Ranking the US 80s Teams

[JerryvonKramer]

We got into this recently talking about The Fantastics. Chad said he'd rank them probably over all of the WWF teams of the era, with the possible exception of The Rockers.

 

Let's say youwere going to make a list of the Top 10 Tag Teams of the 1980s, how would you rank it? Can go 20 if you want, but 10 seems manageable.

 

Here is a list of teams to consider (categories are just as they came to mind, not instructive or exclusive):

 

NWA/ Territories

 

The Midnight Express (Condrey and Eaton)

The Midnight Express (Eaton and Lane)

The Original Midnight Express (Condrey and Randy Rose)

The Fabulous Freebirds (Hayes and Roberts)

The Fabulous Freebirds (Hayes and Gordy)

The Fabulous Freebirds (Gordy and Roberts)

The Fabulous Freebirds (Hayes and Jimmy Garvin)

The Rock 'n' Roll Express

The Fantastics

The Minnesota Wrecking Crew (Arn and Ole)

The Brainbusters (Arn and Tully)

The Sheepherders

The Road Warriors

Chavo and Hector Gurrrero

The Garvins (Ron and Jimmy)

Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed)

The Steiner Brothers

The Super Destroyers (aka Scott and Bill Irwin)

Chris Adams and Gino Hernandez

Tommy Rich and Eddie Gilbert ("Fargo's Fabulous Ones")

The Fabulous Ones (Stan Lane and Steve Keirn)

Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood

Wahoo McDaniel and Mark Youngblood-

Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle

The Russians (Ivan and Nikita Koloff)

Manny Fernandez and Rick Rude

The Varsity Club (Rotunda and Williams)

The Blade Runners (Sting and Warrior)

Sting and Lex Luger

Kevin and Kerry von Erich

The Zambuie Express (two big fat black dudes)

Ted DiBiase and Dr Death Steve Williams

Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee

Ray Stevens and Greg Valentine

America's Team (Dusty Rhodes and Magnum TA)

The Super Powers (Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff)

 

WWF

 

Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito

Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis

The Briscos

The Funks

The Hart Foundation

The Rockers

The Orient Express (Sato and Tanaka)

The British Bulldogs

The Islanders

The Fabulous Rogeous Brothers

The Killer Bees

The Powers of Pain

Demolition

Strike Force (Tito and Martel)

Rick Martel and Tony Garea

The Dream Team (Beefcake and Valentine)

The Collosal Connection (Haku and Andre)

Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff

The US Express (Rotunda and Windham)

The Mega Powers (Hogan and Savage)

The Twin Towers (Bossman and Akeem)

Power & Glory (Herc and Roma)

 

AWA

The High Flyers (Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell)

The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis and Jesse Ventura)

The Sheiks (Patera and Blackwell)

Buddy Rose and Doug Summers

The Destruction Crew (aka The Beverley Brothers)

The Pretty Young Things (Koko Ware and Norvell Austin)

 

That's a lot to chew on. I will have a think. I am genuinely interested to see how guys rank this. ONLY 80s runs should be considered. No point trrying to include, for example, Gene and Ole because they had a few matches in the early 80s or Patterson and Stevens because they had a few matchs in 1980. Likewise, stuff from the 90s including The Rockers vs. The Orient Express shouldn't be considered. 1980-1989 on US soil only.

 

Obviously it would be great if reasoning could be provided. The best case scenario would be a team-by-team analysis but we all have jobs to do and lives to lead.

[khawk20]

Badd Company did their thing in the AWA in 88-89, I'd include them. Ditto to the run of the Fabulous Ones (not just in the AWA, of course).

 

Memphis, all by itself has a lot of teams that deserve a ranking, I would imagine.

 

 

.. also wondering about the inclusion of Power and Glory, I have it in my head that they were a 90-91 entity and only scraped the back end of 1989, if anything. I could be wrong as the years tend to jumble sometimes.

[Loss]

I'll cross-post what I just put in the podcast thread, then come back to do rankings later:

 

The Fantastics are likely better than every tag team in WWF history. So are the Midnight Express, Rock & Roll Express, Chavo & Hector Guerrero and the Fabulous Ones.

