RADICAN’S ROH DVD REVIEW SERIES
WGTT: THE ANTHOLGY VOL. 1
BY SEAN RADICAN, TORCH COLUMNIST

“WGTT: The Anthology Vol. 1” chronicles the debut of Charlie Haas & Shelton in ROH and tells the story of their journey to capturing the ROH World Tag Team Titles at “Honor Takes Center Stage: Night 1” during WrestleMania weekend. ROH has been releasing a lot of “best of” compilations, which are usually bare-boned and don’t feature any extras worth going out of your way to see if you’ve already seen the matches.

This release is different in that it chronicles the story of Haas & Benjamin’s arrival in ROH and takes you through their journey to the ROH World Tag Titles. To finally get a title shot, Haas & Benjamin had to beat the Briscoes at “9th Anniversary Show.” Using footage from ROH’s television show on HDNet greatly compliments the matches featured on this release from iPPVs and standard DVD releases. This release contains Haas & Benjamin’s initial confrontation with the Briscoes on HDNet and takes the viewer through the build to their #1 Contender’s match at “9th Anniversary Show.” Haas & Benjamin went on to beat the Briscoes and eventually became the ROH World Tag Team Champions at “Honor Takes Center Stage: Night 1” by defeating Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli, who have both been signed by WWE recently.

The first two Non-Title matches between Haas & Benjamin and Castagnoli & Hero are worth the price of admission alone. Their match at “Glory By Honor IX” was an excellent match, but the best in their series took place at “SoCal Showdown II.” Both of those matches are well-worth checking out and it’s nice to have them included in one collection. The ROH World Tag Team Titles were finally on the line between these two teams at “Honor Takes Center Stage: Night 1,” but the match just didn’t live up to the standard of the first two matches in the series. That match was wrestled at a methodical pace and although it turned out to be a very good match by the time it finished, it was a letdown in some respects given the stage and what was on the line.

There aren’t any bad matches on this release and although the matches included against the Bravados, ANX, and an 8 Man Tag match featuring WGTT & The Briscoes vs. Claudio & Hero & ANX from ROH on HDNet aren’t worthy of being featured on a “best of” release, they do help tell the story that this release is spotlighting. One match that shouldn’t be overlooked is WGTT & Davey Richards vs. KOW & Roderick Strong from “World’s Greatest,” which took place the night before WGTT faced the Briscoes in a #1 Contender’s match. The match is excellent and definitely is among the better WGTT matches since they’ve been in ROH.

Overall thoughts: (8.0) - I’d like to see more effort put into these “best of” releases that ROH has been putting out. Having Kevin Kelly or Jim Cornette narrate segments in-between matches would make these releases stand out so much more than they do right now. It also wouldn’t hurt to do interviews with the featured wrestlers about their time in ROH to compliment the matches that are on these releases.

That being said, this is one of the better releases from ROH’s “best of” series. It tells a good story and leads the viewer from the beginning of WGTT’s time in ROH to them eventually capturing the ROH World Tag Team Titles from Hero & Castagnoli. I highly recommend this release if you’re a fan of logical booking and want to see some darn good matches.

You can purchase this release at ROHWrestling.com

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Contact Sean at PWTorchSean@gmail.com

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