The NXT Tag Team Titles: How did we get here?

For the first time in a long time, the NXT Tag Team Division is in a precarious position that the Black and Gold brand could have avoided.

Let’s face it: NXT is the best WWE brand currently being produced (and arguably ever). Stories are told properly with suitable payoffs (barring injury), wrestlers are given the chance to hone their skills and develop their characters, and it never seems to over-saturate its audiences by keeping their card fresh.

This is why I’m currently frustrated with the Tag Team storyline being presented to us.

Before you say anything, I love the Street Profits, and they deserve to be the next NXT Tag Champs, PERIOD. The issue I’m having is that the road we took to get to this point has been littered with time-wasting detours and speed bumps.

Where did this problem begin? I want to argue the 2019 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.

The tournament is supposed to showcase the talent and competitive nature of the division, with the finals and eventual winner helping to set up storylines and push teams to prominence. Let’s look at the past three tournaments.

In 2016, tag teams like DIY, the Revival, and Sanity, put on great matches to shape the landscape of the division. This led to the Authors of Pain defeating TM61, establishing the duo as a powerhouse in NXT. The team went on to be involved in classic tag team match-ups, while continually improving the more and more they competed.

In 2018, the Street Profits and Sanity were able to make an impact on the tournament, until falling to the finalists of the Classic, which this year competed with each other against the tag team champions for the title.

The champions of the time, the Undisputed Era, successfully defended their titles against the heavyweights, the Authors of Pain, and the fan favorite team of Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong, two competitors brought together by their distaste for the UE.

This match’s finish featured the heel turn of Strong and set up the dominance of the UE, which is still in play to this day.

This brings us to 2019. The Street Profits put on a great match-up against Moustache Mountain before losing in the first round. They, in turn, lost to Forgotten Sons, who faced off against Ricochet and Aleister Black in the finals.

Ricochet and Black were competing as a tag team for months at this point, both on the Main Roster and in NXT. The two were being set up as a dominating team and undeniable call-ups Post-Wrestlemania. Yet, the faces won against the Forgotten Sons, and the winners earned a chance to face the Raiders (War back then, Viking now) at NXT New York.

The Raiders went on to win in a great match, leaving them to be the reigning champions.

Then, they were called up to Raw. The Raiders were renamed to the Viking Experience, then to the Viking Raiders. Aleister Black and Ricochet lost their Main Roster tag team opportunity at Mania, and this followed with the team being disbanded.

All this work, just erased in the course of two weeks. If the Raiders were going to win, they should stay in NXT. If they are being called up, they should have lost the title to another deserving team that was staying in NXT.

Enter NXT this past Wednesday: The Raiders don’t see worthy competitors in the division and don’t care about defending the titles anymore, wanting to vacate them. The Street Profits, who came out to an amazing reaction, challenged the champions.

Finally, a full-time NXT tag team that has been putting in the work the past few years, will finally win. Nope. The Forgotten Sons interfered, delaying the status of the division until next week.

The Black and Gold brand had the chance for a rare face vs face title match, with full crowd support and the potential feel good moment of passing the torch, cementing Street Profits in NXT history.

The interference really ruining the energy of this moment; I mean, the win could have been followed by a Forgotten Sons attack.

Instead, we are left with another week of reigning tag champs that don’t want the gold anymore, another week of Street Profits being denied, and another week of almost forgetting the Forgotten Sons.

There were many ways to avoid this: having a team like Street Profits or Forgotten Sons winning the Dusty Rhodes Classic and beating the Raiders (did Moustache Mountain need that win with the NXT UK tag titles tournament around the corner); having the Raiders retain and not being called up to Raw; or even having the Street Profits win last week.

Instead, what do we get? A triple threat match? The Raiders shouldn’t be pulling double duty, and a loss now may not look good to their Main Roster credibility. This is a situation WWE and Triple H could have avoided, and now have to execute perfectly to protect all three teams.

Moving forward, it seems like they are delaying a title change until NXT Takeover 25, which will probably showcase the presumed triple threat. Any other option would seem unsatisfactory at this point: the Raiders can’t vacate now, Street Profits and Forgotten Sons can’t go solo against the champs. The worst part of it all? I fear that Forgotten Sons will win.

The numbers game is always an X factor, especially with the Forgotten Sons attacking the champions backstage. Also, the idea of Street Profits chasing could be alluring to some fans, but I oppose it because the chase has sometimes burned fan out on a character.

Since the champions are not on every single episode of NXT, the new champions need to have a strong presence and make the crowd excited when their music hits.

That’s why the young team of the Street Profits needs to win. Imagine the two rocking the gold and bring up the energy of the Full Sail faithfuls. They bring the swag like nobody can, don’t mean to brag, what about it, yeah.