 

I don't think there was a single great WWF tag team match in the entire 1980s. The WWF tag team division meant nothing to the success of the promotion, and I think most fans saw the teams as interchangeable. Were any teams (except *maybe* Demolition) more noticeably over than others? They were the equivalent of cruiserweights in late 90s WCW -- they existed in a separate bubble from the rest of the promotion and sometimes their matches got over, but it wasn't often that people truly cared about the performers themselves. They didn't touch main events like the Rock & Rolls, MX and Road Warriors did in Crockett. They are only remembered fondly because (1) there were so many of them and (2) most of them had matching outfits. How's that for absolute and contentious statements? Sorry if I feel strongly about this.

 

To further elaborate, to blame blowjob tag teams for backlash after a couple of years is not to understand wrestling fans in the 80s. It happened to every blowjob tag team at the time. Teams like that fared better in territories where they could work for 1-2 years, then go somewhere else and be fresh. The backlash was a result of the pretty boy image, where male fans eventually start booing wrestlers marketed to women because they saw them as threatening. It didn't happen in the WWF because at the time, the WWF didn't market itself to your average 20-something guy who would take his girlfriend to watch wrestling. The wrestling infrastructure collapsed that allowed blowjob teams to have a run and move on (and possibly return for a second run after absence made the heart grow fonder), and I don't think it's fair to blame the teams themselves for that, especially not the Fantastics when it even happened to the Rock & Rolls by 1987 in Crockett.

[Matt D]

You had tag champs anchoring B WWF House shows. I nominate John to look at that and attendance figures.

[JerryvonKramer]

Badd Company did their thing in the AWA in 88-89, I'd include them. Ditto to the run of the Fabulous Ones (not just in the AWA, of course).

 

Memphis, all by itself has a lot of teams that deserve a ranking, I would imagine.

 

 

.. also wondering about the inclusion of Power and Glory, I have it in my head that they were a 90-91 entity and only scraped the back end of 1989, if anything. I could be wrong as the years tend to jumble sometimes.

Thought they had their main run 89-90, but turns out they debuted July 90, so not valid for this thread.

 

I am interested to see if anyone will rank "outside bet" teams like The Russians who had a really good run if you think about it.

 

This is one of those instances where WWE dominance comes to the fore on the wide-world internet, as a cursory google search reveals 100s of lists topped by Demolition with one or two NWA teams thrown in to make it look like they know what they are talking about. No offense to anyone affiliated with it, but this is probably my least favourite site on the internet and its terrible for shit like that.

[Loss]

Just so it's clear where I'm coming from, Ricky Morton headlined NWA World title matches against Ric Flair and was involved in some of the most memorable angles a national promotion did during that timeframe. But he wasn't a star on the level of Jim Neidhart, to pull someone randomly, because Neidhart had the bigger stage. The WWF was a more successful promotion than the NWA, so that's a gimme. So if we're looking at overall stardom, the WWF teams win out. If we're looking at relative importance to the promotion and ring work, that's where I think WWF tag teams suffer.

[soup23]

Dammit didn't see this thread either:

 

 

I will need to rewatch both the Fans stuff from Midsouth and Texas and the Rockers from the AWA to decide for sure but I may have the Rockers slighly ahead of them. After the RNR, MX, Tully and Arn, maybe the Fabs, and maybe the Rockers though I would slot the Fantastics for tag teams of the 80's. I say this to as someone that has not seen the High Flyers stuff.

[ohtani's jacket]

The WWF tag teams were over as performers. Just about every person on the roster was over as a performer. The old adage that "everybody is somebody's favourite" has never been truer than when it comes to WWF tag teams. I don't know if there was a great WWF tag match during the 80s or not. I've heard good things about the Briscos/Murdoch & Adonis handheld and I quite like the match where The Dream Team win the titles from The US Express. I also don't know that it's fair to say that because Ricky Morton wrestled Flair for the title that the WWF tag teams weren't important. Did Morton wrestle Flair out of necessity (challengers) or because he was super over? Why would Vince have run Hogan/Michaels? The roster would have had to have been a lot smaller for that match-up to headline anything.

