[2008-03-22-FIP-Unfinished Business] Larry Sweeney vs Nigel McGuinness

[Ma Stump Puller]

Nigel was a heel during this run (this was just after his Tyler Black match where he was shit-talking the guy and playing the heel about a week or so prior) but he's a face here, basically demanding that Sweeney just get in the ring and fight him for his RoH World title, and of course Sweeney is a cowardly shit so he's going to stall, stall, stall. Now the good news is that Sweeney is a solid heel and so these stalling segments are quite entertaining: he won't even share a ring with his opponent for the introductions and he spends a good few minutes trying his hardest to not get his ass kicked, but he gets caught a few times when he's too busy taunting fans instead of watching his back. Nigel wrestles like a 80's Southern babyface, throwing clean strikes but also getting in some scrappy hair pulling and getting hi-fives from kids while bashing Sweeney all over the place, it's great. It's still stalling but functional, and it easily showcases the dynamic of the match while letting the crowd get more heated in the process. I also loved that these two actually incorporated that earlier dynamic into some actual wrestling sequences, namely Sweeney getting consistently outsmarted by McGuiness's goofy British WoS spots and selling like mad for when he had to get over frustration, bumping big, or both.

Of course you can't have a entire title match be a one-sided beatdown, and eventually Sweeney gets the advantage when his opponent gets sloppy and goes arm-first into the turnbuckle, allowing him to work on the arms of McGuinness. Nigel around this time had already been known for his extensive damage to them: he'd almost been stripped of his title in reality due to a torn bicep: would never be fixed completely for years and would actually only get worse as he ended up tearing both soon enough. You can therefore buy Sweeney using this to get some sleazy work of his own at last, and his stuff is pretty by the numbers but solid enough. Nigel sells really well and despite this crowd being majority kids and casual fans, they don't get bored of the hammerlocks and slower paced arm work, namely because of said selling, which is dynamic and pretty self-aware of the match itself, so you never really feel that Sweeney is in full control, any random strike that lands flush is a dangerous thing. Nigel also gets over his initiative, never just laying down and eating stuff but always trying to either hide his bad arm, crawling to the ropes before Sweeney even tries anything or throwing shots, poking at eyes, anything to try to survive. It's fascinating seeing what he used as a heel routine being used for the opposite instead, and it works pretty well I'd say. 

Comeback is good (despite more or less no real attempt to sell the arm) and they even get in some near falls as Sweeney just defaults to bomb-throwing to finish the job but eventually falls to a Tower of London and a lariat for the pin. This had some great shtick: Sweeney is no Cornette or Heenan but he clearly works off guys like them here as a sort of more competent version of their in-ring work as managers, playing the coward and only getting the advantage with cheap shots and the like. This wasn't a crazy workrate outing for McGuinness (and honestly, he needed something like this given the state of his body at this point and time) but as a throwback 80's style heel/babyface dynamic? Yeah, he was great. Not the most conventional but good for its own reasons, even if no one on this Earth actually thought Nigel was losing the belt here apart from maybe the nine year old fan in the crowd.