AEW Announcer Nigel McGuinness Clears Up Misconceptions About His In-Ring Retirement

AEW/Lee South

Nigel McGuinness has been able to finally write the conclusion to his story in 2024 with his appearance at AEW All In, and his match with Bryan Danielson at the Grand Slam edition of "AEW Dynamite." The AEW commentator famously retired from wrestling in 2011, but the reason for his retirement has always been up for debate. 

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On a recent edition of "Talk is Jericho," McGuinness detailed exactly what led to his decision to hang up his boots.

"I got signed by WWE, they decided to rescind the contract because of an old arm injury, even though my doctor said it was perfectly healed and I'd wrestled with it for two years," McGuinness said. 

He also revealed that he had passed WWE's physical test, but was asked by their medical professionals if he had been injured in the past, which led to him being honest about his partially torn bicep which WWE thought needed surgery. Since his WWE dream was over, McGuinness opted not to have surgery and joined TNA Wrestling in 2009, wher he believed he had some of the best matches of his career against Kurt Angle. However, he tested positive for Hepatitis B and was unable to shake the virus, leading to him missing months of action and eventually being let go from TNA two weeks before he was medically cleared to compete. 

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With no money and no company to work for, McGuinness called time on his career. 

"There I was pretty much broke, I hadn't wrestled in a year, I obviously couldn't go back to TNA, WWE wasn't interested with the bicep, I didn't want to go back to Ring of Honor and wrestle that style again. What was I going to do?" remembered McGuinness.

AEW/Lee South

Nigel McGuinness had exhausted every possible option to wrestle in the United States, so he retired at the end of 2011 with a three-week retirement tour that was documented in his highly successful documentary "The Last of McGuinness." McGuinness, though, believes that, with the benefit of hindsight, Japan could have been an option for him.

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"Sometimes I think about it and I go, 'Well, maybe I should have just gone to Japan,' because if you look at the guys like Fergal [Finn Balor], and Jay [White], and Kenny [Omega] who made their own career, and the independent wrestling world should forever be thankful for them being able to make a career outside of WWE. Maybe I could have done that, but I think I was just so ... I don't know, I felt so kicked in the balls by fate, I was like, 'f**k you.'

McGuinness also revealed that the documentary idea came about after the success of Colt Cabana's "Wrestling Road Diaries," with Cabana encouraging him to buy a video camera and document his retirement tour. The teaser trailer generated over $50,000 in less than a week, giving McGuinness the chance to make the film, which he cited as one of the best self-made wrestling documentaries of all time. McGuinness got to live out his WWE dream in some capacity years later when he signed as a commentator in 2016, with the company making their version of his documentary, that aired on the WWE Network.

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Please credit "Talk is Jericho" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.