[Matt D]

Part of me feels like this note is a dastardly JvK trap for me, so I am keeping a cautious distance.

[Loss]

I also don't know that it's fair to say that because Ricky Morton wrestled Flair for the title that the WWF tag teams weren't important. Did Morton wrestle Flair out of necessity (challengers) or because he was super over? Why would Vince have run Hogan/Michaels? The roster would have had to have been a lot smaller for that match-up to headline anything.

Morton was very over. Check out the crowd reaction to some of those early angles. Flair also drew 15,000 when Road Warrior Hawk challenged him on the Great American Bash tour in Philly. Vince didn't need to run Hogan/Michaels. Both were babyfaces. Bret vs Savage is really the closest a tag team wrestler got to interacting with the top singles stars in the era, and that only happened one time. The point was that the NWA treated their tag teams as stars on the same level as their singles performers, where in the WWF, they were an isolated division. I'm not saying it's not without its own set of flaws, but I am saying that the NWA would have suffered more from the loss of the Road Warriors or Rock & Roll Express than the WWF would have from the loss of the Hart Foundation or British Bulldogs.

[Matt D]

I also don't know that it's fair to say that because Ricky Morton wrestled Flair for the title that the WWF tag teams weren't important. Did Morton wrestle Flair out of necessity (challengers) or because he was super over? Why would Vince have run Hogan/Michaels? The roster would have had to have been a lot smaller for that match-up to headline anything.

Morton was very over. Check out the crowd reaction to some of those early angles. Flair also drew 15,000 when Road Warrior Hawk challenged him on the Great American Bash tour in Philly. Vince didn't need to run Hogan/Michaels. Both were babyfaces. Bret vs Savage is really the closest a tag team wrestler got to interacting with the top singles stars in the era, and that only happened one time. The point was that the NWA treated their tag teams as stars on the same level as their singles performers, where in the WWF, they were an isolated division. I'm not saying it's not without its own set of flaws, but I am saying that the NWA would have suffered more from the loss of the Road Warriors or Rock & Roll Express than the WWF would have from the loss of the Hart Foundation or British Bulldogs.

 

There are some examples.

 

Hogan and Savage had the Twin Towers angle. Hart wasn't just involved with Savage in a match but also in the angle where they helped Honky to set up the Mega Powers in the first place. Hogan+Demolition+Jake was a pretty high level Survivor Series team. But yeah, in general, it was just not the way WWF operated. They booked long term programs in very stultified ways.

 

On the other hand, I actually think that by running multiple tours, the top tag teams might have been more important. I'd love for someone better at it to run the numbers, but I think the Bulldogs were draws. I think US Express was a draw. Or Demolition. Or the Harts. How often did they helm B and C shows? How did those shows do. Those are my questions.

[JerryvonKramer]

Should be mentioned too that the angle where Morton got his nose broken by the Horsemen WAS quite a big deal for Crockett and it did put Morton over pretty big, so he was arguably "super over" in that time.

 

Loss is absolutely right also that the NWA used to main event shows with tag matches quite a lot, not Hogan and Savage vs. Andre and DiBiase type matches, but matches featuring the Midnights, Rock n Rollers, Arn and Tully, the Road Warriors or even The Russians.

 

I think the tag division was a bigger deal in Crockett than it was in WWF. If you had to pin point biggest drawing acts for the promotion in any given year, for WWF after Hogan you are typically looking at singles guys either in the main event picture or in the IC division. THEN at the tag teams.

 

In Crockett, the US title is almost on par with the World title at times, there's a much bigger sense of the US title guy being someone who is going to go on to face Flair at some point. The tag titles were a massive deal and you get matches like The Midnights vs. Flair and Windham which put over the idea that the best tag team COULD beat the best two singles stars. Now imagine The Hart Foundation or Arn and Tully taking on Hogan and Warrior.

