Troy Targets The Tag Teams #1

[Troy]

I am a big fan of tag team wrestling and have been ever since I started watching wrestling. For many, many years WWE has neglected the tag team division and has treated it as an afterthought. WWE rarely put the time and effort into building and supporting the division and would regularly bury the division by having their mainevent singles wrestlers easily defeat every team in the division including the champions. Over the past few years WWE would hint at rebuilding a division which once thrived but they always stopped the push as soon as it started.

Recently WWE has once again hinted that they will finally breathe some life into the division and this time I believe that they will actually go through with it. In the past couple of months it has been rumoured that they are looking to sign Kings of Wrestling who are one of the top tag teams on the Indy scene. If they do sign KOW then it is a clear sign of intent that they indeed want to take the tag team division seriously again. The booking on recent events have also helped support this idea that WWE will finally push the division. What convinced me was that way tag teams were used on RAW this week. We have new tag team champions and essentially two new teams to add to the division.

Due to these recent developments, and due to my love of tag team wrestling, I have decided to start a regular column where I discuss tag team wrestling in WWE. I will breakdown the tag teams on each brand and will discuss the tag team wrestling that occurs on all WWE shows each week to see how each team develops. I will also give my take on teams in FCW that WWE may look to promote, teams in the Indy scene (and even TNA) that WWE may sign and I will add my thoughts on teams that I think could work using current singles wrestlers on RAW and Smackdown.

WWE Tag Team Champions

Evan Bourne © & Kofi Kingston ©
The team of Bourne & Kingston started their run two weeks ago on RAW when they had a non-title match against the champions Otunga & McGillicutty. They won that match and due to that win were given a title shot, but rather than having it at the Night of Champions PPV next month, they had the title match last week on RAW. Bourne and Kingston were victorious and will hopefully usher in a new era of tag team domination. This is Bourne’s first tag team title win in WWE (in fact it is the first title he has held in WWE) and it is Kofi’s second tag team title win with his first being a World Tag Team title run with CM Punk as his partner.

I have high hopes for this new team as they work well together as a team. They have complimentary wrestling styles as both are high fliers and work an aerial style. It is very good pairing by WWE as both weren’t being used productively as singles wrestlers on RAW and it didn’t look like they would be featured prominently as singles wrestlers in the near future. As a team they add a lot to the division as both are well known, and well liked names, and will most likely be featured on television every week therefore bringing more exposure to the tag team titles.

I see them holding the tag team titles for a few months at least and I have high hopes for this title reign.

RAW

David Otunga & Michael McGillicutty
The former champions had a three month title reign after they won the titles from the team of Kane & Big Show after some outside help from fellow New Nexus members CM Punk and Mason Ryan. During the first half of their title reign they were still coming out as part of The New Nexus but in the past month or so they came out with the Nexus gear and had their own entrance music and titantron video. It was a fairly uneventful title reign but thankfully near the end WWE put some more effort into the team by giving them a proper team entrance theme and video and used them somewhat regularly on the shows.

I do hope that they remain as a team in the coming months. It would be premature if they split as a team so soon after losing the titles. They need to try to regain those titles and I fear that neither will do well as singles wrestlers so it is better for the both of them, and also the division, if they remain as a team. WWE in the past has had a habit of splitting tag teams way too soon and they need to refrain from going down that path with these two.

The Miz & R-Truth
This is a team that may or may not join the division but I believe that they will so I am including them as a proper team on RAW. For the past month or so these two have aligned after they both realised they had common enemies in WWE. It was a very odd pairing at first but they have worked well together so far and their work on RAW last week was excellent. They attacked Santino before a match and cut a promo as a team. It was a fantastic heel promo and in my mind they would be perfect opponents for the face champions. These two being in the division would be another big boost. Miz is a maineventer and Truth was recently in the WWE title scene so it is a team filled with two big names. Again it adds more credibility to the division by having names like this involved.

Potential RAW Tag Teams

Santino & ???
Since his tag team partner Kozlov was released Santino has been randomly teaming with other faces on RAW. It does seem like they want to have him remain in the tag team division but there are few options to team with him full time.

Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger
Both now have the same manager so there is always the chance that they could team semi-regularly on RAW even whilst Ziggler is the United States Champion. It may be a short lived team as WWE has hinted that these two will eventually feud but there is plenty of potential here.

