Let's praise something that wasn't expected to be good.

ShinChan

Gone. For. Good.
I'm talking about the tag team of Cesaro & Sheamus. Remember the Best Of Seven matches? Remember Foley making Cesaro & Sheamus tag with each other? Well, I never thought that it would lead to such a good tag team.

I was expecting a turn from either Cesaro or Sheamus when they started tagging with each other. Now that more than 4 months have passed since they started, I'm loving this tag team.

The heel turn at Payback was just an icing on the cake. Even before the heel turn, I was loving this tag team and now even more. The post-match attack was very well done at Payback. It might have been somewhat predictable but predictable isn't always bad.

Are you enjoying Cesaro & Sheamus as a tag team? Did you expect them to be this good?
 
Shesaro is probably my favorite thing on Raw. I actually really enjoyed their best of 7 series, and putting them together as a team was a nice twist. I like Sheamus's unique look and hard hitting style and Cesaro's in ring skill is up there with the best of them.

Their Raw Talk guest spot was really entertaining too. Hopefully, they'll get a chance to use their natural personalities a bit more on the main show.
 
I've really enjoyed them. The chemistry is good and they feel like they belong in the division rather than having it just be two guys thrown together to kill time. Maybe because there was a story behind it and it happened organically.
 
I guess I'm in the minority here but I'll still voice my opinion: the only good thing about this tag team is that it has guaranteed that Cesaro has a weekly spot on the show. In Cesaro we have a main event performer who cannot talk for shit and apparently isn't popular with Vince so I was very nervous he would get lost in the brand split. The best of 7 series was sure to prevent that but then he went down 3-0 and I had lost hope. Slowly, but surely, they've built him as an important half of a formidable tag team, a tag team that actually ended the longest tag title reign in WWE history.

I've never been a fan of the "Strange Bedfellow" tag teams. They've done it soooo many times and I feel like they've done it significantly more often in the PG Era. I think Matt Hardy and MVP were my favorite one because of all the side competitions they had but in almost every other case it just seems so forced and they rarely successfully get over (Kane and Daniel Bryan definitely deserve honorable mention, they were over as hell). Sheamus and Cesaro aren't anywhere near the Hardy's stratosphere in terms of popularity and I think a heel turn was necessary to give them an edge so I'm glad they did it. Based on last night's promo and the hard-hitting match (god damn Sheamus legit KICKED Jeff's tooth out), it'd be safe to say that the best of this tag team has yet to come.
 
I guess I'm in the minority here but I'll still voice my opinion: the only good thing about this tag team is that it has guaranteed that Cesaro has a weekly spot on the show. In Cesaro we have a main event performer who cannot talk for shit and apparently isn't popular with Vince so I was very nervous he would get lost in the brand split. The best of 7 series was sure to prevent that but then he went down 3-0 and I had lost hope. Slowly, but surely, they've built him as an important half of a formidable tag team, a tag team that actually ended the longest tag title reign in WWE history.

I get where you're coming from. While I do enjoy them as a team, I can definitely see the perspective of those who're really only into them because of Cesaro's presence. Like a lot of people, I'd like to see Cesaro get a main event push, I think he's earned an opportunity considering he's been among the most consistent high level guys in the ring WWE has had since he arrived and fans are into him. He's not great on the mic, but that's not the only way to endear yourself to fans, as Cesaro has shown the past few years. Unfortunately, however, Cesaro will most likely be a mid-card/tag team fixture for as long as he's in WWE because Vince singled him out specifically as someone who he doesn't feel has that it factor during his interview with Stone Cold Steve Austin a couple years back.

I've never been a fan of the "Strange Bedfellow" tag teams. They've done it soooo many times and I feel like they've done it significantly more often in the PG Era. I think Matt Hardy and MVP were my favorite one because of all the side competitions they had but in almost every other case it just seems so forced and they rarely successfully get over (Kane and Daniel Bryan definitely deserve honorable mention, they were over as hell). Sheamus and Cesaro aren't anywhere near the Hardy's stratosphere in terms of popularity and I think a heel turn was necessary to give them an edge so I'm glad they did it. Based on last night's promo and the hard-hitting match (god damn Sheamus legit KICKED Jeff's tooth out), it'd be safe to say that the best of this tag team has yet to come.

They've been done a lot, but most of them haven't had the sort of effort put into them the way Cesaro and Sheamus have; a handful of them have over the years but not too many. These teams either sink or swim based on how fans respond to them rather than how unlikely of a team they seem to be, even if that's ultimately what Vince may have liked about them in the first place. It's doubtful Cesaro and Sheamus will ever be as over as the Hardy Boyz but, then again, they don't have to; the Hardy Boyz may have each had success as singles and tag team wrestlers outside of WWE, Jeff made it to the main event in WWE while Matt was a regular mid-card mainstay but what most remember and associate them with has been their time as a tag team. It's been their overall bread and butter and most would say the time when they've ultimately done their best work. If they retired tomorrow, I'd say there's a strong chance they'd be thought of and remembered as the top wrestling tag team, in the eyes of most people, to come out in the last 20 years but neither of them will be as highly regarded for their time as singles wrestlers. Cesaro and Sheamus are two singles guys who happen to be a good tag team, in my view, and that's enough for me. I don't really dwell on the wherefores and maybes of where they'll fall in the annals of tag team history, I'll just let the passage of time to figure all that out as I'm more interested in the here and now; and Cesaro and Sheamus entertain me in the here and now.
 
