WWE NXT TakeOver: Portland early match card predictions

Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) (c) vs. The BroserWeights (Pete Dunne & Matt Riddle)- NXT Tag Team Championship match

I dare to find a better tag team origin than the one for Pete Dunne and Matt Riddle’s out-of-left-field union (I’ll give you a hint: it doesn’t exist). Riddle’s explanation for his partnership with Dunne alone is enough to warrant handing them the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic trophy and an NXT Tag Team Title shot.

Kidding aside, NXT’s semi-regular tag team tournament will likely culminate with an NXT vs. NXT UK final at Worlds Collide and unless the NXT bookers plan on keeping the Time Splitters (Alex Shelley and Kushida) around for a little while – which no one would object to – Dunne and Riddle stand out as the obvious favorites.

It seems highly doubtful that Fish and O’Reilly – the current NXT Tag Team Champs – would win given that whoever survives the bracket will probably be the de facto top contender. Marcel Barthel and Fabian Aichner would be an interesting choice, but the chances of the writers going down the heel vs. heel path seem slim; this would also eliminate the woefully underrated Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake and Zack Gibson).

That leaves the odd couple pairing of Dunne and Riddle, who will likely flesh out the dynamic of the team over the next few weeks before feuding with two members of a faction that both men have interacted with in the past.

Given how thin the NXT tag team division is right now – you could reasonably argue that the Benadryl Bandits themselves, the Forgotten Sons, are the second-most prominent team on the brand – putting two singles guys that have nothing else going on together to challenge Fish & O’Reilly for the tag titles isn’t the worst idea in the world, especially when those two guys are Pete Dunne and Matt Riddle.