Dylan Waco

A few quick things: I'll try and review a few Hart Foundation matches next to a few RnR matches at some point in the next couple of days. Also should note that I like all the matches you listed Jerry - I just don't think any are classics. I also agree with Loss that there were plenty of GOOD WWF tag matches, but rarely more than that. Really not sure what my U.S. top ten is. I'd have to think about it. After the top four or so there are a lot of teams I could see in the discussion. I am sure PG-13, Arn and Tully and the Fantastics would also be in my top ten, but beyond them, both versions of the MX, the RnRs and The Rockers I am not sure who else would hit my list.

I'd fight for The Rockers over The Fantastics. They were better. I also wouldn't rate the Birds nearly as high as you have them. I think the fact that you can't point to ANY classics involving WWF tag teams is really the point. If someone who is pretty clearly a big fan of the WWF from the 80's can't come up with ANY classics involving those teams what does that say? It's no secret that I am Southern and think Southern tag wrestling is far better than WWF tag wrestling. It's also not a secret that I'm not as high on 80's WWF as I am on 80's Crockett or Mid-South or Memphis. But I wouldn't call myself anti-WWF. For example I am much higher on 80s Hogan than the vast, vast majority of smarks. I'll get into the particulars on those tag teams with my next post.

So you don't think that a team like the Harts or the Rougeaus could have been plugged into the Southern Style and been successful? They certainly would ahve had a lot more time to develop an understanding of how to work that style, and probably had much more creative control as to how to execute it. Conversely, would the MX or the R&R have looked as good being forced to wrestle in the WWF during the Harts/Rougeaus era? Do I think the Hart Foundation and the Rougeaus would have had better matches if they had been in Crockett? Yes. Do I think there is any evidence to believe they were as good as the Midnights or the RnR's? Absolutely not Why is that? They had all the elements and produced good to great work in what you would call a very limiting environment. I don't agree with this. I don't think either team had all the elements and there really aren't that many good matches I can recall from other team, let alone great matches.

So you don't think that a team like the Harts or the Rougeaus could have been plugged into the Southern Style and been successful? They certainly would ahve had a lot more time to develop an understanding of how to work that style, and probably had much more creative control as to how to execute it. Conversely, would the MX or the R&R have looked as good being forced to wrestle in the WWF during the Harts/Rougeaus era? Do I think the Hart Foundation and the Rougeaus would have had better matches if they had been in Crockett? Yes. Do I think there is any evidence to believe they were as good as the Midnights or the RnR's? Absolutely not

The WWF teams aren't as highly regarded because they weren't as good. I know that sounds like a troll but it's not. It's true in my estimation. They don't have the quality matches the Southern teams have. The mechanics aren't as good. The overall atmosphere of the matches isn't as good. There is NOTHING in the WWF tag style that I think is as good as what you got in the Southern tag style. Also I really think the RnR's not making it years after their prime in the MNW era is an unbelievably weak point. People forget by the time SMW closed down Morton had split from the promotion (he was brought back for the very last shows), so it's not even like they were really a tag team unit full time at that point in the first place on top of the other points that have already been made about why that is largely irrelevant.

I agree with your overall point in that post and I think Candido was really awesome in SMW but just want to note that he was one of the more disappointing guys on the ECW rewatch I did. Certainly not bad, but with all the stuff I watched I figured there would be a lot of Candido gems. There weren't. But I'll expand on that more in a coming thread I've got in the works.

