Back in April I wrote defending Nigel McGuinness’s long reign ( http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/2008/04/08/cult-of-roh-assessing-mcguinness%e2%80%99s-challengers/ ) because he had a wealth of possible challengers. Now it’s August, and he’s run through a lot of them. In the last two weeks he beat Steen for the third time, Castagnoli for the second, Ruckus in an extended squash, and three challengers in one match at the Hammerstein Ballroom, including getting another duke over Danielson and Black. How much is left for McGuinness to do as champion?
One likely match-up is against Naomichi Marufuji, who watched his title defense on Saturday from the ramp. It was a pretty obvious tease from a guy McGuinness has never beaten. This won’t be going down in Japan, but Marufuji could return to the States a week later and challenge McGuinness at their Boston Pay Per View taping. Marufuji is undefeated on PPV.
One more title match against Danielson has been eminent since the night McGuinness turned. He has never beaten Danielson decisively, taunts him and has even put him on the road to that match by taking on his former challengers. They will wrestle a non-title match on Night 1 in Japan, which may set up a title match later. It’s an odd booking choice, and in addition to Claudio Castagnoli turning on Danielson, this is looking more and more like the Joe/Ki title match that was demanded forever and never materialized. Regardless, Danielson remains an opponent McGuinness can defend against at least once.
Tyler Black is the other obvious rematch. Danielson and McGuinness have repeatedly given him a stage on which to make himself a star and he’s done everything he can with it, resulting in some of ROH’s most popular matches this year. Yet he’s only had the one singles title match and is still clearly a threat after Saturday. Perhaps McGuinness beating him in two different kinds of matches will lead to him finding a partner and challenging for the Tag Titles. With Jacobs challenging in Japan, they could easily be pointing in that direction. If Black can flip that on the champ and pin him, or even pin his partner, he can roll into another World Title match. The only caveat is that even if the Hammerstein match was four-way, this would be the pivotal third shot. They can’t expect much between Black and McGuinness after they pull that trigger, unless they have Black dethrone him.
It’s a sensitive position for Black, and ROH can’t plan on throwing him many more times at the champ. They’ve built him as the hot upstart, but that will look pathetic if he becomes a perennial challenger. We saw what happened to Delirious when ROH tried to promote him as the red-hot challenger for too long during Danielson’s reign; he’s never recovered, and his last run-in with a champion was McGuinness crushing him in an opener at Dragon Gate Challenge 2. Black is a different package, but if he is in the title picture for too long as a rookie, it could be disastrous.
Austin Aries is a less obvious rematch, but if you watch Rising Above and Supercard of Honor 3 (and you should), those matches set up very well for another encounter. Both hinge on the Heat Seeking Missile dives. It gave him a serious chance to win at first, and cost him the second match. If he’d hit it at Supercard 3 he’d have won that match. Depending on how the Age of the Fall feud proceeds and how successful he is in it, he could be a title challenger in the next couple of months.
Other rematches are less plausible or much less desirable. Roderick Strong is a critically favorable babyface, but he’s in the middle of a feud with Sweet & Sour Inc., and he’s on the losing side of it. Losing decisively to Chris Hero and losing at all to Eddie Edwards makes him a dubious challenger.
McGuinness’s difficulty in elevating challengers has also hurt the rematch pool. Injury angle or not, his match against Erick Stevens was a drag. His PPV outing against Go Shiozaki and overbearing beating on Ruckus further exposed his trouble elevating people. That makes creating any new series from existing low-card guys unreliable.
Some potential rematch cycles have simply run their course. Castagnoli is either retired or a villain, either case making him a poor opponent for McGuinness at this point. Kevin Steen has lost three title matches to him, and even if two were underhanded losses, Steen’s failure to bring that up in promo wars with McGuinness let sympathy slide, and his decisive loss in his home country makes his case particularly poor. With his and Generico’s win over the Murder City Machine Guns, it looks like Steen will focus on the tag titles now.
Brent Albright might have made a good challenger given his chemistry with McGuinness in prior matches, but he’s NWA Champion now, and ROH is recognizing it. Does ROH want to do another Belt Vs. Belt match, especially after the screwball ending of Pearce Vs. McGuinness? And Albright, like Strong, seems focused on Sweet & Sour Inc. right now, having yet to destroy Larry Sweeney.
There are three out-of-the-box matches, though all three look like throwaways on paper. El Generico, Necro Butcher and Davey Richards have all never challenged for the ROH World Title. Theoretically each man could start a series with McGuinness, though it is a little late and the new challenger field is a little thin to begin another challenger series. Steen and Castagnoli were more palatable because they were gunning for rematches in a climate of many challengers. Generico and Richards might be better suited to a miraculous title victory on their first shot, if ROH wanted a shocking end to the reign. That’s extremely unlikely, especially with the way it’s treated these guys as supporting characters – which is probably part of the reason why they haven’t challenged McGuinness yet. Even if they do only challenge in one-offs, though, crowds will doubtless love seeing Butcher struggle through Lariat after Lariat, and Generico is almost built for a cocky bully character like McGuinness.
Looking at the landscape of ROH there are only a few matches left for McGuinness as champion unless they start booking cleverly and quickly. Hopefully they already have designs that go beyond pitting him against the next hot face from NOAH and TNA (as fun as McGuinness Vs. Shelley would be). Now is a more tenuous time than April because McGuinness has truly run through most of his competition, as opposed to the weaker complaints of there being none months ago. Now ROH will have to book smarter, unable to be sloppy as they were in the long run to Castagnoli’s first title challenge or the follow-up with Steen. But one has to ask how much longer they can keep McGuinness as hot as he was on the four shows of the last two weeks.
I’m off the fight exterminators for a lower price and get my wisdom teeth yanked. If you’re still hankering to read, check out:
-An experiment on my Bathroom Monologues at www.johnwiswell.blogspot.com, where every day this week I’ll have to write an original short piece that include the words “joker,†“pumice,†and “Kentucky Derby.†Why? Visit and find out.
-Check out Pulse Glazer’s live report from Death Before Dishonor 6
-Jonathan Kirschner takes aim at Chikara and PWG
-The Ditch is back! David Ditch looks at all the recent news in major Japanese wrestling, with some cogent analysis on Kensuke Sasaki’s move to NOAH
-And David Wells lists his favorite ten Full Impact Pro DVD’s
