12 Ups And 15 Downs For WWE In 2017 (2nd Opinion)

5. The Bar Dominates Tag Division

Raw The Bar Sheamus Cesaro
WWE

Just like the Usos and New Day took SmackDown by storm in 2017, the same could be said about Cesaro & Sheamus, a makeshift tag team that defied this writer’s pessimism and opened and closed the year holding the Raw Tag Team Championship.

The duo was thrown together after a hard-hitting but lackluster best-of-seven tournament for a vague title shot ended in a tie. It felt like a groan-inducing excuse to marginalize two wrestlers who weren’t making the main event scene, but both men turned that pairing into a true success story.

Sheamus and Cesaro grew to cooperate and even like each other, then started wearing matching outfits and unveiling tandem offense. By the end of the year, few could doubt that they were one of the top tag teams in WWE.

It’s not often in today’s WWE that you see wrestlers shoehorned into a gimmick and not only get themselves over, but also get support from management. But we saw it with our own eyes with The Bar.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.