Loss covered several of the things I would have said to Jerry very well, but a few other things. 1. The idea that the RnR's were not good on the stick is comical. Granted Gibson was usually just "there" but Morton was excellent on the stic. Excellent at getting over angles. Excellent at conveying real emotion. Excellent at getting the crowd fired up. I don't know that there is ANY babyface of his type in the history of wrestling who was better on the mic than Morton. Certainly Anvil and Bret weren't in his league in that regard. 2. I'm not buying the suggestion that the RnR's had anything less than very good offense, nor the suggestion that 80 percent of their matches was Ricky getting his ass kicked. Were there long heat segments in their matches with Ricky selling and was that a primary trait of their matches? Yes and I will come back to that. But the RnR's were excellent with face shine segments and there face shine segments were often times several minutes long. You'll excuse me if I find it hard to believe that anyone would seriously argue that Anvil's chinlocks or even Bret's best stuff was more "high end" or even interesting than the RnR's best stuff. The RnR's also adapted over time with Morton adding shit like a nice rana and a moonsault press among other things. They were masters of misdirection double team spots (seriously there "heel tries to fight off sunset flip and gets bulldogged by the other partner" spot is really great EVERY time), kept the matches moving along WAY better than the HF (who's matches had a tendency to grind to a halt), et. Also the Gibson leglock ruled and is better than the sharpshooter 3. Loss touched on this but I find the general criticism of tag team structure and formula to be bizarre. Wrestling is all about formula. That is what ring psych ultimately rests on. Mind you I am not talking about spot for spot repetition, but there are themes that are consistent and work for a reason. I firmly believe you can not have a high end tag match without quality selling and building heat through a serious of hope spots/cutoff spots. The only exceptions I would grant would be out of control brawls (see Doom v. Arn/Barry from Starcade) and even there when the traditional structure is employed the matches are almost always better. If you are not interested in quality matches and the quality of ring work then we are arguing on different metrics, though as Loss pointed out those metrics would strongly favor the RnR EVEN MORE and can be born out with actual facts (gate receipts, paid attendance). 4. I can see how someone would like the defined roles of the Hart Foundation, but i don't think either of their roles was as strongly played as Morton's, nor do I think their roles were a big part of their matches at all. 5. Again Loss touched on this but in terms of success the RnR were CLEARLY the better team. Harts are fondly remembered because they are a Golden Age WWF tag team that included one of the guys that went on to be the biggest stars in the history of the company. They were NEVER business movers or headliners the way the RnR's were. Even SMW RnR's have a bigger claim than the HF as they were the biggest draws/anchors of the last succesful regional promotion in the U.S. that at points was outdrawing the national promotion based out of the same region in the midst of the biggest decline in the wrestling business of the modern era. In other words past their prime RnR's (who in truth were still awfully good - in fact SMW era RnR's destroys the Hart Foundation in terms of body of work) were still draws in a very depressed market. Hell the RnR v. Midnights reunion shows were some of the top drawing indie shows of the last decade as well. Pointing to the failure of the RnR's to become huge stars in the Ntiro Era as a sign that they were less successful than the HF can't even be treated as a serious point in my view.

Hopefully we don't get a "The Rockers have been discovered thanks the to AWA set" vibe. The Rockers are awesome on the strenghts of their WWF career and the few usual suspect AWA match already. Huh? I love The Rockers and have always regarded them as the best tag team in WWF history which I have said here and elsewhere many times. Still there top level AWA stuff is pretty easily better than their top level WWF stuff. Even the Orient Express match - which I love - would not have been a top five AWA Rockers match in my view. Anyway I don't think anyone is going to claim that The Rockers were "discovered" by the AWA, but I think it will showcase them in a slightly different light than what you get out of their better WWF maches and will add a lot of depth to their case for being an all time great tag team.

Lots of it in the AWA

A couple of things. First I'm not sure I should be lumped in the "rates Demolition" group. I mean I do think they were a good team, but I'm not even sure they would be one of my fifty favorite U.S. teams of all time. I don't mean that as a troll of Matt or Vic either and I give them a lot of credit for actually watching so much stuff and writing it up. Secondly I was going to write up a big thing on the RnR's and why I think they are so great but before I do that I would like to see why Jerry prefers a team like the Hart Foundation. What matches do they have that you would rate so highly? What do they do better than the RnR's (or just generally what do they do so well)? I'm not trying to evade here, just understand. Finally The Rockers were fucking awesome. When we get to the AWA Set people are going to be blown away by them. I think they already have 11 matches nominated for the set. Of those 11, 7 are stone cold locks, and at least 2 others have a very good shot. Of those 7 I would say every one of them is probably in my personal top fifty up to this point, with five of them being serious top fifteen contenders. All of this and I haven't even gotten to watching the full tv seasons yet. Those Rose/Somers tags are all time tag team classics, with both teams being on point from bell to bell.

Ill respond to jerry regarding the rnr issue in greater detail when i get home, but i wanted to note that i dont even think the hart foundation was a better heel team then they were. Seriously heel robert gibson in the uswa v. Smw feud stuff opposite pg 13is better heeling both in motion, tactics, mannerisms, et then anything i can recall ever coming from bret and the anvil. Honestly watching smw i could almost be convinced to leapfrog the rnr over the midnights. Also loss, the dudz had some very good traditional tags. Its just that it was bubba and spike and not bubba and dvon. Well there is the pg 13 match...