 

In WWF, the IC title didn't have that feel. The IC division had IC guys in it, typically smaller more technical guys: Bret and Perfect felt self-contained on that level in 90-91. The tag division was also a self-contained entity and was typically your number 4 or even number 5 feud in the promotion*. There was also much less cross pollination, which is why it feels so extraordinary for certain unlikely combinations to square off in the Royal Rumble. Partly this is to do with roster size (WWF maintained a roster of 60+ guys, Crockett more like 30), partly it is to do with booking philosophy.

 

And Matt D - no trap, buddy. Whichever measuring stick you want to you, rank the teams. That's all.

 

* To verify this. Pick a year (90) and typically there's your main event feud (#1 Hogan / Warrior), an upper-mid card feud given a lot of air time, sometimes there are two of these (#2 Jake / DiBiase, #3 Dusty / Savage), the IC title feud (null and void because Warrior was IC champ, we'll say one of the other feuds replaces that) and THEN your tag feud (#4 Demolition / Colossal Connection).

 

Go down any WWF card from that time frame and you can pick those feuds out. The situation with NWA/ WCW was not the same.

[shoe]

Doesn't this belong more under the microscope section of the board?

[Loss]

Well, it's not so much about one specific tag team, so we can keep it here.

[shoe]

OK

[Dylan Waco]

On the other hand, I actually think that by running multiple tours, the top tag teams might have been more important. I'd love for someone better at it to run the numbers, but I think the Bulldogs were draws. I think US Express was a draw. Or Demolition. Or the Harts. How often did they helm B and C shows? How did those shows do. Those are my questions.

There really isn't anything to it. The information is out there and easy to get. The trick with 80's WWF tag teams is analyzing it in the context of a promotion where everything was over.

[thebrainfollower]

Fascinating discussion. I grew up on 80's WWF and I would agree 100% that tag teams were never treated as important in the WWF as in JCP sure. Those house shows in 1990 main evented by Harts-Demos in the summer of 90 bombed (whether that's their fault or a side effect of Hogan being out and Warrior as champ I'm not so sure) but I don't feel comfortable ranking tag teams in importance at the time since my JCP, AWA, WCCW, Mid South etc viewing is after the fact. Instead I'm going to use a strange criteria. After finding matches to add to my collection and watching them once how often have I gone back and rewatched said matches with tag teams? As an experiment, I actually made a list of every movie, tv show, wrestling match and show I watched in 2012 as the year went along so this isn't that hard to do.

 

BTW I don't think the Orient Express wrestled in the 80's in the WWF at all, or if they did it was 1-2 TV squashes to introduce them. The first major match I remember them having is vs. Demolition at the pre WM VI MSG show in Feb.

 

The Brainbusters

The Midnight Express - Condrey and Eaton

The Rockers

The Hart Foundation

The British Bulldogs

The Midnight Express - Eaton and Lane

The Rock and Roll Express

The Road Warriors

Ted Dibiase and Dr. Death Steve Williams

The Rougeau Brothers

 

The Minnesota Wrecking Crew and the Islanders just missed the list.

 

The only obvious biases I see in this list is that my collection of competitive pre Dusty JCP matches is pretty low and the AWA tends to help me fall asleep. And the only PYT match I have is them against the Fabs on Wrestling Gold so I am in no way qualified to comment on them as workers. I would say in general I need to be better at wanting to rewatch pre 84 US stuff.

 

BTW off topic but is there a proper place to introduce yourself on this forum? I got in today and feel weird not at least doing so somewhere.

[tomk]

On the other hand, I actually think that by running multiple tours, the top tag teams might have been more important. I'd love for someone better at it to run the numbers, but I think the Bulldogs were draws. I think US Express was a draw. Or Demolition. Or the Harts. How often did they helm B and C shows? How did those shows do. Those are my questions.

There really isn't anything to it. The information is out there and easy to get. The trick with 80's WWF tag teams is analyzing it in the context of a promotion where everything was over.

