Death of Wrestling: What Happened To The Tag Teams?

Greetings to all… It’s David Davis with my weekly blog: Death of Wrestling. For all of those who read this regularly, you will know that this is not a blog about bashing wrestling; it’s a blog of a frustrated fan, who loves the business and wishes that each week it could be a little better.

Firstly, Happy Easter! Secondly, and more importantly, my thoughts and prayers go out to Ric Flair and his entire family…

Okay on with the blog and this week I’m going to honour a promise to ‏@Scorsese85 who hit me up on twitter and asked me to talk about the decline of tag team wrestling. Now for those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I’ve spoken at length about this in the past and you can see one my blogs here… But I think now, in the midst of the ‘Road to Wrestlemania’, it’s actually a good time to revisit the demise of the tag team division…

Does anyone remember Wrestlemania 17 when Edge & Christian, The Hardy Boys and The Dudley Boys did battle in what became one of the most iconic matches in WWE history? Fast forward a decade or so and where is the WWE tag team division? Well according to the Hulu Plus version of Monday Night Raw, the WWE doesn’t have one… Yep all of the segments that were cut from it involved the tag team division.

Why is that..? Well, unlike in the build up to Wrestlemania 17, right now the WWE doesn’t care about the tag team division. The tag team champions are singles wrestlers who only have the belts to give their ‘unlikely alliance’ storyline some credibility… and their Wrestlemania opponents are the future World Heavyweight Champion and his enforcer. In otherwords, two people who are not interested in being a tag team…

A lot of people might say that I should be happy the tag team titles will be given a prominent place on the Wrestlemania card – that Team Hell No have shone a spotlight on the tag team division, but in truth… I’m not. In my opinion, the people who hold the belt should really care about holding the belt, not simply be using it to give credibility to their singles feud.

Back in the day, tag teams like the Legion of Doom, Headshrinkers, Hardy Boys, Dudley Boys, Edge & Christian, and the Rockers were tag teams who cared about the tag team division and the tag team championship had prestige. In fact, the belts meant so much that three tag teams that will go down in history, created a match so hellacious that the WWE named a PPV after it. Tables, Ladders and Chairs was the only way to decide the tag team champions, because the tag team championship meant that much…

Whilst four singles wrestlers take up a spot on Wrestlemania, wrestling for the tag team belt, let’s look at what the legitimate budding tag teams of the WWE are currently up to: the Usos were squashed by Mark Henry to forward his singles feud, Primo and Epico haven’t been used in any mentionable fashion for some time, and the Prime Time Players were used (yet again) to show the dominance of Team Hell No… Does that sound like Team Hell No is boosting the tag team division to you?!?

I also have to mention Team Rhodes Scholars (sigh) and Brodus Clay & Sweet T (bigger sigh). I love Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow, but everyone knows they are not a tag team. Hell, even the WWE knows this, which is why they split them up… and then realised they didn’t have anything for them to do… so they put them back together. Is that the sign of a long lasting tag team division – I think not. I have a rule of not wrestler bashing so I’m unable to comment on the Brodus Clay & Sweet T… I mean I love a kiddy friendly gimmick as much as the next but… Dammit I almost commented… All I will say is that is not a long lasting, credible tag team and even they know it…

Do I think that a lack of tag team wrestling will lead to the DOW…? No I don’t. But I do think a bad tag team division might. But worse than that I think there is a danger of being shortsighted when it comes to the importance of tag teams. Shawn Michaels, Brett Hart, Edge, Christian, the British Bulldog, Shelton Benjamin, Booker T, Sting, Scott Steiner, Ultimate Warrior and many more all have one thing in common: they accomplished amazing things as singles wrestlers, but first came to prominence in tag teams… Back when tag teams mattered that is!

That’s all folks… As always, post your comments, thoughts and opinions below! Or message me on twitter and let me know what you think the ‘Death of Wrestling’ is and I might just blog about it!!! Peace and I’m out…