Actually the biggest Demo pimp in this thread wasn't even a Demo fan as a kid. Just saying. Just watched the PG-13 v. Crowbar/Flair and 3 Count matches and man they were fun little tv matches. JC celebrating his "win" in the Crowbar/Flair match was great stuff.

On the subject of Joshi I absolutely believe we should include Joshi and would encourage Rob and others to make the case for certain teams. I even said earlier that LCO going from my memory is a team I would consider strongly as being "better" than PG-13. The problem is I just have no interest in going back and watching a ton of Joshi. It is a style that DOES not age well for me. Someone like Ozaki who I used to love is almost tedious for me to watch. I still really like Aja, Kansai, Kudo and last I watched Jaguar but again it has been YEARS.

Oh I agree that USWA was a good local for them. Really USWA, SMW and ECW were all good places for them and ALL would have been better than WCW/WWF. Hell I think the four best U.S. tag teams of all the 90's all came from those territories. In no particular order they would be PG-13, Rock N Roll Express, FBI (Smothers/Guido) and Heavenly Bodies. Then there was Spike Dudley who was the Marty Jannetty of his era(except more varied than Jannetty to be honest and I love Marty), constantly looking great in makeshift tags that got runs of varying lengths.

Also to Cox's point, I think in some respects PG-13 had an advantage working smaller time and in some ways they didn't. Ignoring for a second the fact that I don't think The Armstrongs are anywhere near as good on paper as PG-13 on paper or otherwise, I do think quality teams like them got lost in the WCW basement. To be fair some of that is being re explored nowadays and we may find some gems. But that obviously doesn't help a teams rep right this second. I also think PG-13 was better off working v. teams like The Thugz and the RnR's in 95 than they would against the Godwins or Harlem Heat in WWF or WCW. On the other hand if they had wrestled in either of those promotions for a long time we would have a much bigger body of footage to draw from and that is ultimately the biggest detriment to PG-13's case/status as a top level team

