Weren't the Undertaker & Kane the first UNDISPUTED tag team champions?

[CM Steel]

Remember back during the WCW-ECW invasion angle in 2001 in where there were two sets of tag team champions? The WWF & WCW tag team championships were both held at the same time by one tag team. The Undertaker and his "brother" Kane (B.O.D.). When they defeated Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Kanyon (R.I.P.) in a tag team steel cage match at Summerslam of the same year in a winner takes all match. So would that have made Taker & Kane the very first undisputed tag team champions of the world?? The WWE doesn't billed it up like that though. Not like how they billed Chris Jericho as being the very first undisputed champion of the world later on that year.

But at Wrestlemania 25 the WWE has a tag team unification match for two sets of tag team gold once again in a winner takes all match but this time it being John Morrison & The Miz vs Carlito & Primo Colon with the Colons winning the tag team straps being billed as "the first unified WWE tag team champions". But eight years earlier the Undertaker and Kane had already made that same history in a steel cage. Makes you think doesn't it?

But what do you think of the outcome from this glitch in wrestling title history?

 

[CrunKSinatrA]

I'm guessing that they were WWF and WCW Tag Team Champions but did not unify the titles. Because they then defended the titles separately. B/c they lost the WCW to Booker T and Test, and the WWF titles to the Dudleys.

It's gets more confusing b/c I think the Dudleys then unified the titles but deactivated the WCW titles. So then the Dudleys also don't count as the Unified Tag Team Champions.

Chris Jericho unified the WWF and WCW Heavyweight Championships b/c they were not defended separately afterwards.

I wonder does Ric Flair count as the first unofficial Undisputed Champion? He never lost the NWA Heavyweight Championship before he left WCW, never lost the belt during his run in the WWF, and then won the WWF Heavyweight Championship at the '92 Royal Rumble.

Even though he lost the WWF title to Bret Hart before leaving the WWF. Flair was still the NWA Heavyweight Champion b/c he was never stripped of the title and defended the belt upon his return to WCW.

 

[relentless1]

first of all unified and undisputed are two different things. second the titles werent ready to be unified so they weren't.simple.

 

[Raito]

first of all unified and undisputed are two different things. second the titles werent ready to be unified so they weren't.simple.

When 2 teams are called champion a dispute arises. When there is only 1 team of champions, there is nothing to dispute. Hence unified = undisputed. 100%.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

My take on it is.

Undertaker and Kane held both the WWF and WCW Tag Team Titles at the same time, making them the Undisputed Tag Team Champions at that time. They held 2 title belts from both organisations simultaneously.

The Dudleys then became the first UNIFED Tag-Team Champions when both the WWF and WCW titles became one entity when they defeated the Hardy Boyz in a steel cage.

The Colons were then the first WWE UNIFIED tag-team champions when they won both the RAW and Smackdown Tag Team titles, therefore unifying both versions of the Tag-Team titles active in 1 company, the WWE.

I can see why this would be confusing to people, and WWE do like to change around history, but that is my understanding of it and I think it's correct.

 

[King Patrick Star]

Here’s how it was presented to the WWE Universe.

1st WWF / WCW World Tag Team Champions – The Brothers Of Destruction, The Undertaker and Kane
The WWF Tag Team Championship and the WCW Tag Team Championship was defended as two separate Championships.

1st Undisputed WWF / WCW World Tag Team Champions – The Dudley Boyz, Bubba Ray and D-Von
The WCW Tag Team Championship was retired.

1st Unified WWE World Tag Team Champions – The Colons, Carlito and Primo
The WWE Tag Team Championship and the World Tag Team Championship was defended as one Unified Championship, but represented by two Belts for a short period of time, before a newly created Belt replaced both World (Raw) Tag Team Belt and WWE (Smackdown) Tag Team Belt.

It all depends on how you look at it, and I look at it the way Mack_Swagger looks at it. To me, the Brothers Of Destruction are the first Unified Undisputed WWF / WCW World Tag Team Champions.

 

[lil bitch Kid]

It's called creative liberty. Yes, they were, sort of. Btw, the difference between unified and undisputed is thar unified means that there is one title, undisputed mean there can be more than one title in a division but held by the same person or team.

Now, the most recent unified tag champs would have been when they combined the SD tag titles and the Raw tag titles. If I'm not mistaken that was either Londrick or the Colons.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

When 2 teams are called champion a dispute arises. When there is only 1 team of champions, there is nothing to dispute. Hence unified = undisputed. 100%.

Actually, that's incorrect. A title being unified is just taking two belts and putting their "prestige" together, like the European/Intercontinental Championship were unified. It makes for decent storyline and gets rid of an unnecessary belt.

A title being undisputed is, like you said, when two teams or individuals are in some shape or form both champion. But having an undisputed title and having a unified title do not equate to the same thing. Case in point- Rob Van Dam unified the European and Intercontinental Championships. He was not an Undisputed Champion.

As for the OP's question- they might have been, but WWE failed to recognize it at the time so it probably didn't matter to anyone. A shame really; I think it would have added to their reputation just a tiny bit.

 

[tvcolosi]

I think its been said but to explain it as I understood it then...

The "World Tag Team Titles (Raw)" had the lineage of the original WWWF Tag team titles that were unified with WCW in 2002.

The "WWE Tag Team Titles (Smackdown) had lineage of when they was created on SD in 2003. Unlike the US title that was "reactivated" around the same time, so it shares a history with NWA/WCW's US Title.


what bugs me, not to change topics, is the current tag team titles have their lineage only starting with the Hart Dynasty, which is odd because they have an active and unbroken link to the original WWWF tag team titles...

 

[SilverBullet1929]

I think its been said but to explain it as I understood it then...
what bugs me, not to change topics, is the current tag team titles have their lineage only starting with the Hart Dynasty, which is odd because they have an active and unbroken link to the original WWWF tag team titles...

OMG this KILLS me! Why in the world do they choose the eleven year old title history to keep alive and "retire" the lineage of a title that goes back to 1971?! Ugh.

 

[Wald]

I wouldn't worry too much about what the WWE labels these things.

They call Shawn Michaels the first ever Grand Slam champion when Bret Hart was the actual first and Diesel was the second. People say that they're Triple Crown winners now but back when they achieved it they had won every belt the company had and were called Grand Slam champions on air (Bret was acknowledged as the first, Diesel was promoted as winning the Grand Slam in the shortest time in history). That changed when they wanted to push HBK as the number one face so they're really just marketing tools.