Current State Of Tag Team Wrestling
When you think about this history of professional wrestling, specifically tag team wrestling, there are some phenomenal names that come to mind: Fabulous Freebirds, Hart Foundation, Legion of Doom, The Rockers, The New Age Outlaws, etc… I could go on for a long time! However, when you ask me to name tag teams over the course of the last few years and I tend to struggle to find many “real” teams that weren’t just thrown together for a limited run. Some of the decent team names that come to mind are Motor City Machine Guns, Beer Money Inc., British Invasion, Cryme Tyme, Hart Dynasty… uhmmmm, I’m already at a loss, which is sad because these are all current tag teams in both TNA and WWE.
The wrestling industry itself is very slow going right now. ROH is just barely on the TV viewer radar, TNA is struggling to gain main stream credibility and WWE’s trying to go back to a more kid friendly product, and all companies are dealing with low, and in some cases, falling TV ratings and merchandise/ticket sales in a troubled economy. So what does that mean when it comes to tag team wrestling? Well tag team matches are used very often on weekly programming, however, it’s used more as a way to promote single’s wrestlers who are feuding than actual legit tag teams. It’s a dying art form!
Let’s take a look at current tag teams on TV:
As I take a quick glance at the superstar list for WWE’s Monday Night RAW, there are possibly two “legitimate” tag teams, but that’s up for interpretation. One team, MVP and Mark Henry were thrown together just this past summer and haven’t really had many chances for tag team gold. The other team I’ll give more credit to is Legacy, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase. They have been set together for awhile now and have been Tag Team Champions in the past. On the combination of Smackdown and ECW, there’s Cryme Tyme and the Hart Dynasty who are strictly tag team guys, unless they are in singles competition against a rival from an opposing tag team, that’s it! So over the course of three sets of shows on WWE programming, they have, in my opinion, three established tag teams. And the best part (sarcasm), the tag team main event at the next PPV, is the current champions, Chris Jericho & Big Show, two legit PPV headliners thrown together against DX, Shawn Michaels & Triple H, two more legit main eventers who normally do not tag together and have NEVER been tag champions together.
On the TNA front, their tag division is a little more solid. They have Team 3D who epitomize tag team wrestling with over 20 title reigns over the course of their career. The Motor City Machine Guns, Chris Sabin & Alex Shelly, who are crazy good young wrestlers on the rise. Beer Money Inc., James Storm & Robert Roode who have been former tag champions together and apart in America’s Most Wanted (Storm) and Team Canada (Roode), and the current TNA tag champions, The British Invasion who in their history never tagged together outside of TNA, but since both coming to TNA have been a crafty/shady tag team in their own right. Oh, and TNA has also innovated the tag team look by creating their own women’s Knockout’s tag team championships, currently held by Taylor Wilde & Sarita who are slowly starting to look more and more like a tag team and less like single’s wrestlers, and their main competitors, The Beautiful People who seem like they’re always tag teaming and no longer in the singles picture.
Ring of Honor has one of the deepest tag team divisions in mainstream wrestling. Their champions, the American Wolves are DOMINANT! One of the best tag teams in the business. Their competition comes from the teams of Kevin Steen & El Generico who even though they sound like they’ve just been thrown together, were ROH champions back in 2008 , the Young Bucks who are another hot young tag team on the rise, the Brisco Bros. who have been 3x ROH tag champions, The Super Smash Bros. who tag together in many different independent organizations across the country, Dark City Fight Club who are relatively new to ROH, but are two bad ass dudes, The Embassy who has a lot of floating members in their stable that team together, and Kenny King & Rhett Titus who were thrown together at the beginning of 2009, but have the potential (and the ego) to be tag team champions. Hell, ROH even has a tag team that’s basically jobbers in Cheech & Cloudy. If my math is right, that’s NINE teams for one hour of programming a week on a TV network that only maybe 1/4 of America gets! Apparently that means some guys are going to be left out more often than not which is a damn shame!
The point of me writing this piece stems from this same question I asked of tag team and singles wrestling legend, Bret “Hitman” Hart at a Q&A session. His response, “wrestling fans dictate policy in wrestling…if wrestling fans want tag team wrestling, let them know!” So now I pose this question to you the fans, Do you appreciate and want to see tag team wrestling? My biggest fear is that WWE’s going to look at some of these other tag teams from TNA and ROH and try to bring them in under contract. Once they get to WWE, the creative team will split them up causing most to fall back into wrestling obscurity. They’ve already done things like that before and either one or both of the team members have been either released from WWE or forced to be singles wrestlers with limited opportunities, i.e. Primo & Carlito, Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch, Brian Kendrick & Paul London, etc. Hell, WWE even made fun of this same concept leading up to a single’s showdown between former partners, The Miz & John Morrison, referring to it as “who’s Jannetty” as in Marty Jannetty, the former tag partner of Shawn Michaels in the Rockers who got as far as the Intercontinental title before disappearing from the then WWF and reemerging occasionally on the indy scene and on WWE TV once in a blue moon.
So where does this put us for the future? WWE doesn’t take tag teams seriously. TNA and ROH are trying to make tag teams relevant again. The art form is slowly dying, but there’s a possible chance at resurrecting it from the dead if we, the fans, support them causing promoters to push those teams. In the case of WWE, my thought process is to give up hope because they’re going to do their own thing and really don’t give a damn about what fans really want. They’re going to jam down our throats what gets kids to spend their parents money. As for TNA, ROH, and the other indy promotions, I urge you to PLEASE support them! If you’re a fan of pro wrestling and especially if you’re a fan of tag team wrestling, these are the only place you’re going to see this consistently and done well! Without an army, no country can defend their land. Without fans, tag team wrestling as the sport’s legacy has portrayed, will surely die.
I leave you with a history lesson courtesy of krackerboxx on youtube up to Summer of 2009. The history of the World Tag Team Championships.
Part 1
Part 2