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Tonight, ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness makes his debut on ROH TV, so there couldn't be a better time have a look back at the champ's phenomenal ROH career. If you're new to ROH, this will help you put tonight's TV main event between McGuinness and Jay Briscoe in context.

- Debut: McGuinness debuted for ROH when the promotion made its debut in Dayton, Ohio, on August 9, 2003. The show was called Wrath of the Racket in honor of Jim Cornette, who also made his ROH debut on the show. At the time, McGuinness was wrestling for the HWA promotion out of nearby Cincinnati (which had been a WWE developmental territory until 2002). HWA promoter Les Thatcher helped ROH promote the show and brought in McGuinness and fellow HWA wrestler Chet Jablonski to wrestle on the undercard.

- First Year: McGuinness evidently impressed then-ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky, because Sapolsky began booking him more and more often through late 2003 and early 2004 and even gave him a couple of early wins.

- Climbing the Card: McGuinness slowly climbed up the card and began getting more high-profile matches in the back half of 2004. He got his first title shot, a Pure Title shot against John Walters, at Glory By Honor III on September 11, 2004. At the next show, he got his first big win over a ROH main eventer, beating Homicide at Midnight Express Reunion. He got involved in his first angle, and got some rub from Ricky Steamboat, by being selected for Steamboat's "pure wrestling team" (along with Chad Collyer) to wrestle Mick Foley's Ring of Hardcore team (Dan Maff and B.J. Whitmer) at Joe vs Punk II.

- Feud with Colt Cabana: Now established as an upper-midcard babyface, McGuinness came into his own when he turned heel in the spring of 2005 and got into his first real feud. The McGuinness-Colt Cabana feud is one of my favourite ROH feuds ever. McGuinness's heel turn comes gradually as his frustrations with Cabana grow and he slowly resorts to more heelish tactics. Once he goes all-out heel, McGuinness starts to get the better of Cabana, which builds to a Soccer Riot Match at Night of the Grudges 2 for a very satisfying blow off to the feud.

- Pure Title Reign: After the Cabana feud, McGuinness would capture the ROH Pure Title from Samoa Joe and hold it for almost a year. McGuinness established Claudio Castagnoli in ROH with his series of match with Castagnoli in the early part of his title reign. McGuinness' heel smugness and infuriating heel tactics effectively transferred a lot of sympathy to Castagnoli and got the crowd behind the Swiss newcomer.

A standout moment in this feud was when McGuinness resorted to using his trademark Union Jack iron on Castagnoli when the referee's back was turned. What made this foreign object use so effective was that McGuinness carried the iron around with him for over a year before using it to cheat with. Contrast that with the typical short-term booking in WWE and TNA, where any heel who starts carrying a foreign object will start using it as a weapon almost immediately, and in almost every match, which ruins the impact.

- Feud with Bryan Danielson: The highlight of McGuinness's Pure Title reign was his feud with then-ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson. After a couple of inconclusive title unification matches, Danielson finally unified the titles in an amazing match at Unified in Liverpool, U.K. Despite losing the Pure Title, McGuinness' fighting spirit against Danielson and the white hot crowd reaction in the UK turned him babyface. Their two-out-of-three falls rematch at Epic Encounter II in St. Paul, Minnesota, cemented McGuinness as a babyface in the U.S. as well.

- Road to the World Title: Now re-established as a babyface, McGuinness feuded with Jimmy Rave in late 2006 and early 2007. Now a regular with Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan, McGuinness also wrestled Samoa Joe as part of Joe's feud with Noah. Once Takeshi Morishima captured the ROH World Title, McGuinness was an early title challenger. His number one contender's match with Bryan Danielson on ROH's second ever pay-per-view, Driven, was awesome. The subsequent title match with Morishima at Live in Tokyo, ROH's first show in Japan, was also fantastic. For the next couple of months after this, McGuinness took a back seat to other contenders, but got his next title shot on the Undeniable pay-per-view and finally captured the title.

- World Title Reign: McGuinness has now been the champ for over 14 months, second in length only to Samoa Joe's 20-month title reign. He turned heel in the course of the title reign, which I think was a good booking move since he plays heel so well and being the heel champion has allowed him to build up a new crop of babyfaces in the promotion. In particular, his title defenses against Tyler Black and Kevin Steen contributed a lot to making strong babyfaces out of both of these guys.

McGuinness has given ROH fans years of standout matches, but I worry that his hard-hitting style is wearing out his body. He has missed time during his title reign due to concussions and arm injuries. The concussions are a major concern given what we now know about Chris Benoit's brain injuries. McGuinness has often used headbutts and a signature spot that involves his head getting rammed into the ringpost. I have only seen a few of McGuinness's matches since Chris Nowinski spoke to the ROH locker room in the wake of the Benoit family tragedy, but I haven't seen him use these spots since then and I hope he has dropped them from his repertoire forever. His more recent matches have been just as great without these spots.

Even if he has toned down the head shots in his style, he continues to have arms injuries because of his frequent use of hard-hitting lariats. After taping the TV match that airs tonight, he suffered the second arm injury of his title reign during a DVD-taping. It must be frustrating for McGuinness to have this injury just as ROH is getting on TV. I hope he doesn't sacrifice his long-term health by trying to wrestle through this injury if what he really needs is surgery. I hope McGuinness realizes that he is still a young guy by wrestling standards and has the charisma, promo ability and ring psychology to be a star for years without needing to break his body.

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