wrestling / Columns
The Best of the 411mania Era: The Tag Teams Part 1
Hello all! Welcome to the first official “Best of the 411 Era” countdown! What we’re doing is trying to look for the best of the best in various categories over the timeline of the 411 era (1996 – Present); it could be managers, tag teams, world champions, women, anything we decide. A quick explanation of how the winners were determined and the process in general:
The first category voted on for your consideration: TAG TEAMS! Over the next five days, the staff will bring you their thoughts as we count down the Top 15 Tag Teams of the 411 Era. The following things were taken into account when voting for Tag Teams:
– Popularity (with fans)
– Draw
– Influence
– Title Reigns
– How They Will Be Remembered
Before we get started, let’s meet the panel (as usual, in alphabetical order as to not bruise egos or give newbs the idea they have some sort of status that in reality doesn’t exist):
Honorable Mentions: (These are writers who also voted but are not participating in this column; thanks to them for their votes) – Special thanks also to Christi Csonka for not only voting, but for hooking me up with the SICK banners you will see before you.
Mike Campbell – Mike reviews a ton of shit for the wrestling zone. No, I mean a TON of shit. If you somehow doubt that he reviews a ton of shit, feel free to check out his ton of shit and prove yourself wrong.
Jake Chambers – He’s a newb who has a regular Wacky Wrestling column. I liked the read Jake, but I would love to be a fly on the wall when you’re explaining to a girl how attending a live event can be an insight to a certain culture and society. I can see her eyes rolling from here, bud.
Steve Cook – I’m not even getting started on this lush. You all already know where to find him. P.S. Chad Johnson needs to go away.
Larry Csonka – If I have to tell you who he is, you clearly have never been to this site …….EVER
Jerome Cusson – Jerome does a lot of reviewing of South Park and Friends in the Movie Zone, but often finds his way over here to wrestling.
Stuart James – Stuart has been stuck on an island for almost two months. Fortunately he was able to send us a smoke signal to let us know he is alive and will be back soon.
Chris Lansdell – Lansdell is a Wrestling Zone trooper, not only having his Sunday Brunch news report (thanks for the credit with the name idea there guy!) and TNA PPV Roundtables, but he also fills in whenever he can to help out.
Shawn S. Lealos – He does everything he possibly can for the Movie Zone, and also dips into wrestling, so I’ll just give you his latest shit
Gavin Napier – GAVIN! Haven’t seen Gavin for a while, but let me assure all of you that he is more than a welcomed addition to this feature. Hope to see you again soon, brother.
Michael O. – Michael O – to put it plainly – is a fucking stoner. And possibly British. In his spare time of not being a stoner or British, he covers SmackDown!.
Scott Rutherford – Rutherford has been a beast for 411 for quite some time. Do to circumstance, he hasn’t been around quite as much late, but you can still find him putting in a music review or two. Congrats on Fatherhood though, and happy yesterday-fathers-day to you sir. Yes, I’m aware that’s probably just American. Fuck.
Jeremy Thomas – Jeremy contributes where he can, but mostly he just reviews things for the Movie Zone.
Jarrod Westerfeld – Jarrod has Scripted Through Sin for the Wrestling Zone. Hey Jarrod, stop phoning it in. While you’re at it, stop calling yourself a superstar. For that matter, stop ranting. Just stop doing things in general! …except of course writing your column and contributing to this.
Daniel Wilcox – I don’t even know how to begin to even start to describe Wilcox. You all know him. He covers RAW, he fills in, he moonlights in the Music Zone. He’s all over the forums. He’s every. I’ll just go ahead and plug his most recent, which was a nice list of his Top 50 matches of the last 10 years.
And I am your host, James “JT” Thomlison! In addition to making completely unfunny and unclever comments in order to introduce people, I did manage to destroy Andy Critchell in Fact or Fiction recently. Sorry Divas, the Edge angle sucks, and Rhino is not that bad. You lose. Let’s get started, shall we kids?
Gavin Napier: Before I say anything about The Eliminators, just let me say that the origin of their team name is borderline hilarious. Quoting Wikipedia: “Satullo adopted the surname Saturn and Caiazo based his surname on the Greek equivalent of the God Saturn, Cronus just spelled Kronus. As Saturn and Cronus were their cultures’ respective gods of the harvest, Satullo proposed that the team be known as “The Harvesters of Sorrow”. Promoter Jerry Lawler advised Satullo that the significance of the name would not be evident to many fans, so they became known as “The Eliminators” instead.”
