Unless you are Vince McMahon, you probably love tag team wrestling. Whether it is a combination of power and speed or the intelligence of their manager that impresses you, the possibilities in a tag team match outweigh anything a singles match can produce in theory.
But which teams fall into the category of all-time favourite for our esteemed group of nerds? Let's find out!
SHAFI - THE DUDLEY BOYZ
As much as I could espouse the virtues of the Dudley Boyz, the reality is that Finn Martin has already explained why they are the greatest team of all time much more concisely than I could when he said; "If one were to base his decision on longevity, title wins and success in a variety of companies, The Dudley Boyz would get the nod".
I loved ECW. I loved ECW more than WWF even though WWF was in its most popular period ever. It resonated with me as I started secondary school in 1998 and entered that rebellious, experimental phase that I expressed through rap music, wrestling and excessive masturbation. In ECW the Dudleyz were THE TEAM. They had more title reigns than any team I'd ever heard of anywhere.
ECW is where they made their name and as heels they got nuclear HEAT. Seriously I'm not talking Baron Corbin heat, I'm talking "fans trying to jump off the balcony and climb over the barrier to fight them" heat. And that is not an exaggeration. Go and watch their promo from ECW Heatwave '99 for a perfect example of how much they could wind up a crowd. I ate it up.
In WWE, the Dudleyz helped revolutionise tag team wrestling alongside the Hardy Boyz and Edge and Christian - winning PWI's match of the year in both 2000 and 2001 for their ladder and TLC matches. Their matches blew my mind.
They were not cool heels like E+C and they were able to draw the ire of the audience without the creative freedom they were afforded in ECW. The Hardys and E+C were pretty boys; the Dudleyz were the exact opposite and I believed them when they tried to destroy their opponents.
The Dudleyz were not the first to use tables as weapons but they were the first to popularise them to a mainstream audience. As soon as their matches started in WWF a chant of "WE WANT TABLES" would ring out amongst the crowd and everyone joined in when Bubba shouted "D'VON! GET THE TABLES!".
It was cool, it was fresh and it was a little taste of the ECW Dudleyz I had loved. They didn't GAF if you were an 80 year old woman, you were going through a table.
The cherry on top for The Dudleyz was their finishing move, the 3D. It's the best finisher ever. In ECW it was touted as having broken necks and this was repeated over and over in ECW video packages. I had no reason to disbelieve this,It was deadly (hence the name; Dudley Death Drop).
Someone will no doubt correct me but I can't remember another devastating tag move in WWF since LOD's Doomsday Device. That their finishing move was an actual tag move and not two guys doing their finishers consecutively made it that much better.
I used to play the Smackdown! Playstation games so much and before each one came out the first question would be "Can you do the 3D in this one?". Then I would hear a rumour that you could and I would spend about an hour loading a webpage on our dialup internet trying to find out how to do it.
After finding the method I would spend hours trying to pull it off only to find out that I had once again been duped and it wasn't possible. Bastards!
Eventually someone came up with the idea of breaking up the Dudleyz in the draft just for the shock value. Stupid, stupid, stupid. They would go on to reach 23 world title reigns around the world and be inducted into both the TNA and WWE Halls of Fame.
In 2009 I was lucky enough to see them live as TEAM 3D in TNA and they were the most over act on a card that had Kurt Angle, AJ Styles and Scott Steiner in the main event.
I typically like the underdogs so it is unusual for my favourites to be the same as my opinion of the best in any given category but here they are one and the same.
The one, the only, the Dudley Boyz. Testify!
PETE HITCHCOCK - EDGE & CHRISTIAN
Imagine, if you will, a better world. A better timeline. A timeline in which former tag-team specialist Gedo, upon his ascension to the New Japan Bookshop or whatever the office of being a Booker is, saw fit to pay it forward for the great art of tag-team wrestling.
A timeline in which the IWGP Tag Titles were treated with respect and not just a pair of props to be casually thrown between EVIL & Sanada, the G.O.D. and whichever thrown-together (World Tag League or otherwise) collection of two singles wrestlers du jour.
A timeline in which established tag-teams triumphed over solo stars and where solo stars could, over time, form proper, lasting partnerships and establish themselves as credible tag-teams in term and, in time, maybe win and continue to elevate the IWGP Tag Titles.
A timeline in which the ONE FUCKING TEAM THAT OVERCAME THAT (by virtue of really making it in RevPro) - ZSJ and Suzuki - WERE FUCKING DENIED IT REPEATEDLY. A timeline in which we got more than glimpses of the always sublime Ishii and Goto partnership.
A timeline in which these two pairings were as marquee as Tenzan and Kojima, or Gallows and Anderson. A timeline in which Kenny had stayed and the Golden Lovers could have done this (but credit to him for really accomplishing this in AEW).
We could have feasted! We could have had this for years! But this isn't that timeline. Tanahashi and Ibushi are champs. They will probably fail to bring tag-team wrestling up to their lofty levels that they have the capability to, through the fault of others. A man can dream, but that's just it. A dream, a fantasy. Fiction.
So it's still Edge and Christian.
Streamers rule!
ROSS CASEY - THE STEINER BROS
I absolutely love tag team wrestling. I'm probably one of the few people that gets excited for the World Tag League. I love the psychology of cutting the ring in half, I love the science of the hot tag and I absolutely adore the double team moves.
So it will come as a bit of a surprise that my chosen tag team are the Steiners. They didn't exactly cut the ring in half, as much as take it in terms to hurt their opponents with an array of power moves. The combination of Rick's rabid violence and Scott's technical power was a joy to behold and I cherish their matches from the late eighties and early nineties.
