, the longest in that belt’s history. Roughly a year after losing that title, Nigel would win the biggest championship of his career, the ROH World Heavyweight Championship from Takeshi Morishima in October of 2007. That title he’d hold for 545 days making a combined 890 days of ROH Championship gold around his waist. That’s roughly 2 and half years. Talk about dominance.
And of course, like many of the others on this list, McGuiness had some of the most classic matches in ROH history. The best of the bunch was his 3 match rivalry with ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson. They were a perfect fit for each other and both lived up to the code of honor during their epic, respectful battles. The last few years of McGuiness’ career were spent in TNA but marred by injuries. It was a shame because at now only 41 years old he’s finally with the WWE but as a commentator. Had the injuries not plagued him we could be talking about a multiple time WWE champion. But hey, we’ll take him any way we can get him.