Just let me say that Jerry Lawler trying to explain to Saturn and Kronus that their proposed name won’t work because the majority of Memphis wrestling fans aren’t up to date on Greek and Roman mythology and/or completely weird makes me smile. I digress.
The Eliminators are so much more than one of the teams that put ECW on the map. They held the USWA tag team titles for six weeks. That would be today’s equivalent of London and Kendrick holding the WWE tag team titles for approximately 13 years. They were completely unique in their style to USWA and that promotion wasn’t exactly known for lengthy title runs. They competed in Japan for the WAR promotion and, in all seriousness, evolved as a tag team. I’d pay money to see the match mentioned on Wikipedia, though: The Eliminators vs. Mils Mascaras, Jimmy Snuka, and Bob Backlund. Wow.
If we’re talking Eliminators, though, we have to talk ECW. Among ECW tag teams, the Eliminators come in behind only The Dudleys in popularity and importance. The first reason for this is the same reason that a ton of historically important teams are historically important – they were innovative. The Road Warriors were a breath of fresh air. So were the Bulldogs. So were the Steiners. In their own way, so were The Eliminators. They were the first (and to date, the only) team to successfully combine classic tag team wrestling in the style of the Midnight Express, tag team domination in the style of the Road Warriors, and ultra violence in the style of, well, most of ECW.
The Eliminators went head to head with the Pitbulls in a feud that successfully elevated both teams. The Eliminators had been built as wrecking machines and played perfectly against the Pitbulls, who were essentially the same thing with a straightforward brawling style. Once Saturn and Kronus moved past the Pitbulls, things didn’t get any easier. They moved right into a feud with The Gangstas, trading the ECW tag team titles with them. Ironically, after Saturn and Mustafa Saed were both gone from ECW, Kronus and New Jack would team to form the Gangstanators, an oddly entertaining footnote in ECW’s history. The Eliminators then completed the ECW tag team trifecta, feuding and trading titles with The Dudley Boys.
Before you underestimate the value of Perry Saturn and John Kronus to ECW, consider this; Paul Heyman valued, respected, and trusted the Eliminators so much as a tag team that he put them over The Dudley Boys for the ECW tag team titles on ECW’s first pay per view. That’s as much of a ringing endorsement as you’re bound to get from that promoter in that era.
The team came to an end when Saturn’s knee was badly injured and he busted his tail rehabbing ahead of schedule. He felt like Kronus was phoning it in and refused to get the team back together. Some legitimate heat developed between the two and the team never reformed. Saturn and Kronus had one of the best “short runs” in wrestling history. They were very much a part of the cultural phenomenon that was ECW and made significant contributions to the ways that ECW changed professional wrestling. Neil Young once said “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” The fact that the Eliminators made this list may prove him right.
Chris Lansdell: Perry Saturn. John Kronus. The Eliminators were pioneers of tag team wrestling at a time when it had fallen out of fashion. After cutting their teeth in the old USWA, Saturn and Kronus came to ECW in late 1995 and soon held gold, winning tag titles in February of 1996 from Cactus Jack and Mikey Whipwreck. The team quickly gained popularity, and was winning matches against big pairings, including the legendary Pitbulls. They would eventually drop the titles to The Gangstas, but then won them back 4 months later. It was at this point that The Eliminators reached the peak of their popularity, and feuded with two of the biggest names in ECW: RVD and Sabu. This feud would be blown off in a Tables and Ladders match, won by The Eliminators. They would then go on to feud with the Dudley Boyz, trading the tag titles back and forth at a time when it was not unheard of for tag title matches to main event ECW shows.
In all, The Eliminators were 4-time champions. They won the USWA tag titles from “Hot Stuff” Eddie Gilbert and Brian “Grand Master Sex-ay” Christopher, and dropped them to the underrated PG-13. In addition to beating Cactus and Whipwreck for the ECW tag straps, they also had title wins over The Gangstas and The Dudleys. As I said above, they defended the straps against some of the biggest names in ECW at the time, which increased their standing tenfold. The mix of Saturn’s stiff, technical style and Kronus’ more aerial offence was one that resonated well with the action-hungry ECW faithful.