SLL covered the B-movie comment and why I don't think that fits, but three other things: 1. I agree that the basics have been forgotten by many, but I don't know that we would agree about where that problem manifests itself. To me modern WWE is extremely sound fundamentally. But it's not JUST that. It's that the average WWE match now is better than the average WWF match ever was in the past by a massive margin. Conversely the storylines/angles are infinitely worse now and the market has been so oversatured that it is rare to find a match that really transcends anymore even when the in ring work itself is as good or better than anything from a previous era. In other words I don't think the problem is what goes on between the bells, but rather what goes on before and after and how that effects the way we look at what happens once the bell rings. 2. You never said what you are looking for. You said you want to be emotionally engaged, but what does that mean? To me wrestling is essentially all about fundamentals because the fundamentals are the bedrock on which psychology is built. If you don't have psych you probably aren't going to have a good match. There has been an accusation for years now that some of us are overly obsessed with "role playing" and "structure" and things of that ilk but really that's just because those are the things that some of us thing good wrestling is built on. I think the innovation fetishist are really the group that has decided on expecting less as they seem to dismiss any and everything that is not fresh, offensive explosive, or something of that ilk. Interestingly enough PG-13 was both fundamentally excellent AND innovative so they bridge the gap here. Another reason they are great. 3. I hate the "box ticking exercise" type comments because they always seem to pop up when someone has the gaul to actually defend an opinion. Amazingly there are some people on wrestling message boards who are averse to the actual discussion of wrestling and just want these forums to be a place where received wisdom from the wrestling gods is transmitted and celebrated by a bunch of nodding heads and "yeps." When someone dares offer up a opinion that is not seen as suitably uniform they are accused of being contrarian, trying to be cool(?), et. When they are challenged they provide examples of things they liked from wrestlers and matches and then get accused of "watching matches through a microscope," "ticking boxes," et. It's a lose-lose. Not saying this is what you are trying to do here Jerry (in fact I don't think it is), but it's something I've seen come up time and time over the years. I'll take these: 1. I'll have to take your word for that. I'm going mainly on hearsay. In shoots, the oldtimers always rip on the current product for its lack of basic psychology and basics; a common criticism is that they do too much. The only match I've watched on Raw in the past 3 years was a random Ziggler match and he seemed to be going about 200 miles per hour. I thought he was pretty intense to be honest. 2. I am not saying the fundamentals are not important, of course they are. My argument was simply that if "playing a role" and maintaining structure are the only criteria then a lot of guys are going to be considered "great" by that criteria. That doesn't mean that the match is going to engage me emotionally. Let's move away from the Demos. I'll give you an example: I could go on youtube now and look up 5 or 6 matches from Col. Mustafa's JTTS run in 1992. All of those matches were pretty much the same, same length, same spots, same result (Sheik jobs) The structure of that standard TV Mustafa job match is perfectly coherent. The face comes out to a pop, gets in some early offense, Mustafa does something to turn the tide, gutwrench suplex, pin attempt, kick out, face comeback, finisher, 1, 2, 3. Done. At the same time, Mustafa is playing his role perfectly well. So why don't any of these matches rise above mediocrity? As I've argued many times: you need so much more. Angles, intensity, charisma, the illusion that the contest means something, the illusion that the competitors want to kill each other, the crowd being into it, and so on and so forth. You can argue that all of those things are ultimately the result of "fundamentals", but I'm not convinced they are. How else do "bad" wrestlers get over? And why wasn't Terry Taylor a massive star? If I had to make an analogy to the world of literary criticism and theory, the approach you are advocating is "structuralist": ostensibly it's a commitment to uncovering the underlying structures of things and studying their effects, but it's also more than that, it's a bottom-line belief statement that all things are simply the product of these structural effects. I can't help but feel that misses something essential about why we all love wrestling, in the same way it misses something essential about why people love great works of literature. I suspect if I was forced to find the thing that I'm "looking for", it's probably some degree of verisimilitude in the performances, i.e. I want to believe the thing I'm seeing in front of me is real (or at least suspend my disbelief) and, failing that, I want to be entertained. From either perspective, Ax and Smash beating down someone with double-team forearm smashes isn't doing it. It's obviously not "real" and it's not really entertaining. My ideal approach to rating matches and workers would take into account not only fundamentals and the appreciation of structure, but also some of the experience of watching it, let's call that for brevity's sake "content". When you compare Demolition to, say, Eaton and Condrey, on the fundamentals they probably aren't a million miles apart, but on the intangibles it's almost no comparison. If you read a match structurally, Condrey doing a dick heel spot is reduced to just one spot in the overall structure of a match. If you take into account the content as well, Condrey's dick heel spot becomes something else: something that made you laugh or something that made the crowd hot, or whatever. A purely structural reading of one match looks like this: this spot, that spot, another spot, that spot again, this spot, finish Want to see another one: spot, spot, spot, spot, spot, finish Match A was good because they did all those spots and did the finish just like they were supposed to. Match B was also good because they did all those spots and did the finish, just like they were supposed to. You take it experientially and maybe match A was something that had you on the edge of your seat and match B sent you to sleep. They were both perfect fundamentally and structurally, everyone played their roles well, but the point is match A was awesome and match B sucked. Why? Because the crowd was hot for match A, the performers had a ton of charisma, they were believable and, @#!*% , there were a lot of cool suplexes! Also, the commentary was awesome. Why did Match B suck? Well, despite the fact that everyone did their job, and even tough the seemed crowd really into it, it was pretty boring. For most of the time it was two men doing this fake looking double-team forearm spot. Also, Superstar Billy Graham was on commentary and he said "brother" at least 32 times. 3. I wasn't trying to do that, and in fact, it seems like the reverse situation: it's pretty much me who has been accused of being contrarian, because my view is in the minority here. Most of this is me trying to defend my dislike of Demolition. Only El-P has been on "my side" of that debate as far as I can see. The only reason I mentioned "box ticking" is because I was trying to articulate the above: you've got to take in more than structure or wrestling becomes a cold, rather joyless academic exercise of spotting the spots and joining the dots in between them. I've seen what this sort of thing can lead to in the study of literature -- why not check out Roman Jakobsen's structural readings of Shakespeare's sonnets next time you're in a library? Want to see? Here he is discussing Sonnet 129, I've included the poem for reference. I Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, II Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated as a swallowed bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; III Mad in pursuit and in possession so, Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. IV All this the world knows, yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this @#!*% . Stunning insights I'm sure you'll agree. Now I've read many of your comments on the 80s sets over on DVDR and I don't for a second think that anyone actually treats matches in this coldly (and pointlessly) analytical way, but it is the logical conclusion of what you are arguing for. My point is, if you were to ask someone "Well why do you like Sonnet 129?" and their answer was "well, the first rhyme juxtaposes two nouns ..." you'd probably wonder what planet they were from. Even though they are describing the "fundamentals" of what Shakespeare has done. I think poetry, and by exactly the same token, wrestling, are much more than that. I'm not a structuralist in literature or in wrestling and frankly don't see how ANYTHING I have said in this thread would lead you or anyone else to that conclusion. An appreciation for fundamentals is not a sign that one is reducing things to the lowest level. Again most of the time when fundamentals are praised it is because someone else will demand to know what it is that makes us "contrarian" folk dare to think a team like PG-13 might be top twenty, Chris Masters might be an excellent worker, et. We give particulars and note both the fundamental skills AND the areas where they excel but folks fixiate on the "playing the role" stuff for reasons I'll never understand. The fact that playing roles is ultimately what wrestling is all about and why guys like Savage, Flair, et are considered all time greats makes it even more puzzling to me but whatever. I've largely given up on trying to argue with innovation fetishist and I am increasingly less interesting in arguing with the "received wisdom of wrestling Gods" crowd as well. I'd rather just talk about what I like and why.

