Kevin Kelly recalls working with Nigel McGuinness early on in his career.
Kelly and McGuinness currently work together on weekly episodes of AEW Collision, but this is not the first time that the duo have worked together at the commentary desk.
McGuinness and Kelly were first paired together when weekly episodes of television became an option for Ring Of Honor back in 2011. From 2011-2016, McGuinness and Kelly were on the call for nearly 300 episodes of ROH TV, as well as many pay-per-view events.
While appearing on the latest episode of AEW Unrestricted, Kelly recalled working with McGuinness back in the day and noted that he has only gotten better since then. Kelly also stated that McGuiness is currently guiding him on Collision, as he has a lot more recent experience on TV than he does.
“Well, when Ring Of Honor started TV [in 2011], it was, who is going to do the show with Kevin? We had Adam Pearce, and it just didn’t work out with the hierarchy and it worked out better for him. So, okay, now who is going to be? All of the sudden, Nigel McGuinness’ name popped up, he popped up available. Perfect. Former ROH World Champion. Has he done television before? Well, he’s spoken on television before, but he’s never been a commentator. I stood in the ring, Frontier Fieldhouse, Chicago, Illinois, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my color commentary partner is a former ROH World Champion.’ Everyone went, ‘Oh?’ Then I said, ‘From London, England’ and then they went [crazy]. Here he is, Nigel McGuinness, the place went crazy. Nigel comes out and sits down, puts the headset on, and we called four hours of TV the first night and it was great. He’s gotten just better since then, all of his time and experience doing television over the years. He’s become a master and is teaching me things and guiding me through a lot of this because he has a lot more recent television experience than I do.”
Fans can see the current lineup for the November 4 episode of AEW Collision by clicking here.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kelly further explained his decision to depart from NJPW. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
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