Unfortunately, due to being on ECW, a large portion of today’s wrestling fans will not have seen The Eliminators, but if they go back now and watch some classic Eliminators bouts, they’d feel right at home. For a relatively short-lived team, Kronus and Saturn had a huge influence on almost any high-energy, high-impact team you can think of in today’s wrestling world. You can see so much of them in the Hardys, the Briscoes, the Motor City Machine Guns, even London and Kendrick. Their double team moves were light-years ahead, at a time when teams really only had a double-team finisher and the standard “hold hands to clothesline” and “hold him while I kick his ribs” stuff. Their kick combos and the suplex/top rope crossbody were great spots that still get used today (although the suplex/crossbody one is rare in the big feds because it’s so damn hard to time), and have given rise to numerous variants that make fans gasp. The “Total Elimination” finisher, which consisted of Saturn doing a low leg sweep from behind at the same time as Kronus hit a spinning heel kick from the front, is a perfect example of what made the team so good: impact, timing and innovation.
The Eliminators will go down in the wrestling annals as one of the greatest teams nobody saw. Tag team wrestling would be a very different landscape without the innovations of Saturn and Kronus, and when you consider that some of the teams that are sure to place VERY high on this countdown (Hardys, Briscoes, MCMG) owe much of their popularity to the groundwork laid by the Eliminators, that’s a crying shame.
Jerome Cusson: Perry Saturn and John Kronus were once considered one of the top tag teams in professional wrestling. Largely thanks to the booking skill of Paul Heyman and his ability to hide the weaknesses of the ECW wrestlers, the Eliminators were so highly regarded because of their unique maneuvers and defiance of a formula.
The formula for which I speak of is one that goes back to the 1980s with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express and Ricky Morton. The Eliminators were almost the predecessors to a team like the Briscoes. They used a set of double team moves that included Total Elimination, a move where Kronus and Saturn each used spinning-heel kicks, an assisted springboard moonsault, and a number of kick combos.
Although they are regarded most for their ECW work, Saturn and Kronus actually started in the USWA, where they held that particular tag team championship once. After spending much of 1994 wrestling in Memphis, they moved onto the northeast to find their greatest success.
Because Heyman had two men with very little mic skills, Jason Knight was assigned to be the manager. ECW had expected Saturn and Kronus to be virtual jobbers for the Steiner brothers. With the Steiners leaving shortly thereafter, the Eliminators shifted from a more masochistic angle into a more Road Warriors-like unstoppable force.
Over the next three years, Saturn and Kronus won three tag team championships in ECW. They would feud with a number of teams in that time period. Some of these included the Pitbulls, Raven and Stevie Richards, The Heavenly Bodies, The Bruise Brothers, and a young duo of Rob Van Dam and Sabu. Heyman’s disciples at the ECW arena came to know this duo as a tough-minded team who would do anything to win. With an innovative offense complete with defiance of the standard tag team formula make them one of the most interesting and underrated teams of all time.
Although history sadly doesn’t view The Eliminators in the same way as so many teams on this list. But they absolutely deserve to be included for what they did in such a short period of time. Teams like The Briscoes, Motor City Machine Guns, Steenerico, and so many other great duos have taken their cue from The Eliminators and taken tag team wrestling to another level. Sadly, their efforts have been far less appreciated by the bigger companies. Only the Hardy Boys and to a certain extent the Dudleys based themselves off what the Eliminators had done from 1994 until 1997.
The tragedy of it all is the team went out not with a thunder blast but a wimper. A shattered ACL for Saturn ended the team since Saturn really didn’t want to carry Kronus anymore. Both would go their separate ways. Kronus did find some minor success with New Jack, but his life would end tragically July 18, 2007. Saturn had more success as a singles wrestler in WCW and the WWF before practically disappearing in 2004. He was supposed to reform The Eliminators for a one night reunion, but after being shot in the neck, he was unable to wrestle.
Sadly The Eliminators will never reunite again, but their legacy in the history of tag team wrestling is very stable.
Michael Campbell: They were called “The Unbeatables.” Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger and Koji Kanemoto were only a regular tag team for about 18 months (December 2002 until July 2004), but their IWGP Jr. Tag Team Title reign and overall dominance in tag team action is more than enough to qualify them as one of the top fifteen tag teams of the 411 era.