I really enjoy Cesaro and Sheamus. Although the best of seven series was rather random, some of the matches were really fun and they are amazing athletes that deserve a regular spot on the card. Having said that, I wasn't necessarily all for their tag team run when they first got put together. I definitely don't think that they should have been the ones to beat The New Day (that honour should have gone to The Club at SummerSlam but whatever). Ironically, ever since their title loss, I've been more invested. They've gotten over the whole tug of war between them and they are working and functioning as a team. I like that a whole lot better.

The heel turn for me cements this as something I'm very interested in. Sheamus is naturally a heel, and Cesaro seemingly delivers more as a heel too, in terms of his promo work. There's no denying his in-ring skills. But this new attitude seems very real to me. I could genuinely understand why they are pissed and think that they are the best, because in some ways they have been, especially Cesaro. I'm very excited to see where this goes with The Hardy Boyz and see how it ends up. And I'm shocked to even say that because I really didn't think their tag team run would last, but now we are where we are at with them, I'm glad they're still together.
 
I was hesitant at first about the team but have been digging their pairing for the past few months, especially when they started the arms up/arms down pose during their entrance.

Side note: I have seen on this site that people like Cesaro, Finn, Shinsuke, Del Rio, Neville and etc are all horrible on the mic. The thing that all of those guys have in common is that they are foreigners and (American) English is not their first language. This seems to be a US thing that all entertainers have to have perfect American English and if they do not, then they are deemed as "horrible". Why is that?
 
I've never been a fan of the "Strange Bedfellow" tag teams. They've done it soooo many times and I feel like they've done it significantly more often in the PG Era. I think Matt Hardy and MVP were my favorite one because of all the side competitions they had but in almost every other case it just seems so forced and they rarely successfully get over (Kane and Daniel Bryan definitely deserve honorable mention, they were over as hell).

They definitely did it more during the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Era. You remember teams like the Hardys, the Dudleys, and Edge and Christian, but go back and look at the list of champions from 1997 - 2006. It's a 10-year run cesspool of teams. Hell, Kane won the tag titles with X-Pac, the Undertaker, the Hurricane, the Big Show, Van Dam, and Foley, Foley won with Austin, Terry Funk, Al Snow, and The Rock. The Rock won with Jericho. Jericho won with Benoit and Edge. Edge won with Hogan and Lance Storm. Storm won with Val Venis, Christian, and William Regal. Regal won with Tajiri. Hell, you had Spike Dudley and Tazz carry the belts. See... a cesspool.

As for teams that had success, well you missed a few. There are some teams that made the transition so seamlessly, that you forget they were thrown together. Here are some teams that come to mind:

The New Age Outlaws
Money Inc
The Acolytes
Too Cool

And as for main event teams that got extremely over (similar to Daniel Bryan and Kane), you can look back at The Rock and Sock Connection, Rated RKO, and Booker T and Goldust.
 
this was the best thing Foley did. making them team up was awesome the slow burn of the eventual heel turn was also great.

I like the whole"We did it cesaros way and the fans turned on us, now its time to do it Sheamus' way" thing they pulled.
 
I've really enjoyed watching their team go from rivals who can't work together to a legit team. It was cool to watch them go from to separate guys and then to team by mixing together there entrances, signature spots etc. The timing kinda worked perfectly with the Hardys because it seemed like right as Sheamus and Cesaro were hitting there stride as tag team, the Hardys returned and everybody went nuts for them. It kinda organically opened the door for that heel turn. I'm hoping they can stretch out this feud between them and the Hardys for a good while.
 
I wouldn't really say I am enjoying them as a team (I may be in the minority) but I will say this much.... They are better as a team than I expected them to be. The feud before the idiotic Best Of 7 series was boring. The Best Of 7 series itself was a chore to watch and I thought the WWE had lost their minds when it didn't end with a definitive winner. The initial portion of Sheamus & Cesaro teaming was so incredibly forced and their win over New Day was not something I agreed with. Enzo & Cass should have gotten that honor. That aside, ever since their heel turn against The Hardys they have been more interesting. While I dislike them as a team they did exceed my expectations for the team. They accomplished that at least.
 
I'm really big on Cesaro, and pretty much "ok" with Sheamus... but all in all for me their tag situation is just alright. I would prefer Cesaro in a more prominent, singles role, but given his limitations in the promo department, it might be a bit too tough for him to cut it there unfortunately. But who knows, maybe some day.

On another note, one thing that shouldn't have worked but did for me is Braun Strowman. A pretty green guy, at first just your regular "monster of the month" type of character, has really shown great improvement over the past year, and I really got on board with him last year at a live event when he was fighting Big Show, as I was really surprised by his agility for a man his size.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
174,825
Messages
3,300,727
Members
21,726
Latest member
chrisxenforo
Back
Top