Before he was winning Superstar of the Week honors as Kassius Ohno in Florida Championship Wrestling, Chris Hero was one of Ring of Honor‘s most intriguing wrestlers, both in singles and tag team competition. And in one of the latest in a recent surge of releases spotlighting current and former ROH talents, Chris Hero: Ring of Hero features two discs with more than a dozen of his best ROH matches against the likes of Kenta, El Generico, Kenny Omega and Eddie Kingston.

Perhaps best known as one half of ROH’s longest reigning World Tag Team Champions the Kings of Wrestling  with Claudio Castagnoli (who made his WWE television debut as Antonio Cesaro on the April 27 edition of SmackDown), Hero arrives in ROH as anything but a hero on Jan. 14, 2006, taking on then-ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson as part of a Combat Zone Wrestling invasion. Though he fails to win the title, and is clearly not a favorite of the ROH fans, Hero proves that he’s capable of hanging with the best ROH has to offer. In fact, after several months of disrupting ROH shows while still part of the CZW roster and engaging in chaotic and bloody feuds with ROH stars like Samoa Joe and Adam Pearce, Hero inadvertently earns a spot on the ROH roster when he and Castagnoli defeat Austin Aries and Roderick Strong at Glory by Honor V on Sept. 16 to become the ROH Tag Team Champions.

The seeds are planted for a Kings of Wrestling/Briscoe Brothers feud as the two tag teams do battle at International Challenge on Dec. 22 and Final Battle on Dec. 23, with new manager Larry Sweeney assisting the Kings. But not long after their loss to the Briscoes at Final Battle, Hero rises to the top of Sweeney’s Sweet & Sour, Inc. faction, leaving Castagnoli behind in favor of singles action. Sweeney and his stable (Sara Del Rey, Tank Toland and Bobby Dempsey) become instrumental in Hero’s singles success, including a tap-out victory over Nigel McGuninness (considered by many to be the best wrestler in the world at the time) at Death Before Dishonor V on Aug. 10, 2007). But it’s at Survival of the Fittest 2007 two months later that Hero truly proves his worth by defeating Aries, Castagnoli, Strong, Rocky Romero and the Human Tornado to become “the fittest man in all of Ring of Honor” (as he states in a post-match Las Vegas celebration, where he and Sweeney also start a “Chris is awesome” chant). And Hero wins by using both wrestling skill (he makes Castagnoli pass out from the hangman’s clutch to win the match) and ring psychology (after Strong is paid off by Sweeney to help Hero, Hero pins Strong and takes the money back).

When watching Ring of Hero, it becomes clear just how much the ROH fans come to respect Heros work, even though he often resorts to dirty tactics to win. And just a month after his Survival win, he gets another shot at the ROH Championship at Glory by Honor VI. Hero once again makes McGuinness tap out, but the referee restarts the match because McGuinness’ foot was on the ropes and McGuinness goes on to make Hero tap out. Hero’s momentum carries over into 2008 as he and McGuinness whip the Breakout crowd into a frenzy as they battle inside a steel cage on Jan. 25. Hero proves yet again how innovative he can be as he puts McGuinness in a half crab while sitting in a steel chair for leverage. A bloody Hero almost wins the title yet again as he exits the cage door as McGuinness climbs the other side of the cage and makes it to the floor for the win.

From there we see another phenomenal display as Hero defeats Full Impact Pro Champion Strong at Battle for Supremacy on June 27 in a non-title match that sees Hero employing his signature rolling elbow, eventually earning him the moniker of “That Young Knockout Kid.” Hero also shows how agile he is when he’s Irish whipped into the barricade outside the ring, only to jump onto the barricade and hit Strong with a back elbow.

Hero goes on to prove his worth against veterans like then-ROH Champion Jerry Lynn at Never Say Die on May 8, 2009 (where he comes up just short despite using his infamous loaded elbow pad) and with a victory over Lance Storm at Death Before Dishonor VII on July 25. Ring of Hero brings things full circle as Hero takes on Danielson in Danielson’s last ROH main event before heading to WWE on Sept. 18. The DVD includes Hero’s boxing training leading up to this big match, and after all these two men have been through since Hero’s ROH debut almost four years earlier, Hero is finally able to defeat Danielson.

Aside from showing exactly why Hero has earned his spot  as a future WWE star in the ring, Ring of Hero also includes several vignettes proving that Hero is just as astute when it comes to getting himself over on the mic (including some pretty funny stuff where Sweet & Sour tries to inspire the rotund Dempsey to get in better shape). Considering that Hero’s last ROH match was in January of this year, and none of the Kings of Wrestling’s most recent ROH success is included here,  there’s still plenty of great Hero footage to be seen. But with Castagnoli already on WWE TV, I can only speculate that ROH is saving some of these matches for a future Castagnoli or Kings of Wrestling release.

For more information, go to www.rohwrestling.com.