You could make a case for Eddie at 3. I would lean toward The Rock at 3 just because he had the star power equal too or greater than the other two guys and while his run was short he was a very good in ring performer and obviously a god on the mic. Foley is probably another name you would have to consider, though I think Eddie probably has a stronger case.

With their attitude problems and size who was going to give them a solid mid-card role in the mid-90's? Hell can you name ANY team of comparable size that got a mid-card role in either of the major promotions during the 90's? I'm not saying one doesn't exist but I'll be god damned if I can think of one. Even a makeshift team like Rey/Kidman were easily bigger physically (and easier to work with backstage). Scott and Steve Armstrong were extremely well connected and if anything had LESS prominent roles during a comparable period (and cumulatively and singularly they were both clearly bigger). Forget for a second whether or not they would have been territory carrying stars - does anyone REALLY think there wouldn't have been far more chances and opportunities for them if they were a. 40 lbs heavier and 3 inches taller a piece or b. the same pair of guys working in Southern territories in the 80's? Realistically I don't think ANY national promotion would have ever booked them high up the card due to their size, but I could have seen them working out reasonably well in 1990 WCW. Would a Southern Boys like run there really help there case that much? They were already stars of the richest, deepest and most tag centric territories of the era they worked (namely TN indies). I don't see how being bit players in the big leagues really bolsters their case or hurts it given the overall context. Not sure about the more general question regarding top 20's and success. I may come back to that later.

I know the Steiners still have their fans, but do that many people really go to bat for the Bulldogs and HF as "best ever" type teams anymore? I honestly don't know. I've certainly never seen anything that even borders on being a compelling case for either team. In fact I think the Smothers/Guido FBI was better than both of those teams by a fair margin

SLL covered the B-movie comment and why I don't think that fits, but three other things: 1. I agree that the basics have been forgotten by many, but I don't know that we would agree about where that problem manifests itself. To me modern WWE is extremely sound fundamentally. But it's not JUST that. It's that the average WWE match now is better than the average WWF match ever was in the past by a massive margin. Conversely the storylines/angles are infinitely worse now and the market has been so oversatured that it is rare to find a match that really transcends anymore even when the in ring work itself is as good or better than anything from a previous era. In other words I don't think the problem is what goes on between the bells, but rather what goes on before and after and how that effects the way we look at what happens once the bell rings. 2. You never said what you are looking for. You said you want to be emotionally engaged, but what does that mean? To me wrestling is essentially all about fundamentals because the fundamentals are the bedrock on which psychology is built. If you don't have psych you probably aren't going to have a good match. There has been an accusation for years now that some of us are overly obsessed with "role playing" and "structure" and things of that ilk but really that's just because those are the things that some of us thing good wrestling is built on. I think the innovation fetishist are really the group that has decided on expecting less as they seem to dismiss any and everything that is not fresh, offensive explosive, or something of that ilk. Interestingly enough PG-13 was both fundamentally excellent AND innovative so they bridge the gap here. Another reason they are great. 3. I hate the "box ticking exercise" type comments because they always seem to pop up when someone has the gaul to actually defend an opinion. Amazingly there are some people on wrestling message boards who are averse to the actual discussion of wrestling and just want these forums to be a place where received wisdom from the wrestling gods is transmitted and celebrated by a bunch of nodding heads and "yeps." When someone dares offer up a opinion that is not seen as suitably uniform they are accused of being contrarian, trying to be cool(?), et. When they are challenged they provide examples of things they liked from wrestlers and matches and then get accused of "watching matches through a microscope," "ticking boxes," et. It's a lose-lose. Not saying this is what you are trying to do here Jerry (in fact I don't think it is), but it's something I've seen come up time and time over the years.

