Official Ring of Honor ROH - Best of Kevin Steen: Hell Rising (Kevin Owens) (2 Disc Set) DVD

Hell Rising is a two disc DVD that focuses on the third stage of Kevin Steen's Ring of Honor career. It contains a long shoot interview as a main feature and ten bonus matches.The interview with Steen is a very good one. He mainly talks us through the stage of his career that the matches in this DVD cover. There's a lot of in depth detail about the behind the scenes workings of Ring of Honor as well as the matches themselves. I wasn't watching ROH at the time being covered and even I found the interview to be entertaining. Steen is a great talker and storyteller so even if you don't really know about the event he's talking about you'll most likely find it interesting to listen to. Ring of Honor had a similar layout to the DVD "Die Hard" about Eddie Edwards: In comparing the two, this one is a lot more easy to watch. While Edwards' isn't that interesting if you hadn't been following his career closely this DVD is still easy to watch if you have no knowledge going in. The interview runs over two hours but goes by fairly quickly.Kevin Steen vs. Steve Corino - This was Steen's first match back after losing his career to El Generico in 2010. It was a No Disqualification match and if he won he would be reinstated in ROH. It was a hard hitting brawl from the start. It had a very deliberate pace that never really picked up. There were a lot of very dangerous or painful looking spots that I definitely respect them both for taking but I didn't feel like it was a match that lived up to the great storyline around it. It wasn't bad but I was hoping for better.Kevin Steen vs. Jimmy Jacobs - This match had no disqualifications. It started off feeling like the previous match but that didn't last too long. It picked up and became a more exciting match. There were fewer really dangerous spots but the ones they had felt like they meant more. I enjoyed the story to this one more than the fight with Corino, with Jacobs questioning how far he was willing to go. I also really liked the finishing sequence, it had some good storytelling while still being really brutal.Kevin Steen vs. El Generico - This was a Last Man Standing match. As always with these two they delivered an exciting and entertaining match. You could feel the hatred and intensity with every move that they hit and all the punishment they dished out. It had a good pace and a lot of very good false finishes. The finish involved interference which took something away from the fight. It was still very good, but they have had better matches together.Kevin Steen vs. Davey Richards - This match was for the Ring of Honor World Title. It's the first match on the DVD to actually have rules but that didn't stop Steen from trying to turn this into a brawl whenever he could. Richards preferred to keep things in the ring, wrestling and striking. There was some good psychology with Richards hurting Kevin's knee which stopped him from capitalising on a few opportunities. I enjoyed Richards getting increasingly frustrated with both Steen and the audience that was so behind him. It was a great match with strong action, dramatic moments and a good finish.Kevin Steen vs. Eddie Edwards - This was also for the ROH World Championship. It had a similar style with Steen wanting to brawl and fight and Edwards wanting a more traditional style of match. It didn't quite have the intensity or excitement the match with Richards had but it was still very good. They had good reversals, a fast pace and strong action ending with a decisive and satisfying finish.Kevin Steen vs. Roderick Strong - Another ROH World Title match here. It was another good one although not as good as the previous two. It just wasn't quite as exciting or dramatic. The action was still good though, Steen hurt Strong's hand and focused on that for a while. It could have played more of a part in the finish of the match but the finish was still satisfying and decisive.Kevin Steen vs. Eddie Kingston - This was a No Disqualification match for the ROH Championship. It was a good fight with a good number of high impact spots that could have ended things. There was a long pause in the action after one spot as doctors tried to check on Kingston and take him away on a stretcher. Thankfully Kevin used the pause to talk on the microphone for a bit which helped keep people's attention as they did this. The action was good, there were some convincing near-falls and a strong finish.Kevin Steen vs. Cedric Alexander - The Championship was on the line again here but it was in a much smaller venue than usual ROH matches so it instantly felt less important. The match was good. Kevin controlled most of the action in between interacting with the crowd. Cedric managed to make a few comebacks to stay in the match and keep it competitive. There were some good near falls as the match went on and a decisive finish. It's not the amazing match I expected when I saw Steen was fighting Cedric but it was still good.Kevin Steen vs. Jay Lethal - Steen was defending the ROH Title again here. It was a pretty good back and forth match. Steen controlled a lot of the action but Lethal came back enough to keep it competitive and look like he could win the championship from Steen. There were some good near falls and the action was better than I was expecting. The finish was awful though, completely unsatisfying and didn't make much sense.Kevin Steen vs. El Generico - The final match on the DVD was an ROH World Championship Ladder War. It was a really good match. Steen was apparently really sick in this one but to his credit you can't tell. Steen dominated a lot of the action but Generico was resilient as always. There were some very painful looking moments involving the ladders leading up to the finish that looked devastating and very dangerous. I prefer the flow of their other singles matches together but this was still a very good fight with some memorable moments and a strong finish.This is an overall very good DVD for fans of Kevin Steen. Especially if you're into shoot interviews as the one included in this set is a very interesting one to listen to. Match wise it's not the strongest of Steen's four Ring of Honor compilations but it's still very strong with a good number of No DQ battles as well as some good traditional wrestling matches. I'd definitely recommend the El Generico matches and the World Title match with Davey Richards if you haven't seen them but the other matches are all pretty good too.