Before they formed their tag team, Lyger and Kanemoto already had a storied past, Lyger was already a star when Kanemoto made his debut in 1990, they’d had a singles match and had tagged a little bit in the early 1990’s, but they spent the bulk of the decade as rivals. Kanemoto began to climb the ranks in 1995, when Lyger was out with a broken leg), winning the IWGP Jr. Title on two occasions. When Lyger returned, they were always on opposite sides, some of their more notable matches were 1/4/94 when Lyger forced Kanemoto to unmask as Tiger Mask III, 1/4/96 when Lyger defeated Kanemoto for the IWGP Jr. Title, and Kanemoto’s first win over Lyger in the semi finals of the 1997 Super Juniors tournament. But they would meet hundreds of times in various forms of matches. By the time 2002 rolled around they were essentially equals. a
Their team was formed in December of 2002. It was a combination of New Japan’s roster shaking things up a bit, and a simple error. Kanemoto was the leader of the junior heavyweight portion of Team 2000, and they were feuding with the regular army, led by Lyger and Minoru Tanaka. The formation of a new heel unit called The Makai Club had caused Team 2000 leader Masahiro Chono to officially disband Team 2000 and rejoin the New Japan army. This did nothing to deter the junior heavyweight teams from their rivalry however, and during a tag match between Kanemoto/Gedo and Lyger/Tiger Mask a mis communication between Lyger and Tiger had upset Lyger and abruptly announced he was done with Tiger and all of them, and offered to form a team with Kanemoto. Without exaggeration, this was a real super team. To put a modern WWE spin on it, imagine if Triple H and John Cena put their animosity aside and began to team up.
They called themselves “The Unbeatables” and proved right out the gate how true that was. They didn’t just win their matches or beat their opponents, they wiped the floor with everyone they came across. It wasn’t only the Makai Club that NJPW had issue with. In August, the Pro Wrestling NOAH team of Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi had taken the IWGP Jr. Tag Titles from Lyger and Minoru Tanaka. New Japan had sent several teams to NOAH to reclaim them, and had failed each time. Masahiro Chono sent them to NOAH and told them that if they failed then NOAH would be able to keep the titles permanently. On 1/26/03 they entered NOAH and defeated Kanemaru and Kikuchi to reclaim the titles in an absolute must see match.
The titles around their waists didn’t deter them at all. They continued their winning ways. Successfully defending the titles against Heat (Minoru Tanaka under a mask) and Kanemoto’s old partner AKIRA, Kanemoto also defeated AKIRA in a great singles match. They turned back Heat and Tiger Mask in another much hyped match in the Tokyo Dome on 5/2/03. They also turned away outsider teams like NOAH’s Naomichi Marufuji and Kotaro Suzuki, and Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita. Despite being heels, they were quite popular, and became babyfaces when their teammates Gedo and Jado turned on them out of jealousy. Their title match with Gedo and Jado wound up being thrown out, but they got a measure of revenge when they were able to defeat Gedo and Katsushi Takemura in a title match. Their title reign came to end not by defeat, but by bad luck, when Kanemoto was injured in a match with Kazunari Murakami and they were forced to vacate them.
They were called “The Unbeatables” and in total they only lost three matches together in their year and a half as a team. They were upset in a non title match Heat and Tiger Mask, but had already turned them back countless times. They lost a special IWGP Tag Team Champions vs. IWGP Jr. Tag Team Champions match to Yutaka Yoshie and Hiroshi Tanahashi, who had them outsized and outweighed. And they lost what wound up being their farewell match, a challenge for the IWGP Jr. Tag titles to Gedo and Jado, which ended the same way that their team formed, Lyger joining the enemy. But not due to miscommunication, just simple betrayal.
Stuart James: The team of Jushin Liger and Koji Kanemoto is not as renowned to American fans as other teams in these lists, nor will they even be known by most readers here. However, their impact on Japanese tag team wrestling is like a longer-running, successful version of the Two Man Power Trip of Triple H and Stone Cold: two long term rivals teaming together to be the absolute best. And Liger and Kanemoto have been teaming together since late 2001, and Kanemoto hoped to learn from one of the greatest icons in Japanese wrestling, Jushin Thunder Liger.
Despite only having one IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title reign in early 2003 for New Japan Pro Wrestling, they held the titles for ten months, the fourth longest reign in history. However they are recognised, not for the amount of titles won, but rather for the quality of matches they could have against various different teams.
