8 Reasons Why WWE's Tag Team Divisions Are Failing
Tag wrestling isn't dead, but it has rarely felt this unimportant.
WWE don't have the best track record when it comes to niche divisions.
Their longstanding problems with booking lighter weight classes and women's wrestling are well-documented, and while the Women's Revolution has turned things around for the latter in recent years, 205 Live is one of the most skippable shows WWE have ever produced.
Tag team wrestling has been in a similar malaise for well over a decade now. The scene has been in decline since Edge & Christian, The Hardyz, and Dudley Boyz dazzled audiences at the end of the Attitude Era. Countless voices have declared tag wrestling "dead" over the years. With a few exceptions, WWE's tag teams haven't been treated with the same level of respect the company's singles acts in over 15 years, and today, things are as bad as ever.
This shouldn't be the case with talent like The New Day, Sheamus & Cesaro and American Alpha at WWE's disposal, but Raw and SmackDown's tag divisions are deeply underwhelming. The belts have rarely felt as worthless as they do today, and the writers' lack of regard for the divisions is reflected in the fans' apathy.
It's not all doom and gloom, but tag wrestling in WWE still leaves a lot to be desired...
8. The New Day's Predictability
The New Day are WWE’s most popular group, but their act started losing steam many months ago. The group’s lengthy WWE Tag Team Title reign had become a joyless march towards beating Demolition’s long-standing record by Autumn, which had a negative impact on the division as a whole.
The trio have always been entertaining, but their purpose veered away from putting-on entertaining storylines, and became entirely about being champions just for the sake of it. It’s likely that WWE only decided to have The New Day break Demolition’s record as both Ax and Smash just happen to be suing the company at the moment. Petty in the extreme, but that’s WWE for you.
The last few months of The New Day’s reign held the division up in a big way. Forced to wrestle the same teams over and over again, the group effectively buried all of their competition, particularly Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows. Moreover, their booking became increasingly repetitive, their matches were predictable, and it was more of a relief than a celebration when they eventually snapped the record.
Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods have been driftwood since losing the gold, too. They’ll act as WrestleMania 33’s hosts, but they have nothing else on their plate at the moment, and there’s seemingly nowhere for them to go after achieving their only goal in December.