Smackdown

The Usos
The Usos are the only “actual†tag team in WWE at the moment. All the others are two wrestlers who have been put together as they have nothing else to do as singles wrestlers. The Usos have now been on WWE TV for nearly a year and a half and during that time have had a few title shots but so far have been unsuccessful in their quest to win the titles. After starting as heels they are now the resident face team on Smackdown and since Gabriel & Slater split are the only tag team left on the brand. This past week on Smackdown they were part of the 20 man battle royal to determine the new number one contender to the World Heavyweight Title. Hopefully this week on the Live Super Smackdown they will be in a tag team match. Again WWE need to keep this team together. They are a good team and are the lone team on the brand and WWE needs to keep them together to keep the division strong.

Potential Smackdown Tag Teams

Jinder Mahal & Great Khali
They are a pair but currently all they have done is wrestle singles matches with the other guy standing ringside. Down the line these two must become a tag team. It will help protect Khali and it will help promote Mahal. WWE should make these two a tag team immediately and have them feud with The Usos.

FCW

CJ Parker & Donnie Marlow
They are the current FCW tag team champions having won the titles a month ago. Unfortunately I know nothing about either wrestler and looking at the history of the FCW tag team titles it is incredibly rare that a team from FCW makes it up to WWE as a team.

Los Aviadores (Hunico & Epico)
This all depends on whether or not Hunico will continue to portray Sin Cara on Smackdown. If he does then obviously there is no chance this will happen. If he doesn’t then WWE must promote this team, note that Epico is Tito Colon. They are a very good team and I am sure they would be a very popular team if promoted to the main roster.

Potential Signings

Kings of Wrestling
For many months the rumour was that WWE had offered KOW a contract and that they had signed. As of this column they were still wrestling the independent scene but that may simply be them fulfilling their contracted dates before joining WWE. I am reasonably confident that they will sign with WWE and when they do expect WWE to waste little time in promoting them to the main roster. They will spend only a small time in FCW and in dark matches before being used on WWE television. They are an excellent team and would add so much to the WWE tag team division. Surely WWE will do all they can to sign this team and once they do they will push them strongly on television.

Young Bucks
After being released by TNA in recent months the Young Bucks had a tryout match before RAW the other week. It shows that WWE are definitely looking at bringing in more teams and the Young Bucks are a readymade team. WWE can then do their thing and package them up to promote them like stars. I would expect WWE to treat them like a new version of the Hardys. There has been no word about whether or not they signed a deal but I am sure WWE will be watching their progress in the Indy scene.

Beer Money
This was the rumour that most interested me. WWE were supposedly looking at signing Beer Money, James Storm and Robert Roode from TNA. Beer Money has probably been the top team in TNA the past few years and it would be a massive acquisition if WWE managed to sign the two of them. Beer Money have been pushed strongly as a team in TNA but never as singles wrestlers and may be tempted to join the biggest wrestling company in the world to see how they go there. Again this would be a huge addition to the tag team division if WWE do indeed sign them.


So that wraps up the first instalment of TTTTT. Thank you for reading and feel free to leave any comments.

 

[Tapout]

That was a really good article/review type thing Troy. I agree with most of your views on the Tag Teams. I have high hopes on Air Boom. I just hope that they last. If they play around there for a year to a year and a half, I think it would do wonders for them. They've been champions for like 2 weeks, and have already been featured then a team that was champs for 3 months. So I think WWE has hope in them.

I look forward to seeing what Miz and Truth can do. And all 5 FCW/TNA/RoH teams you mentioned would be awesome to see on the WWE roster too.

If NXT has had redemption, divas, and singles, I would like to see a Tag Team NXT. Instead of pros, have teams work with each other to win a tag time title match.

 

[Chris Dresdon]

I enjoyed this article thoroughly. It's going to be cool to get your continued thoughts on the state of the tag division as time goes on. The only long-term tag partner I can think of for Santino is Zack Ryder, maybe Goldust when he comes back.

I'd like to see all of these teams do well. Beer Money would be the most interesting to see brought in for many reasons. Them and the Young Bucks would be the 2011 DX and Hardy Boyz.

 

[Troy]

Thanks for the comments. I am looking at doing this either fortnightly or monthly depending on how busy the tag team division is.

I like the idea of a tag team version of NXT. If they kept the season a reasonable length (i.e. not six months) then even four teams would be enough to contest the season.

I had thought of Ryder as a tag team partner for Santino but I didn't want Ryder linked with Santino when I think that him teaming with Hawkins would be a better move.

 

[Prodigy]

Good read Troy! I think that if the tag division is to be a main stay and a focus now they really need to have more Tag Matches on shows. I mean in the old days we had more than one tag match that invovled actual formed teams on one show. Now you only get one and it really needs correcting as you gotta show that the division is active not just the chase for the titles.