Their wrestling style of fast paced offence, quick mat wrestling and brilliant selling abilities allowed the two to bring out the best in opponents, making both teams look brilliant, no matter who won. While most people are aware of Liger’s style, Kanemoto’s wrestling style is not as well known, but it would often display great resilience, and this made for some wonderful tag team action, as Kanemoto would often sell his opponents moves, before hitting some stiff kicks and scientific wrestling – as Kanemoto developed a more shoot style than most others. The high flying of Liger, the shoot-style of Koji and the scientific prowess of both made sure they gelled perfectly, and this style of tag team wrestling may be seen more often today, but very few did it with quite the same intensity and timing as Liger and Kanemoto. Notable matches which display such tag team wrestling are the classic match with Tiger Mask and Heat; or a brilliant match with Ultimo Dragon and Masahiro Orihara.
Their influence on tag team wrestling in Japan will probably always be remembered by when they won their first and only titles, the IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag titles, bringing the titles back to New Japan Pro Wrestling from NOAH, and in doing so being dubbed “The Unbeatables”.
Due to this achievement, defeating Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi to return the tag titles to New Japan, their popularity sky rocketed, and they became a huge draw as a team for NJPW (since the two, especially Liger, were already fairly big draws in Japan), and would sell out various arenas all across Japan, as people hoped to see the style of wrestling they fell in love with. As a result, they were gifted with such a long title reign, which was unfortunately cut short when Kanemoto fractured a cheekbone. Nevertheless, they continued working together several years after their initial title run, coming back bigger and better than ever, despite their aging years.
Their time as a tag team together may be over, however their successes are not, as Koji Kanemoto is still widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in New Japan Pro Wrestling, whereas Jushin Thunder Liger is an undeniable legend, not only for Japanese wrestling, but for the entire wrestling world.
Larry Csonka: This is one of the teams on this list that people will say don’t belong here because they weren’t on American TV, or because they are Japanese talents and people aren’t familiar with them. Sorry to burst your bubble kids, but the facts are this. Unlike many of the other teams that will grace this list, Jushin Thunder Liger and Koji Kanemoto should really be considered a dream team. Both men are recognized more for their singles career accomplishments rather than for the numerous tag teams they formed over the years as Liger is a 5 time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, while Kanemoto has only held the titles 3 times. While their singles careers are adorned with many accomplishments and acclaims, Liger was the top of super juniors while Kanemoto viewed more as the second biggest star of the super juniors back in the 90’s. The thing that really separates them from the other dream teams, and the reason I feel that got them recognized is the way these two worked together and brought back some notice to NJPW after the upstart of NOAH and their roll of success as a drawing machine.
Back in 2002-2003 the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Titles were held hostage by NOAH superstars Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, who won the titles on August 29, 2002. The only men to bring back the titles on January 26, 2003 were the team of Liger and Kanemoto. And not only would they come together to win these titles, but they would find such success as a tag team, and the fans would come to love them so that they would earn them the nickname “The Unbeatables.” When people are calling you Unbeatable, you’re the shit.
They held onto the titles until Kanemoto suffered a fracture in his left cheekbone that would force them to vacate the titles later in the year on November 4th. Overall the team would successfully defend the titles 6 times as they battled an assortment of teams featuring AKIRA, Heat, Tiger Mack IV, Naomichi Marufuji, Kotaro Suzuki, Jado, Gedo, Ikuto Hidaka, Minoru Fujita, and Katsushi Takemura in competition for the titles, they would also be featured many other bouts including multiple 6 man tag team matches.
They were able to work the Junior Heavyweight styles of offense and selling to perfection, while also being able to hang with the big dogs with no one ever second guessing them. Lyger and Kanemoto ran hot for 18-months, only losing three times as a team. One of these losses was an IWGP Tag Team Champions vs. IWGP Jr. Tag Team Champions match against Yutaka Yoshie and Hiroshi Tanahashi. Lyger and Kanemoto were basically outsized, but their names and run together helped Tanahashi and Yoshie with a career win. They lost their final match as a team as they challenged Gedo and Jado, but it wasn’t that they lost to the better team, it was that Lyger was out for himself and joined the other side. The way most great tag teams end. Their time together may not have been that long, and they may not have had the title runs that others on the list have had, but their run was so hot in that short period of time that this dream team is truly one of the best tag teams of the 411 era.
