In one week, Nigel McGuinness will do something he hasn't since all the way back in December of 2011: wrestle a single match.
Now sure, he technically wrestled a match already this year, making his surprise return at AEW All In to make good on his childhood dream of working a match at Wembley Stadium, but that was as part of a Casino Gauntlet match, with the former Ring of Honor Champion only working for a few minutes at a time with plenty of space to catch his breath and reload for his next bit of action.
At Arther Ashe, McGuinness will get to do it again at Grand Slam, only this time against one of the biggest rivals of his wrestling and post-wrestling career in Bryan Danielson, assuming the “American Dragon” actually signs on the dotted line and agrees to the match.
But what happens after? Is this McGuinness' first and last match of the 2020s? Or will it spurn on a late-career revival of the technical specialist from London, England? Talking to TV Insider about his forthcoming match at Grand Slam and what it could mean for his future, McGuinness declared that it might not be a wait-and-see type situation, but it might also not not be a wait-and-see situation either.
“It's definitely a wait-and-see. I'm not going to rule it out. I think for the longest time, there has been the saying of never say never and never really meaning it. I think we'll see how the match goes. If Bryan is able to compete as he is legitimately pretty banged up. Hopefully, it comes to fruition when he honors the booking. I think we'll see how things play out after that,” McGuinness explained.
“People asked me after the match in Wembley how I was feeling. I felt fantastic. It will be different going into a gauntlet match like that versus a one-on-one with expectations. I feel confident about it. I don't know. I was looking at quotes from Arthur Ashe this morning because we're doing this at Arthur Ashe Stadium. He said, ‘One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.' I've had 18 months to prepare for this, both mentally and physically. I just feel I'm ready to go. Once I'm out there, there is a legitimate emotion that comes with standing across the ring with Bryan Danielson, given his level of success and story compared to mine.”
Can McGuinness deliver the goods – assuming Danielson signs on for the match – at Grand Slam? Or will his in-ring game show its age, with Danielson lapping a man who hasn't wrestled a match since the Xbox 360 was relevant? Only time will tell, but if the match is impressive, then hey, why not go all-in on his reunion tour and embrace first-time efforts against everyone from Zack Sabre Jr. to Daniel Garcia, especially when he didn't want to retire in the first place?
Nigel McGuinness never wanted to retire from wrestling
Continuing his walk down memory lane on his way to Arthur Ashe Stadium, McGuinness decided to dispel to TV Insider some of the misinformation surrounding his first retirement from professional wrestling.
While yes he did have Hepititus, and yes, he suffered some concussions during his career, the real reason he hung up his boots and decided to go all in on commentary had more to do with a lack of viable financial opportunities after WWE turned him down more so than anything having to do with a desire to duke it out in the squared circle.
“It didn't really. There is a lot of confusion and misinformation. The truth of the matter is when I stepped away from wrestling; it was purely because I couldn't make a living as a wrestler anymore. I could have gone back to Ring of Honor and wrestled that style, but I wouldn't have made enough money to even afford health insurance, let alone save for the rest of my life. That style in Ring of Honor just wasn't doable. WWE wasn't interested in me because of an old arm injury, even though it was perfectly healed. I didn't want to go back to TNA, given what happened there. That was it. There was no AEW or anywhere else to make a living wrestling. I had no choice,” McGuinness explained.
“When I retired and did that documentary ‘The Last of McGuinness,' it was partly because if I could get my story out there, perhaps someone would catch on to it and tell the rest of the story. Little did I know it would take until now with Tony Khan and AEW. I didn't step away because of concussions. I didn't step away because of hepatitis. I was perfectly okay to wrestle. So it's all not a factor going in. You obviously are cognizant of the possibility of injuries and stuff like that, but you try to keep it out of your head. It's just like anything else in life. There are risks involved, but the rewards outweigh them.”
Unfortunately for McGuinness and the scores of wrestlers like him who didn't quite fit what WWE wanted to promote at the time but had outgrown the hard-hitting matches on a shoestring budget of indies like TNA and Ring of Honor, there really wasn't a place where his talents, abilities, and knowledge would be appreciated without having other skills like being an agent or calling matches on commentary. Like AEW, hate it, or fall somewhere in between, that option now exists for wrestlers like McGuinness, Christian Cage, and Adam Copeland, who were all told by WWE that they didn't fit into the promotion's plans for the future.
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