WWE Raw Tag Team Division Biggest Losers From Superstar Shakeup
About a year ago, the Raw tag team division was the undeniable best tag team division among the two major brands in the WWE.
That remained the case for the majority of 2017 in the WWE with the red brand’s tag team division putting out memorable match after memorable match with the likes of The Bar, The Hardy Boyz, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, and others.
Times have changed, however, and Raw’s tag team division hasn’t been the same for the majority of 2018. The division took a hit via the superstar shakeup as well, losing a couple of the brand’s most reliable teams to the blue brand and having a few unanswered questions at the same time.
In terms of already established tag teams, the red brand lost The Bar and Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson to SmackDown while gaining The Ascension and Breezango. The blue brand needed more tag team division depth, but it might have come at the cost of the tag team division on Monday nights.
The Bar was starting to feel stale on Monday nights, but there’s no denying Sheamus and Cesaro were the top dogs in the tag team division on Raw. It will be hard to replace their consistency and reliability on a week-to-week basis, but The Authors Of Pain could be the team to do it after making a big splash following WrestleMania 34.
And even though Gallows and Anderson have been widely underutilized for the past year or so, they are still a very talented team that can be relied upon for a variety of situations. They were also doing a solid job of partnering with Finn Balor, which is now all but over. The Revival should be a go-to team for the red brand, but the WWE hasn’t treated the team like a serious threat yet.
Raw gains an entertaining team in Breezango, but it’s a team that hasn’t been treated as a truly serious tag team championship threat up to this point. Fandango and Tyler Breeze’s gimmick will always work, but it will take some work to transform them into a team with the stature of The Bar or any team like that.
The red brand also gains The Ascension, which has been treated poorly for a few years now after a successful stint in NXT. Konnor and Viktor have proven to have great chemistry with Breezango in recent months, but they won’t just magically transform into a powerhouse team that is viewed as a major threat, which hurts the division even more.
There are potential new teams in the fold on Monday nights as well. Woken Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt seem poised to capture the Raw Tag Team Championship, but it’s hard to expect those two to be in a tag team for an extended period of time. Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre could potentially be a team as well, but that’s far from a given at this point.
And then there’s Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, a duo that could be thrust into a tag team role on Raw if need be. It’s safe to assume they could make it work given how great they are collectively, but even that could be risky. Heath Slater and Rhyno are a team, but nothing more than a team to get beaten every match.
Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas have been The Miztourage for months, but now with The Miz on SmackDown, could they be headed for a tag team breakthrough or will they be broken up? And with Chad Gable now on Raw, the possibility of a reunion with Jason Jordan once he returns from injury could be an option as well.
There are possibilities for the division, but many of them are risky and could just as easily flop as succeed. Raw just doesn’t serve up many sure-fire, go-to tag teams right now, and that doesn’t help the brand out whatsoever. Not to mention, the division has been struggling more over the past few months in general.
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Maybe the WWE can make something out of it, but the Raw tag team division has more questions than answers right now and the superstar shakeup is a big culprit of that.