Scott Rutherford: Two men, related in marriage and bonded by friendship. You could take away their time as a tag team and the success they had and still call them great wrestlers and champions. However, when you put them together in the ring they gelled so well it was a great shame they never really had a core of great teams to go against because of the dearth of talent in the WWE at the time but when you got them against a quality combo (think Austin/Michaels) it was quality all the way. Let’s see how they stack up….
Popularity: A heel team in their time together they certainly weren’t love but if you could measure hate…they were as hated as they come. You mixed the smarmy, arrogant Own who you hated with a passion with the lovable Davey Boy who you hated for being with Owen when you just wanted to cheer.
Draw: This is a tough one…they’re time as a team was punctuated with the WWE going through one the leanest times in their history. WCW was kicking them in the rating and no matter how good the product was the WWE just couldn’t capture an audience. Cue Steve Austin and his battles with the re-united Hart Foundation. As part of this angle they turned around the WWF’s fortunes and started drawing people back to the shows. While you could never really say that Davey & Owen were the draws they certainly added more than their share of spice to the product and set the platform for their successful singles runs during 1997.
Influence: This is even tougher…they never really teamed for that long even though they were together for a few years. If you had to pinpoint a lasting effect it would have been bringing back true teamwork to tag wrestling. The WWE was very much about teams that looked alike but didn’t really do much in the way of team stuff. With Davey & Owen you had two guys that had known each other for years, were related and great friends that brought that feeling into the ring. They complimented each other and would use one mans strength to cover the other weaknesses but really, there wasn’t much in the “weak” department to worry about. They’re styles just blended together so well and they could work with anyone and adapt. In Davey you had the power man who could match it with anyone in the strength department and in Owen you had the quick technician who could out-wrestle you in a heartbeat.
Title Runs:…went a long way to making the tag division interesting again. The WWE has certain hot moments in their tag ranks but never for long periods and you usually find the hot moments come off a team that can bring out the best in everyone they work with and Davey & Owen certainly did that. So it was an easy decision to have them have a lengthy run as champs as they beat everyone in their path and when they did drop the titles it was huge because people just hated them and was genuinely happy they lost. Great champions.
How Will They Be Remembered…: Very fondly and a twinge of regret that they didn’t have a longer run with better teams. It really isn’t hard to realize they were among the best because you had two legit good workers, they worked well to the crowd and worked to whatever team they were in the ring with and brought them up to their level. A true sign of a great tag team.
Steve Cook: 1996 was not exactly the best time period for tag teams in the WWF. You had teams like the Smokin’ Gunns, the Bodydonnas & the Goddwinns dominating the tag ranks. OK, so maybe there were some highlights there…the time Sunny got slopped by the Goddwinns was an important part of my young life, but there were also teams like the New Rockers, Fake Razor Ramon & Diesel, the Hardy Boys before they meant anything, and…yeah, that was about it. Oh, wait, there was one team worth a damn that formed in 1996. Davey Boy Smith turned heel in late 1995 and joined up with evil manager Jim Cornette, who happened to be managing one of Davey Boy’s brothers-in-law, Owen Hart. Now, Davey & Owen had some differences back in 1994, when Owen had turned against Bret & Davey had remained loyal to the rest of the Hart family and aligned himself with Bret. But eventually they found that they could be a pretty damn good tag team together, and that’s what they decided to do. They won the WWF tag team titles from the Smokin’ Gunns on September 22, 1996, and they continued to hold said titles for eight months, which seemed like an eternity when you were a young wrestling fan dying for somebody to beat them. Man, I hated these guys when I was twelve years old. How I wished that somebody would take the tag team titles off of them so I didn’t have to see them anymore. Ah, those were the days, when I would hate a tag team for reasons other than them just not being very interesting. I miss those days.
Of course, when you think “British Bulldog”, you think of Davey Boy Smith & the Dynamite Kid, and I would be remiss not to mention Tom Billington in this discussion. Smith & Billington formed one of the greatest tag teams of the 20th century, so it’s natural to think that anything Smith did after that would be a letdown. After all, the British Bulldogs were truly awesomeness personified. However, in Owen Hart the Bulldog had a tag team partner that could be compared to the Dynamite Kid. Owen wasn’t the high flyer that Dynamite was, but he didn’t need to be. He had a certain something about him that made the fans hate him. Together, they made the perfect combination of speed and power, the irresistible force and the immovable object. For eight months, they dominated the WWF tag team division. It took the super-team of Stone Cold Steve Austin & Shawn Michaels, two of the greatest wrestlers of all time, to defeat them. Owen & the Bulldog were despised heels in America, but they were beloved in their native countries of Canada & Great Britian, where the WWF drew huge crowds whenever they toured, in large part due to Owen, Bulldog & of course Bret.
