The Importance of…4.06.08: Tag Team Wrestling

Hello, 411mania readers! My name is Mike Chin, and I am a long time fan, first time writer when it comes to pro wrestling. Welcome to my new column, The Importance of…

In this column, each week I will discuss the importance, or potential importance of a different item in professional wrestling, including that item’s history and its potential for the future.

This week’s topic is: The Importance of Tag Team Wrestling

Tag teams are vital to the success of a wrestling promotion. They are often overlooked and underappreciated, and seem to be disappearing from the wrestling mainstream. Nonetheless, it’s impossible to deny the impact tag teams have had on history, and the potential they have to impact wrestling’s future.

Before assessing the long term benefits of tag team wrestling, it seems worthwhile to consider its more immediate impact. Tag team wrestling can be an extremely effective way to mix up the pace of a show. First of all, the very nature of a tag match should mean very little need for rest time in the ring. Rather than two competitors slugging it out, there are four, and with regular tags, from both a kayfabe and very real perspective, it gives the guys a chance to stay fresh or catch a breather while their partners keep the action moving. Furthermore, tag teams carry the potential for double team maneuvers and four man frenzies of action, each of which can be a nice change of pace amidst a card of mostly one-on-one contests.

Taking a look to the long term, tag teams have extraordinary potential to affect the future of the business. So many of wrestling’s greatest stars developed in the tag ranks before really coming of age as singles stars. Two classic examples are Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. On the 1980s WWF stage, neither of these relatively small men would have had a shot at breaking out as a singles star. As part of the Hart Foundation and Rockers, though, the men were able to hone their craft, and develop a following among the fans. Each had been with his team for five years or more before breaking out as singles stars. After roughly five years each, they had proven themselves as workers, and had won over enough fans that they could be taken seriously as singles wrestlers on the upper-mid-card level, before stepping up to the top of the card. Other success stories include Booker T’s emergence from Harlem Heat, Edge and Christian’s blooming singles careers, and even Mabel’s main event stint, fresh out of Men on a Mission (OK, so it’s Mabel—but he still went from a tag team guy to main eventing one of the big 5 PPVs in 1995).

Granted, not every tag team is going to have one or both of its members break out. There was the failed Dudleys split at the start of the brand extension, for one. Perhaps the most noteworthy example of a tag wrestler with a failed singles push is Billy Gunn. When his tenure as half of the Smoking Gunns didn’t kick start his singles career, he was on to the New Age Outlaws. Regardless of how over that team was, it wasn’t enough to take Billy to the next level, and so he tagged up with Chuck Palumbo in another famous duo, and didn’t even get a push after that team split, instead forming a makeshift tandem with Hardcore Holly before his release (leading him to TNA, reuniting with The Road Dogg and, by all appearances, moving through the cycle again…).

Out of the trials of a competitor like Billy Gunn rise another key function of tag team wrestling—giving career mid-card guys something constructive to do. There are times when the whole is undeniably greater than the sum of it parts—for what other reason would the tandem of Billy Gunn and Road Dogg have gotten so over? I don’t like Bill Eadie and Barry Darsow’s chances of having built a legacy in the business had they not joined forces to form Demolition. And let’s face it, besides being Ric Flair’s sidekick, Arn Anderson made a career out of being a tag team badass, alongside Ole Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and others. The guy never had the look or personality to make it as a main eventer, but on the tag scene, he was able to carve a real niche, and find his place as a legit legend.

So we’ve covered new guys on the rise and career mid-carders. The other performers to make a mark on the tag scene are the older stars, past their prime. Tag teams provide a unique opportunity for these guys. Well past their prime, a veteran can lend the credence of his name to a team, and, ideally, help get a younger workhorse over in the process. I’m thinking of The Colossal Connection as one example. Andre the Giant was hardly even mobile by the last year of his career, and yet to the fans, he was still a main attraction, and a main event level threat. And so, the WWF teamed him up with Haku—an able worker who wasn’t nearly as over. Together, they formed a tag team who the fans took very seriously, and were a serious hurdle for Demolition to leap en route to a dramatic title win. Other examples include Yokozuna’s teaming with Owen Hart, and Hercules and Paul Orndorff’s valiant efforts at getting Paul Roma over.

Given the importance of tag teams, it’s difficult to understand the poor state of the tag scene today. To be fair, I don’t really follow RoH, or any non-domestic promotions, and from my understanding tag team wrestling does get more respect there. With that being said, the big two of WWE and TNA just don’t do enough this area. TNA has, historically done well here, and to their credit, seem to be putting some effort into the tag division as of late. While the champs are a makeshift duo of Tomko and Styles, LAX, The Motor City Machine Guns, Team 3-D, The Rock and Rave Infection and Black Reign & Rellik give the company enough quantity of combinations to kindle some interest, if not the quality to set the world on fire. WWE is far worse off, where the makeshift teams of Cody Rhodes & Bob Holly and Miz & John Morrison hold the straps, and the only legit, consistent teams to speak of are London & Kendrick (buried on a weekly basis, though they may be on an upswing after last week’s non-title win), Cade & Murdoch (revived and reburied enough times that it’s hard to take them seriously), Deuce & Domino (rightfully buried), The Highlanders (ditto) and Jesse & Festus—perhaps the lone credible, consistent team with some potential to grow.

Why the lack of successful teams today? Part of it is the lack of new teams, and the major companies’ willingness to settle for thrown-together combinations, rather than building tag divisions. Part of it is the regular emergence of star teams like DX and The Brothers of Destruction who, while fun, too often rob existing teams of their credibility by squashing all of the competition.

Another big piece of the tag team decline is a lack of patience. Let’s compare two cases. The split of The Rockers happened after nearly half a decade of Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty teaming in the WWF, and a slow-burn before the dramatic turn actually happened. Shawn Michaels went on to multiple world championships and a celebrated career. Contrast this with MNM—a team which lasted about a year before WWE hotshotted their split. Had Nitro remained in MNM longer (or, taking into account Joey Mercury’s personal problems and ultimate departure, had he been transitioned to another team) he could have benefited from more exposure and experience in the team setting, as well as a meaningful split of the team, and a resulting feud—key steps to building a star, as Michaels proved.

Tag teams are undeniably important in the history of wrestling, and it’s likely they will rise again, to some extent, in some period of time. Until then, just like a fresh babyface, this important branch of wrestling will continue to wait in its corner until a weary, beaten singles division struggles to its feet, and makes the hot tag that us fans have been waiting for.

That’s all for this time. Make sure you come back next week, when I’ll be taking a look at the Importance of a Good Finisher.