10 Bad Habits WWE Must Kick In 2019

5. Making An Absolute Mockery Of Tag Team Wrestling

Andre The Giant HBO Vince McMahon
WWE.com

Vince McMahon is about the only person alive tangentially associated with wrestling that hates tag teams. It’s all informed by ruthless capitalism—why pay four guys main event money?—and rendered baffling by the disgusting surplus of cash in the coffers.

How could you hate tag team wrestling, for Christ’s sake? Tag team wrestling is amazing. The pace is rocket-fuelled, the drama doubled, the false finishes ring more true because gruelling punishment isn’t kicked out of, it’s broken up, and the genre breeds creativity. The genre literally multiplies creativity: it’s no coincidence that the New Day continue to excel after so many years (three, but that’s a lifetime in this era).

People really like tag team wrestling. People have mourned its death in WWE for years and years.

At some point, WWE must address these concerns. The rules of narrative dictate that there must be something in WWE being this bad, with actual, viable competition looming so closely on the horizon. What’s inspiring—or infuriating, depending on your perspective—is that main roster tag team wrestling was awesome in 2017. This isn’t fantasy booking; booking satisfactory tag team wrestling should, to use a British idiom, be a piece of piss. In WWE, it is.

It is actual piss.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!