The match with Owen & Bulldog losing to Austin & Michaels led to me drunkenly rambling on MSN to Boss Csonka about how great Owen & the Bulldog were. Like many of you, I often don’t think about tag teams from 1996-97. It’s kind of a lost era for the WWF, since WCW was getting better ratings, raiding the WWF of its talent, and stealing all the headlines. And by the time the WWF re-asserted their dominance in 1998, the Bulldog had gone to WCW with Bret Hart while Owen remained in the WWF due to a contract they didn’t wish to break. Owen Hart & the British Bulldog were like shooting stars…while their time with us may have been brief, they shone like none other while they were here.
Gavin Napier: It’s hard to put a finger on Owen Hart. Groundbreaking in his brief initial run as the Blue Blazer, overlooked as a member of High Energy and the New Foundation, the “little brother” to Bret that could never quite get over that upper midcard hump that the Hitman did no matter how good of a heel he was, to the “token white guy” in the Nation of Domination, Owen always seemed to be just on the cusp of something great. His untimely death pushed him into the wrestling version of Kurt Cobain, Brad Nowell, and Tupac – he became someone whose tragic death made him more historically significant than his career ever could have hoped to. And that’s so unfortunate that you can’t even put it into words.
Davey Boy Smith was a part of the WWF’s most innovative tag team of the 1980’s. The British Bulldogs broke the mold for tag team wrestling up to that point. While the Road Warriors ran roughshod over everything in sight in the AWA and NWA, the Bulldogs were just plain better than everyone they were in the ring with in the WWF at the time. Valentine and Beefcake? Good. Hart Foundation? Great. Islanders? Outstanding throwback team. But the Bulldogs? They were in rare air. They were the WWF’s Midnight Express. They were the cream of the crop. Davey Boy would go on to have outstanding singles success as an intercontinental champion, European champion, and have a main event run in WCW, but he would always be a Bulldog until his own unfortunate passing.
For a short time, though, Davey Boy and Owen came together and carved out a very unique place for themselves in the pantheon of tag team wrestling history. They are a totally unique entity as a tag team. No other team has ever been quite like these two. While teaming, they managed to feud over the European title. Their tag team title reign was the 9th longest of any team in WWF/E history, and was a result of nothing more than “two great tastes that taste great together.” Consider that both Owen and Davey Boy were highly successful singles wrestlers, both as heels and faces. Consider that Owen was linked to the Hart Foundation and Davey Boy to their arch rivals, the British Bulldogs. The closest occurrence to a team like Owen and Davey Boy anywhere else in wrestling history would be The Gangstanators, and I’m almost embarrassed to put them in this write up, the level of talent between the two teams is so far apart.
Owen and Bulldog managed to get in quality matches with the Smokin’ Gunns, the far past their prime Legion of Doom, Furnas and LaFon, and the mish mash team of Austin and Michaels. Knowing Hart and Smith, it should come as no surprise to anyone that they were able to get over as heels long before joining the heel superstable of the Hart Foundation in the late 1990’s. It should come as no surprise that they consistently turned in much better than average matches with opponents that weren’t nearly as talented. No, the things that surprise you about Owen and Davey Boy are the things they didn’t do.
They didn’t win a second WWF tag team title. Owen won four tag team titles with three partners. Only one of those was with the British Bulldog. They didn’t team for an exceptionally long period of time. Their entire run as a team lasted only a little more than a year. And they didn’t let egos get in the way of their team, which speaks volumes about each man as a professional and as a person in general. With two talents like Hart and Smith, either could have attempted to parlay the success of the team into another singles run.
The Hart family, in ways, reflects the Von Erich family. Suffering Owen and Davey Boy’s deaths along with close friends Brian Pillman and Chris Benoit, Bret’s stroke and the events surrounding Montreal, things have taken a decidedly tragic turn for them over the last decade. It’s unfortunate that Owen and Davey Boy will be remembered as much for their deaths as for their careers. Their time spent together as a tag team may have been the brightest spot for them both, which is a tremendous accomplishment for both men.
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