5 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2017

Downs...

9. Tag Champs Not The Story

gallows anderson
WWE.com

Are Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson just placeholders for the Raw Tag Team Championships?

After Sunday’s PPV, it was impossible to not get the feeling that the champs were the afterthoughts, and the story was Enzo Amore & Big Cass losing rather than Gallows & Anderson winning. It just didn’t feel like the champs winning was the story here, but that the challengers came up short.

It’s a tough thing to quantify, so as a separate aside, it is noticeable how the champs aren’t really being built up (aside from the reminders that they held the IWGP tag titles three times). Consider that in the lead-up to Fastlane, Gallows & Anderson served as punching bags for Roman Reigns in handicap matches in back-to-back weeks.

That’s not exactly a way to build up your title-holders. And winning a title match by knocking a foot off the ropes isn’t exactly making the duo look dominant either. The tag division needs a strong championship team after New Day was dethroned, and we’re just not getting it right now.

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Contributor

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.