The Acolytes, or Acolytes Protection Agency (APA) are not the most decorated team on this list. However, what they are is the toughest team in wrestling history. Before they became, beer drinking, poker playing, cigar smoking mercenaries for hire, former WCW champion Ron Simmons (Faarooq) and then future WWE Champion John Bradshaw Layfield (Bradshaw) were struggling in the mid card of WWE. In 1998 the duo decided to team up joining the Undertaker's Ministry of Darkness and teamed consistently until 2004. They won their first WWE Tag Team Championship in 1999 from X-Pac and Kane. They later won titles from the Hardy Boyz and the Dudleys and managed to be the favourites of a star studded tag division. Between winning titles the APA were paid to protect other superstars like the Mean Street Posse and the Hollys further legitimizing them as mercenaries for hire. Additionally during this boom period the APA were the team that new teams had to go through to prove they were WWE worthy. Just ask the Public Enemy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFLuGQrC48M From the years 1998 - 2002 inclusive, during WWE's hottest era, the APA represented something special. Two powerful, imposing, dominant wrestlers who could handle opponents one on one, but also as a team. Bradshaw's Clothesline from Hell and Faarooq's Dominator represent two of the more impressive power finishers of all time, and their offense consisting of Powerbombs, big boots and stiff forearms demonstrated a physical dominance that has not ever been replicated. Simply put when the APA were in the ring, win or lose, it was hard to imagine anyone getting the best of them physically, and that's why they are the toughest tag team of all time.