 

 

Maan, I was going to WWF house shows in both the Cap/Us Arena in Landover as well as the Baltimore Arena in the 80s, and the idea that the WWF was a promotion where everything is over doesn't feel the least bit accurate. Vince may claim that all of his wrestler's where "WWF superstars" but that's not the way the shows were booked. I remember going to a show in Baltimore (about a month before the combined AWA/NWA fed tried to break into the market) where yes I was really enthusiastic about the work in the Scott Mcgee v Tiger Chung Lee match, but we may have been the only people enthusiastic about that match. For everyone else, Hogan was over and Jyd was over---the rest of the card was a good time to buy Hogan merch. I think one of the points from Krisz's "Vince v the World" thread was the WWF wasn't a fed where everything was over, people came to see Hogan.

 

They were the equivalent of cruiserweights in late 90s WCW -- they existed in a separate bubble from the rest of the promotion and sometimes their matches got over, but it wasn't often that people truly cared about the performers themselves.

I think this is slightly overstating things, in that the WCW cruiserweight division was horribly booked. WWF tag division was somewhere between the WCW cruiser division and Jimmy Valiant v Paul Jones Army well booked midcard feud.

 

The WWF tag titles regularly changed hands in Allentown, PA which is essentially a TV studio match ( while the IC or world title change would take place in MSG).

 

Meanwhile JCP is headlining its shows with the Steamboat/Youngblood v Slaughter/Kernoodle feud.The Final Conflict card in Greensboro main evented by Steamboat/Youngblood v Slaughter/Kernoodle drew record attendance supposedly caused traffic jams and layed the inspiration for Starcade supercard.

 

The difference between a title that changes hands in TV studio matches and one that changes hands as main event of a supercard is huge.

[Childs]

I thought the Bulldogs were really over during their initial rise to win the tag titles. Their matches don't hold up very well, but when I'd go to house shows, they seemed like bigger stars than the Killer Bees, the Hart Foundation, etc.

 

I completely agree that tag wrestling was more emphasized, both as a draw and as a craft, in Crockett, AWA and most of the territories.

 

But it's amazing that, crappy as it usually was, '80s WWF tag wrestling was so much more emphasized than WWE tag wrestling is now. At least the teams had real identities and mid-card feuds that were a notable part of the product. Bryan and Kane are probably as over as any WWE tag act in awhile and yet, do we have any expectation that they'll be a team in six months? (Not that I want them to be, given Bryan's greatness as a singles wrestler.)

 

Overall, I'd say Vince's disdain for tag wrestling has been bad for the art.

[Matt D]

Well there's the story that London and Kendrick tell. About how they got to visit Titan Towers with Snitsky and they're walking with Shane McMahon who's super happy to see Gene, and as they walk by the LOD photo on the wall, Shane looks to them and goes "this is the last time tag team wrestling mattered to me." or something like that.

[JerryvonKramer]

The Brainbusters

The Midnight Express - Condrey and Eaton

The Rockers

The Hart Foundation

The British Bulldogs

The Midnight Express - Eaton and Lane

The Rock and Roll Express

The Road Warriors

Ted Dibiase and Dr. Death Steve Williams

The Rougeau Brothers

 

The Minnesota Wrecking Crew and the Islanders just missed the list.

Are these in order Brain? Do you have any reasoning behind why you've ranked them this way?

 

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my list.

 

I think Arn and Tully are a LOCK for number 1, with probably the Midnight Express in as #2. But beyond that it starts getting more difficult.

 

Obviously the Rock 'n' Roll Express have lots of great matches and Morton is brilliant, but when I look at a card and see a Rock 'n' Rolls match on it, I'm not as excited to see it as I am if it's Arn / Tully or the Midnights. And I probably *am* excited to see it if there's a Fantastics match on there.

 

So I'm torn on who is getting #3.

 

There's also one team I've got a feeling I'm going to like a lot from the AWA stuff: Doug Summers and Buddy Rose. They sound really good from what I've heard. And my list at this stage would be on the priviso I've not seen them at all.

 

After #4 it starts getting even more difficult. There are more marginal cases from the NWA and all the WWF big guns. Need to deliberate a bit more.

[Dylan Waco]

On the other hand, I actually think that by running multiple tours, the top tag teams might have been more important. I'd love for someone better at it to run the numbers, but I think the Bulldogs were draws. I think US Express was a draw. Or Demolition. Or the Harts. How often did they helm B and C shows? How did those shows do. Those are my questions.

