The Real Truth: What killed the WWE Tag team division

[Lee]

Edge & Christian - Started together in the Brood, left and became more aerial as fan favorites. At one point they were masked luchadors and don't forget their three second poses!!!

You seemed to, it was a Five second pose.

I think it's a mix of a few things;

1) The draft which has split up a lot of tag teams over the years, including at one point the Dudleys. This year we had Jesse and Festus split as well as Miz and Morrison, the the Colons tried their "feud" all to give us the big tag teams like DX and Jerishow.

2) THe fans have helped somewhat, they have a failed grasp of what tag team wrestling actually is and seems to think that a tag team should win every match every week. Legacy are a fine example of this, a team they're building to be more and more credible yet the fans just piss on them saying OMGZ DEY LST TO HHH AGAINZ!!!

 

[Baximus]

Alot of what killed the tag team division was the brand split.

EXACTLY.

Back when there was ONE world title, ONE stepping stone belt and ONE tag championship, there were more players to be involved in the feuds. Think about it. You have half the belts and double the TV time available.

That's why the main event scene had more excitement: There were significantly more people available to compete for the title.

Anyways, one other thing that has bothered me is the claim that the Attitude era didn't have a hot tag division. Look back:

Everyone knows E&C, Hardyz, and Dudley Boys were awesome. No question there.

However, people need to remember that the APA were around forever together. The New Age Outlaws were always involved in the tag scene. Too Cool were champions and were also simply awesome. What about T&A and some other teams that stuck together for a while and made an impact?

I haven't even touched on Taker/Kane or the Rock N Sock Connection. The tag titles main evented a bunch of shows during the time period!

But more importantly, the tag titles were really important because most of those teams that I mentioned had some involvement in stables or alliances and they had the TV time to actually develop their characters.

The Tag Division sucks because Vince decided to move away from actual feuds that involved stables not named Legacy and split a large portion of his tag stars into singles competitors that never get a chance to talk or develop a character. Just like the rest of the pre-packaged programming now, there aren't any real feuds now that Hardy-Punk has ended and even that lacked a lot of the spontaneity that a good feud really needs.

The WWE has no tag division because it has too many titles and too many wrestlers and not enough stables and not enough air time to go around.

 

[Tastycles]

The point has been completely missed here. Tag team wrestling has never been a big draw in the US, and always, if there is potential in a tag team wrestler he will be broken out and pushed. Neither Ax nor Smash were ever going to be good singles stars, Repo Man proves that, and so they were kept together. Bret Hart, obviously going to be a big star, was split from Neidhart. The Hart Foundation lasted about 4 years I think, which is about the same as the Hardys and Edge and Christian.

Teams that stay together do so because they are greater than the sum of their parts. The problem is that the long term tag teams that the WWE has had recently have either reached the end of their gimmick lifespan, e.g. Jesse and Festus, or they are completely shit e.g. Deuce and Domino.

The only thing that has changed is the WWE's patience with the shitter teams. The good breakout star-type teams stay together for ages, as do the better team for life teams. Cryme Tyme will be together for ages because they are popular, and Morrison was in a tag team for about 4 years before breaking out. I know he changed partners, but that has more to do with Joey Mercury's daemons than anything else.

The fans have nothing to do with tag teams splitting, this has happened for years, it is the quality of tag teams that have made them split early. Cade and Murdoch were a decent team that lasted over three years, same would have gone for MNM and will go for Cryme Tyme. Shite like Jesse and Festus wouldn't have lasted very long in any era. The fans aren't to blame, nobody is really.

All it would take for the division to get good would be a couple of decent teams. It pisses me off that everyone goes on about tag team wrestling today being shit. Being shit is its status quo. There was a time around the turn of the century when there were three good teams, which made it good, but before that we had arse like the New Midnight Express, the Headbangers, The New Rockers etc. Before that we had Men on a Mission and anyone that would bother to team with the 1-2-3 Kid.

The crux of it is, is that for the most part of wrestling history tag team wrestling has been poor, with the odd lull in that due to a couple of good teams. There hasn't been a consistently good, competetive tag division in America anywhere for a very long time, if ever, and there probably won't ever be again.