I don't see how the points I've made about PG-13's relative lack of success can be dismissed casually as "excuses." At this point I don't think anyone would deny that: a. wrestling is NOT a meritocracy. politics, who you are friends with and who you are enemies with matter at MINIMUM as much as talent does. arguably more. b. During the time PG-13 came around there was very little room for "little" guys on the national level especially in prominent roles. There really never was but during the territorial era it would not have been near the detriment that it was post-WWF expansion. It is also worth noting that PG-13 were extremely small, even by the standards of small wrestlers. c. By the time PG-13 came around tag team wrestling was low priority and no tag team was "headlining ppv" outside of makeshift units and teams made up of individual stars (see, Outsiders). The most identifiable tag teams from their peak era (93-97) were teams like Harlem Heat, The Steiners and the Nasty Boys none of whom were main eventers in any meaningful sense of the term. All of those things are points that I think are basically inarguable realities of the pro wrestling World. All of those are realities that pretty clearly would have - and I would argue did - work against PG-13. Factor in their notoriously bad attitudes and if anything it is shocking that they EVER were in the big leagues no matter how short the respective runs. You can't compare the backstage antics of the Steiners, Bulldogs, and Roadies to PG-13 because PG-13 had no political allies, did not have the big bodies/roided physiques of those teams and were not born out of the same era as those teams. In point of fact the most tag team centric promotions in the U.S. during their peak were the USWA and SMW - they worked in both places (though SMW was a short stop as a part of a bigger feud), were succesful in both places and in the case of the USWA/Memphis were always kept around/brought back despite their insane behavior. So in the micro they did get away with their bullshit - it's just that their bullshit combined with the altered reality of the wrestling landscape was NOT going to afford them the same chances/opportunities as teams like the Bulldogs or Roadies got. On the particulars of the match v. match list with the Japanese teams I find that kind of debate almost totally uninteresting because it ignores body of work and I don't really see where I have used that to pimp PG-13 in my thread. Individual matches v. individual matches can be a piece of the puzzle but not the whole. Whether or not their are U.S. tag matches equal to or better to matches on your list (and I think there clearly are) is not terribly interesting to me in and of itself one way or the other.

This is SOOOO true. Growing up in the South the redneck/wannabe fusion culture of the mid-90's was really prevalent and those two really nailed it. Especially Dundee.

Of the teams you mentioned I really think only The Elims and RVD/Sabu were teams with the same amount of big spots/varied double teams/et as the Steiners. I love the FBI in all it's incarnations and think Smothers/Guido is one of the great forgotten teams of all time, but I don't know that double team offense is something that was a huge, huge strength of theres. The BWO had exactly one nifty spot I can think of - the teased Meanie dive, leading to Meanie holding the ropes for the Nova plunge. That's it. Dudz had a great double team finish and one or two fun offense tag spots, but nothing on the level of the Steiners

Expanding briefly on the Steiners v. PG-13 comp, but another reason I would lean strongly toward PG-13 in a head to head is that PG-13 is one of a very small number of tag teams in history that are on the Steiner's level offensively. That will seem like heresy to some given some of the Steiners more emphasis spots and big moments and believe me I love them. The fucking crossbody/devestation device combo at WW91 and Knobbs getting spiked on the Frankensteiner are two of my favorite "holy shit!" spots ever. Having said that the Steiners are almost entirely an offensive team. No one watches the Steiners for any other reason. On top of that MOST of their best spots are spots each guy individual does - usually Scott. I like the DDT/Bulldog double team variations but that was not the offensive identity of the team. PG-13 I think almost definitely had better and more varied double team spots, whether it be the double plancha, the misdirection clothesline, one guy using other as wheelbarrow for a legdrop, et. But even in the individual spots they were awfully good and unique. Seriously, Wolfie's rana into a face first turnbuckle smash is one of the most unknown "that was awesome!" spots of the 90s. Anyhow my point is that even in the ONE area that defines the Steiners and has historically made them recognizable as a great team, you could make a case without much of a stretch that PG-13 were their equal

I agree with all of that. Combine this with the fact that they really got rolling right as tag wrestling died in the U.S. and I think it is pretty clear why they didn't get a bigger break/didn't pan out in the bigs. Too small? check Bad attitudes/crazy behavior? check Lack of well placed political allies/friends? check Death of the emphasis on tag wrestling across the board? check It's hard to say "they would have been huge stars in 80's" because of the fact that their gimmick itself was a spoof of 90's cultural quirk. But I think those two guys tagging as a unit in the South would have been far more succesful in the 80s