Nigel McGuiness makes surprise appearance, wrestles Lee Moriarty at ROH Final Battle

Nigel McGuiness came close to becoming ROH Pure Champion once again. The former World Champion made a surprise appearance on Friday’s ROH Final Battle event at the Hammerstein Ballroom, challenging Lee Moriarty for the Pure Championship he had previously held for 355 days. After using all of their rope breaks, Moriarty ended up getting the submission victory over McGuiness after applying a crossface and using the bottom rope for leverage. Moriarty’s match for Final Battle had been promoted as a Pure title match against a mystery challenger. After McGuiness made his entrance, he challenged Moriarty to a match under the old ROH Pure title rules, which includes no judges. After some back and forth between McGuiness and Shane Taylor, the rule changes were agreed to.  After retiring from in-ring competition in 2011, McGuiness made his return as a wrestler at AEW All In back in August, competing in the Casino Gauntlet match. He made an additional appearance at Grand Slam in September, where he lost to Bryan Daniel