10 WWE Tag-Teams That United A Face And Heel

In the first brand split, Raw was a place for soap-opera drama that was dominated by a single dominant champion, whilst SmackDown was a place for great wrestling and fantastic story-telling. Whereas nowadays... oh.

Following the first brand split in 2002, SmackDown needed some tag team championships. To crown the first ever WWE Tag Team Champions (the other titles at the time were the World Tag Team Championships), a tournament was set up, pitting some of the best wrestlers on the blue brand against one another.

One of these pairings was the unlikely combination of Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit. I saw “unlikely”, because the two men absolutely hated teaming with one another.

Face Benoit and heel Angle had been feuding with one another before this tournament started, but were thrown together by SmackDown GM, Stephanie McMahon, for this tag team title tournament.

Despite their constant bickering, Angle and Benoit manage to co-exist, defeating Billy Kidman and John Cena (boy, 2002 was weird) and Los Guerreros to advance to the tournament finals, where they defeated Edge and Rey Mysterio to capture the first ever WWE Tag Team Championships.

A great storyline that ended in one of the best matches of 2002, Angle and Benoit’s plotline was a great moment in WWE’s tag team history. It’s just a shame that WWE will never celebrate it.