WWE: What’s next for the SmackDown Live tag team division?

After Matt and Jeff Hardy relinquished the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championships, what’s next for the blue brand’s tag division?

On the April 30th edition of SmackDown Live, it was revealed that Jeff Hardy would need surgery for an unspecified leg injury. His impending absence from WWE meant that The Hardy Boyz would be relinquishing their freshly won SmackDown Tag Team Championships.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this was a massive blow to the blue brand. SmackDown’s tag team division was arguably on the short end of the stick during the recent Superstar Shake-Up already. Right now, there’s few teams on their roster now that have a legitimate chance at carrying the brand’s tag team title scene.

For starters, you have Heavy Machinery. Otis and Tucker have tremendous potential, given how entertaining they can be both in the ring and outside of it, but they’re still somewhat of an unknown commodity on the main roster. Aside from a small push on Raw, they haven’t really been consistently in a title picture.

While that doesn’t preclude them from holding the belts, it does mean you might need some more teams of established opponents around.

Unfortunately, that’s not something SmackDown really has at the moment.

Rusev and Shinsuke Nakmaura are one of the only other established team on the roster, and they’ve only been partners for a short time. Nevertheless, their credentials as singles competitors still clearly would make them worthy challengers, or even potential champions themselves.

That brings us to the recently reemerged B Team, who are the only former champions really in the mix right now. Although they may have seemingly turned heel for whatever reason, they could still be in the picture as superstars who previously received solid fan support.

They’re a known commodity in other words, and that’s what this division might need.

Unfortunately, once you get past The B Team though, that’s it. It’s those 3 teams and really nothing else.

Sure, you have The New Day still, but Big E is currently out with a torn meniscus. It seems unlikely that they’ll pursue tag team championships any time in the immediate future as a result, especially considering Kofi Kingston is holding the WWE Championship.

On the other hand, you do have former WWE Champion Daniel Bryan, who is reportedly medically cleared to compete following his recent injury according to Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t Raj Giri at WrestlingInc). A team of him and Rowan would surely add legitimacy to SmackDown’s tag team division.

However, It just seems like WWE would have Bryan seek a rematch for the WWE Championship first. It would be rather odd for him to drop his WWE title aspirations simply due to a brief injury. That would undoubtedly push any tag title pursuit off far into the future then.

Beyond those teams, I suppose you still have Primo and Epico then, believe it or not. At this point, I can’t even recall the last time they were on TV, so I highly doubt they would be brought back to prominence.

In total, that leaves us with a rather sparse tag team division. You essentially have 3 current teams who could challenge for the titles, followed by a bunch of injured superstars or major question marks.

While those 3 teams could easily be in feuds with one another to start, it won’t be long before the division’s shallowness becomes evident.

As a result, I think we could be in store for some new tag teams forming sooner rather than later.

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The most obvious of these teams would be Matt Hardy and R-Truth. Truth’s role in saving Jeff Hardy from the monstrous Lars Sullivan could easily be the impetus for a partnership.

A pairing of R-Truth and Matt Hardy would be just what this division needed too. A team of two superstars with big personalities and great track records to boot, who could add some much needed depth and legitimacy.

Beyond Truth and Hardy, you have two more tag team specialists still seemingly on the roster in Chad Gable and Aiden English.

While I wouldn’t suggest pairing them together, they could both easily be paired with a different mid-card superstar like Jinder Mahal or Apollo Crews to form a quality team. With the right push to start with, they could then become bona fide championship contenders as well.

Making some quick and seemingly easy changes to the roster like that could actually almost immediately turn a sparse division into one of the more intriguing title scenes in WWE today.

WWE shouldn’t forget how great of an asset their tag team divisions can be. With solutions as simple as these, it would be easy for the company to start rebuilding SmackDown’s tag team scene into something fans would be excited to watch.