I have a penchant for picking their matches in our nerd watch Wednesday reviews and they prove that they were giving in their matches too. You rarely saw the Road Warriors sell as much as The Steiners did and that made their matches much more palpable in my eyes.
That's not to say they weren't adverse to kicking ass when it came to some ham and eggers - their squash matches can be quite hard to watch on reflection. But to me, their matches in Japan, WCW and even the WWF in my opinion, hold the test of time and belong in a vault marked ROSS' TREASURES.
If I was to suggest a single match, I think I would go with the SuperBrawl match they had against Luger & Sting. That is the nuts.
JCH - reDRagon
I first saw these guys at an ROH show in New York 2012 and was immediately taken by Fish as he walked to the ring with incredible facial hair. They quickly became my favourite tag team.
Their appearance at WK9 was the reason for me watching my first New Japan show. They had some awesome matches with the Young Bucks and they (to be fair along with Roddy Strong) have been the backbone of the NXT tag division since their debut.
They remain the only wrestlers I've ever paid for a photo with.
Recommended match - so many of their Takeover matches would fit here. I'll go for the maybe slightly overlooked TV match vs the Revival last year on NXT. Absolute dream match for me that did not disappoint.
DOM VAN DAM - THE BRISCOES
I absolutely adore tag team wrestling. I think it has always been the most innovative form of this great sport from an athletic perspective. And although a well told story in a singles match will probably always outshine a tag team match in the canon, the athleticism that can be explored with the extra dynamic of double team moves and saving pinfalls can be absolutely breathtaking.
I found the choice of my favourite Tag Team much more difficult than my favourite wrestler (male or female) or my favourite live moment. I wanted so much to write about the Kings of Wrestling and their ROH run in the early part of last decade. I also wanted to give a nod to the Hardyz for being my boyz all through the attitude era.
But when it comes to breathtaking moments in tag matches, I had to stick with The Briscoes. I think Jay and his younger brother Mark paved the way for so much of what we, as an audience, see in tag team wrestling in 2020. Even though I don’t have a particular match of theirs in my mind as my standout favourite or a 5 star classic, I just remember the excitement I would feel when watching their body of work for the best part of 15 years.
Dem Boys blazed the trail for all those who followed them and are still tearing it up today.
Man up!
NINETIES MIKE - THE HART FOUNDATION
One of the first things I loved about wrestling was The Hart Foundation. How two big, bad guys could pull off pink and black as well being the best in the business I’ll never know, but they did.
With Bret Hitman Hart’s technical prowess matched to Jim The Anvil Neidhart’s brawn and Jimmy Hart’s savvy management skills, they sky was the limit. My first experience of them was hardly amazing, with them beating The Bolsheviks in 19 seconds at Wrestlemania VI (that’s 6, Ross).
However, the next PPV match I saw them in was the classic 2 out of 3 falls match against Demolition (now featuring 3rd member Crush) at Summerslam 1990. The eruption at the end as The Hart Foundation won their 2nd WWF Tag Team title was an informative one.
I’d seen them and their amazing promos on various episodes of WWF Superstars thanks to my neighbour also being into wrestling, but never something as exciting as this, and certainly not one that the crowd had been so invested in.
The following year saw them feuding with The Rockers, Marty Jannetty and a certain Shawn Michaels. Pre-Heartbreak Kid era, it’s amazing that Michaels and Hart’s rivalry goes back as far as this.
In spite of the now famous non-televised title loss to The Rockers at a TV taping, the Foundation kept hold of the belts until Wrestlemania VII, relinquishing the gold to The Nasty Boys.
This would prove to be the end of the road for the original incarnation of The Hart Foundation, with Bret and Jim having wildly varying success in their singles careers.
Unfortunately, The Anvil wasn’t alive to experience going into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019, but Bret joined Booker T, Ric Flair and his old nemesis Shawn Michaels as a two-time inductee.
I wholeheartedly recommend you go and watch the Summerslam 1990 match with Demolition, I promise you won’t be disappointed. The Pink and Black Attack will forever live on in our h(e)arts (and the WWE Network for just £9.99).
30 DAY CHALLENGE
DAY 1 - FAVOURITE MALE WRESTLER
DAY 2 - FAVOURITE FEMALE WRESTLER
DAY 4 - FAVOURITE TAG TEAM
DAY 5 - YOUR FIRST WRESTLING MEMORY
DAY 6 - FAVOURITE FACTION
DAY 7 - FAVOURITE PROMOTION
DAY 8 - FAVOURITE MANAGER
DAY 9 - FAVOURITE COMMENTARY TEAM
DAY 10 - FAVOURITE ENTRANCE THEME
DAY 11 - FAVOURITE MATCH
DAY 12 - FAVOURITE DEFUCNT TERRITORY
DAY 13 - FAVOURITE GIMMICK
DAY 14 - MOST MISSED WRESTLER
DAY 15 - FAVOURITE FACE
DAY 16 - FAVOURITE HEEL
DAY 17 - FAVOURITE FINISHER
DAY 18 - FAVOURITE WRESTLING GAME
DAY 19 - FAVOURITE STORYLINE
DAY 20 - FAVOURITE SUBMISSION
DAY 21 - MOST UNDERRATED
DAY 22 - FUTURE STAR
DAY 23 - FAVOURITE FEUD
DAY 24 - DREAM MATCH
DAY 25 - FAVOURITE HIGH FLYER
DAY 26 - FAVOURITE TOURNAMENT
DAY 27 - FAVOURITE TURN
DAY 28 - FAVOURITE PPV
DAY 29 - FAVOURITE REINVENTION
DAY 30 - FAVOURITE COMEDY WRESTLER
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