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When did the Tag Titles nose dive for you?


El-P

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Inspired by the IC title, and rewachting RAWs from 96, I thought we could ask ourselves the same question about the tag titles, which were a big deal until the early 90's. In 96, The Godwinns were fighting the Body Donnas on free PPV pre-shows. I know some will talk about how the Hardys, E&C and the Dudleys gave credibility back to the division, but to me the ship had sailed as early as 1994, probably when they switched the titles to babyfaces Head Shrinkers (never figured why) then to Micheals & Diesel who never defended the titles and then didn't do a job to lose them (how surprising). When they did the teag team tournament in 95, it didn't felt that important anymore, especially when the winners (Holly & Kid) would lose the titles after one day.

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I'm on the 94 boat too.

One thing I was thinking of the other day that's tangential is what the top 10 teams to never win the WWF/WWE tag titles were, at least from a kayfabe perspective.

 

I've got Rockers, Rougeaus, Powers of Pain, Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown, Test and Albert, Rhodes Scholars, maybe some combo of IRS/Bigelow/Tatanka.

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The Killer Bees would be on my tier 2 with MVP/Henry. You had the feeling that the Rockers, Rogs, and PoP had moments when they should have won it or could have (SNME with the ropes breaking, if the Brain Busters hadn't come in, and during the Fuji turn, respectively). I never had that feeling with the Bees.

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Powers of Pain should have had a run with the belts

 

I also wouldn't have complained about Power & Glory getting them for a bit

 

The Rockers are the obv one where it's kind of incredible they never got the titles. Around 90-91 they would have been super over as the underdog champs against some of the monster tag teams that were around

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I think when the Steiners left in 1994 I knew the division would be in trouble. I'd go with your point that the ship had sailed in early 1994, which links in to the time line as to when the Steiners left.

 

To me the exact moment was WM10. Instead of running the Quebecers vs the Steiners, which was what would have made sense, they gave the match to MOM and the match was a complete throwaway, while the Steiners were buried in a ten men tag which didn't even happened.

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The Bushwackers. There's no point in the lineage where they should have gotten the belts, they were always best off as a JTTS team. But how many runs with the belts would they have gotten if they were around at the same time as the Bashams or La Resistance?

 

The Raw tag title scene of late 2003-2005 with various incarnations of Regal, Helms, Christian and partners is probably my answer.

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I think when the Steiners left in 1994 I knew the division would be in trouble. I'd go with your point that the ship had sailed in early 1994, which links in to the time line as to when the Steiners left.

 

To me the exact moment was WM10. Instead of running the Quebecers vs the Steiners, which was what would have made sense, they gave the match to MOM and the match was a complete throwaway, while the Steiners were buried in a ten men tag which didn't even happened.

 

 

I thought the Steiners weren't even in the ten-man. I thought that was the Smoking Gunns.

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What's crazy is everyone is saying '94, but in January of 94, WWF had this crazy awesome tag division that consisted of the 1-2-3 KId/Marty Jannetty (they should have lasted way longer), The Quebecers, The Hart Brothers, The Steiner Brothers and the Headshrinkers. There were at least 5 good to great tag team matches out of that division in that one month. Then fucking Men on a Misson came. Diesel/HBK not defending it also sucked the lifeblood out of the division.

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I think in the mid 90s the talent really wasn't there to sustain a strong tag division. The roster was weak all over. At least at that point they still tried to give teams their own identity. So, I think that's a viable answer, but I personally look at the period after the brand split as when the belts really became meaningless. You look at some of the teams who were holding and competing for the belts during this time, and ti was basically just a parade of thrown-together jobbers, or newcomers who weren't over yet.

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This may be a controversial position -- and sorry to Kelly and Marty for this -- but it is my considered view that the WWF Tag Titles have been shitty for the entirey of their existence. The tag scene in 70s WWF is just utterly shocking and this continues right through to 85.

 

So from Luke Graham and Tarzan Tyler in 1971 to The Dream Team in 1985, the tag titles are just SHIT

 

I think the era from 85-91 is overly romanticised by many fans and the tag title picture doesn't get that much more interesting during that time. Most people would probably peg the "nose dive" from that Natural Disasters / Money Inc period, but let's be honest, the tag titles were never treated as that big a deal in WWF.

 

So my answer is "never", because you need to be at a fairly reasonable height to "nose dive" and WWF tag titles started out shit, went to "okayish for a while" and then back to the baseline of shit.

 

It's not a tag company. Never has been. Never will be.

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Despite Parv's disdain, I will continue to plug away with WWF tag teams, now on TWO podcasts - Titans of Wrestling, reviewing the admittedly lackluster early- 80s scene AND the brand new Tag Teams Back Again, with Marty Sleeze, currently analyzing the mid-80s scene! Was WWF tag team wrestling always crappy? Did they experience a Golden Age in the late-80s? Is Tony Garea's hair magnificent or merely just awesome? Follow PTBN to find out!

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Pretty much.

 

85-91 is more an aberration than the norm. Tag wrestling was incredibly hot, and I always chalked it up more to the WWF giving it a go.

 

Is that time period in general a kind of golden age for self contained teams?

 

Usually tag teams don't get as much focus historically, so I'm not really sure. But I think there is something unique about US tag wrestling at the time.

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