There really isn't anything to it. The information is out there and easy to get. The trick with 80's WWF tag teams is analyzing it in the context of a promotion where everything was over.

 

 

Maan, I was going to WWF house shows in both the Cap/Us Arena in Landover as well as the Baltimore Arena in the 80s, and the idea that the WWF was a promotion where everything is over doesn't feel the least bit accurate. Vince may claim that all of his wrestler's where "WWF superstars" but that's not the way the shows were booked. I remember going to a show in Baltimore (about a month before the combined AWA/NWA fed tried to break into the market) where yes I was really enthusiastic about the work in the Scott Mcgee v Tiger Chung Lee match, but we may have been the only people enthusiastic about that match. For everyone else, Hogan was over and Jyd was over---the rest of the card was a good time to buy Hogan merch. I think one of the points from Krisz's "Vince v the World" thread was the WWF wasn't a fed where everything was over, people came to see Hogan.

 

 

 

Everything is over is probably a stretch. Saying people came solely to see Hogan is definitely a stretch. Of course Hogan was the guy that drove the brand, the rising tide that lifted all boats, et. But in the early days especially you can point to other feuds that were positioned to draw and did draw. Andre and friends v. Patera/Studd was a solid drawing card. So was Valentine v. Tito and they were often put on the same shows. In the case of Detroit they were red hot, sold out for the first time in years there and effectively opened up that market. Hogan wasn't even on the show.

 

The big difference is that I don't think the Hart Foundation were positioned as drawing cards or drawing attractions as often as the Midnights or Rock N Roll's or The High Flyers. I don't know that any analysis of results could possibly change my mind on that.

[JerryvonKramer]

Marginal NWA teams:

 

The Minnesota Wrecking Crew (Arn and Ole) - Arn was actually quite green when he was in team (not that you'd know it) and Ole was more of an asskicker than a technician, but they worked a classic style and have some great matches (e.g. vs. Rock 'n' Roll Express, Starrcade 86). If you want to look at total package, I think Ole was one of the all-time great talkers who brought a genuine sense of legitimacy to things, Arn was Arn.

 

Chavo and Hector Gurrrero - from what I've seen these are are really hit and miss. Could be great in one match and nothing in the next. I get the impression Chavo was a much bigger star than Hector, but could be wrong on that. I don't know if they ever had a sustained great run in one promotion.

 

Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle - the Final Conflict was a great match and I watched quite a bit of the build ("The Road to Greensboro", most of it on youtube now) for that show too. Unfortunately, for the majority of that, we typically get Kernolde tagging with Private Nelson (aka Boris Zhukov), but any time it is Slaughter / Kernodle vs. Steamboat / Youngblood the match is pretty good and there's quite a cool match vs. Nelson and Mike Rotunda where they kick the shit out of Nelson. Could be a dark horse pick to include.

 

The Russians (Ivan and Nikita Koloff) - this is going to sound stupid, but Ivan was the Ricky Morton of this team and he'd bump his ass off every single match in extended heel-in-peril segments which had the effect of putting Nikita over huge as a monster heel. I think these are one of the more unappreciated teams of the era, they had a nice longish run with the world tag titles. If they were a WWF team absolutely more people would talk about them, and I don't know that they are *obviously* worse than the big WWF teams. I'd pick them over Demolition!

[tomk]

Hey it actually was Hogan v a tag team champ and I could swear it was Tonga Kid and not King Tonga, or at least Tonga kid was signing autographs.