 

[fan40]

Dude what the hell are you talkin about? You are right about the tag team division being shit now, but it wasn't even that bad a few years ago. We had the hardys, E&C, the dudleys, evolution(batista and flair), los guerreros, Hell, even minor temporary tag teams weren't that bad: RVD and rey, the bashams, kenzo sazuki and renee dupree, eddie guerrero and rey(LOVED that). I loved the tag team division just a few years ago, and it all went to hell some point between then and now.

And, it is most definately not the fans' fault. WTF does that have to do with anything. Tag teams have to break up eventually, otherwise it'd be the same shit all the time. Plus most move on to better things in singles wrestling.

your exactly right...Eddie and Rey, just imagine, if they didn't break up, we would have NEVER had those awesome fantastic fued matches between them....THOSE WERE SOME OF THE MOST OUTSTANDING MATCHES I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!

 

[The Wolf]

They unified the tag titles cause they relized it. But there is some great talent in the Tag team div already now create a couple of good or great tag teams from big names and some from mid carders. (ie Rated RKO the were alsome and could of done alot more) I think MVP would be better with R Truth. Kane/Knox(the only way knox will go any where). Swagger/Miz Noble/Hass Hawkins/Ryder(they were good) Ziggler/Guerrero Hardy/Helms Henry/Khali and the tag team div will be back

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The tag team scene was part killed by the death of Kayfabe...

Remember back to the classic era of tag teams, the late 1980's... Wrestlers avoided travelling if they were not working together, they always bashed their opponents in public and the aura of 2 tough guys who complimented each other in the ring, working together, travelling together, partying together and being a unit was bought by the public...

Tag Team wrestling was about the teamwork and the bond...It was no coincidence that the best teams were normally related or best friends for many years...Hawk and Animal were from the Hood and it showed... The Rockers were so called cos they did just that... even as simple as The Bushwhackers really were from New Zealand lol... When teams split, it was rare... it meant something... after Strike Force split, the highlight of every rumble was seeing Tito and Martel just tear after each other... you knew neither would ever win cos they would take each other out... when the bond was broken, it was for life...

Once Vince had to coin "Sports Entertainment" and admit it was fake cos of the steroid trial... the inevitable casualty was that belief that the tag teams really were best buds... but in honesty it was probably really killed when Sheik and Duggan got busted..

WCW bear more responsibility for killing tag team wrestling than Vince does... they created the makeshift team concept and put it into overdrive at the turn of the 90's... partially cos of a bloated roster but mainly cos they were bleeding their good teams to WWE.... Clash 89 had a classic tournament between The Road Warriors, The Steiners, The Headshrinkers and Doom... by 1993 all but Doom were in WWE!

They replaced them with any 2 guys they could throw together often with no rhyme or reason... Sting and Davey Boy, Steamboat and Dustin, Morton and Taylor, The Master Blasters, The Hardliners... then they made Bobby Eaton a Blueblood... The scary thing is that WCW had 2 tag belts even then...with that mediocre line up of teams... oh did I forget the Vegas Connection... they put the final nail in it when they came back as The Outsiders...after that Tags meant zilch in WCW. Few of these teams made any sense and they certainly didn't come across as guys who were "Brothers in Arms" like the previous generation.

WWE soldiered on a lot longer than WCW did, their teams, while still "makeshift" at least had some sense... Money Inc had IRS, who had always wrestled tags, The Natural Disasters worked, the Beverleys had been AWA tag champs... they kept their teams gimmicked... I think it finally ended for them when Owen brought out Yoko as a partner... by then pretty much no one cared about tag teams, cos the teams were just makeshift on both sides...

Anyone with half a brain knew that The Body Donnas were Chris Candido and Dr. Tom with a buzz cut... a few might have remembered The Godwins as being Shanghai Pierce and Tex Slazinger from WCW, but once Shawn and Austin got the belts that was it... Tags were just a stepping stone...

E & C, The Hardyz, The Dudleyz, the Outlaws all did their best and nearly succeded... but they just fell short cos by the "magic" was gone for Tag Team wrestling...

In todays world, you can't see many teams spending any more time together than when they are working... that is why a team like Jesse and Fesus don't work... its clearly 2 guys put together cos there is nothing else creative has for them... TNA is trying bless em, but its inevitable that Rood (and likely the Invasion boys) will soon be headed to WWE...