20 Obscure WWE Tag Teams You Totally Don't Remember
Curt Hawkins & D'Lo Brown have much to answer for...
WWE might not always treat their current divisions with the greatest respect, but tag team wrestling has always been an important part of the business. From the great teams of the '70s and '80s like the Rock & Roll Express & Road Warriors, to Attitude Era highlights like Edge & Christian, The Dudleyz, and Hardy Boyz, the sport has produced dozens of tandems who are just as historically important as their singles counterparts, and in some cases, even more so.
Some of the best wrestlers in the world started as tag workers. The Hart Foundation and Rockers, for example, gave perfect platforms for Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels to launch their era-defining singles runs. Would they have achieved such levels without their old teams? Possibly, but there's no guarantee.
Unfortunately, WWE haven't always treated tag team wrestling with the importance it deserves, particularly in the past couple of decades. There have been times when the scene has been dominated by lazy, half-baked combinations of wrestlers who had no real reason to join forces. Some of these teams, like Paul London & Brian Kendrick, forged decent runs together, but most fell by the wayside, and dragged tag wrestling's reputation down with them.
WWE's negligence has seen them produce swathes of completely forgettable tag teams over the years, and from ill-conceived imitations to unseasoned rookies, WWE's tag graveyard is rich in variety.
Here are 20 obscure WWE tag teams you totally don't remember.
20. Curt Hawkins & Tyler Reks
Long before he was strutting through the halls of SmackDown forcing opponents to "face the facts," Curt Hawkins had carved-out a middling career as a low-level tag team worker. He and Zack Ryder started life as ECW's "Major Brothers" in 2007, but reverted to their current monikers shortly afterwards. Their greatest successes came after aligning with Edge, and the duo enjoyed a brief WWE Tag Team Championship run in 2008.
That's about as good as it got for Hawkins' tag work, and his next team, the ill-conceived Gatecrashers, lasted just a few months in 2010. Hawkins' last tag run came alongside the oft-forgotten Tyler Reks, who'd found himself equally directionless following the 2011 Supplemental Draft. The duo connected on Superstars before eventually moving to NXT, where they became the show's resident troublemakers, and a regular thorn in host Matt Striker's side.
Reks and Hawkins drifted between brands for the rest of their run, but they never made much progress up the card. August 2012 saw them embark on a considerable losing streak before adopting a ridiculous stripper gimmick, but Reks retired from wrestling just four days after debuting the new characters, and Hawkins was released the following Spring.