 

WWF @ Baltimore, MD - Arena - January 5, 1986 (13,000)

Pedro Morales defeated Moondog Spot

Jose Luis Rivera defeated Rene Goulet

Hercules defeated Lanny Poffo

Scott McGhee fought Tiger Chung Lee to a draw

WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated WWF Tag Team Champion Brutus Beefcake

The Junkyard Dog defeated Greg Valentine via count-out

Cpl. Kirchner & King Tonga fought Nikolai Volkoff & the Iron Sheik to a no contest

JCP / AWA @ Baltimore, MD - Civic Center - February 20, 1986 (13,000+)

Scott Hall defeated Boris Zhukov

Tully Blanchard defeated Jimmy Valiant

Nick Bockwinkel fought Larry Zbyszko to a no contest

NWA US Champion Magnum TA defeated Baron Von Raschke

NWA Tag Team Champions Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey defeated Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson

Sgt. Slaughter defeated AWA World Champion Stan Hansen via disqualification

NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated NWA National Heavyweight Champion Dusty Rhodes via disqualification

The Road Warriors defeated Ivan & Nikita Koloff in a steel cage match

If you were to ask which was the show where everything was over...the answer wouldn't be the WWF one.

 

As an aside, while prowrestlingonly is a place where Luger gets more credit than most other places. My sense is that the Tully/Luger team is pretty universally praised. Surprised not on Jerry's list.

[thebrainfollower]

Thanks for the response JerryvonKramer. Yup those are in order for me. Here's my reasoning.

 

 

1 - I just think Arn and Tully were the greatest tag team of all time. All their JCP stuff is gold and when I'm thinking about watching a WWF 80's house show, a major factor will be if there's a good tag match on it. Now if there's a good Arn-Tully match (and there aren't that many WWF house shows available with them on it) I'm in for sure.

 

2 - I finally got my hands on most of their early Mid South run and I am loving it. Mr. Wrestling II is not one of my favorite people at all and the fact that I'm loving that feud was a major reason for me to boost them up. I honestly prefer version 1 simply because a lot of Stan Lane's offense sort of jars to me with the character of the team.

 

Why I put the Rockers at 3 is simply because almost all of their WWF stuff is fun to watch. Their POP match is a lost classic in how to make monsters look like world beaters, their matches with the Rougeaus are fun (there's one where they use the fans to help them do subtle heel stuff and drive the R's absolutely insane that drives me to laughter every time I see it), their few matches with the Harts are amazing, heck the Twin Towers match is a great power vs speed story. I honestly can't think of a single Rockers match I've seen from their WWF run I haven't enjoyed and the fact that that doesn't even include their best feud (Rose, Sommers) makes it an easy call to put them at #3.

 

Harts are sort of harder to explain. As a kid Bret Hart was one of my favorites even back in 86 when I first started. I legit don't know why, I was seven years old, what did I know but I really liked the guy. I'm not gonna sit here and claim Jim Neidhart was anything more than an adequate worker on his best day and yet I don't feel Bret carried him exactly. The Harts had a lot of great fun matches and its very rare for their WWF house show stuff not to be the 1st or 2nd best match of the night (I've got about 50 or so Hart Foundation house show matches in my collection)

 

Bulldogs are great but their period of greatness was small due to injury and plus this list was for US stuff so I excluded all their Japanese matches. At the end they really were a shell sadly.

 

I'm not as sold on the Rock and Rolls. A lot of their great matches I think its the opposition that does it for me. When they are in against say the Koloff's I'm just not as interested. I'm with you Parv on podcasts in that I don't see what the heck Robert Gibson really brings to the show. I would place him about with the Anvil in quality and I think Bret Hart was the better worker to Ricky Morton.

 

The Road Warriors are that high on the list not for their work but for their impact. Looking at that epic Vince vs. the World thread I get the sense that if Hawk and Animal had signed with Vince in January 0f 84 with Hogan it's game over, RIP NWA and welcome to a monopoly in 84 rather than 2001. Seriously how often do see tag teams that double the house the same way Hogan did in that era? For that reason alone they belong on the list.

 

Ted Dibiase and Doctor Death and the Rougeau's are more personal favorite picks. The Rougeaus particularly always hold up their end and do some really funny comedy bits when called for (check out the aforementioned Rockers stuff or a great test of strength shoulderblock challenge bit from a Harts match to see what I mean)

 

As far as WCCW teams go, I really cannot stand the Freebirds or the Von Erichs and don't think their stuff holds up well. But that's a personal opinion for what I want to watch rather than a general view on quality.