8 Times WWE Tag Team Partners Fought Each Other

It seems like a logical, moneymaking storyline: A successful tag team, at the end of their run, begin to fall apart at the seams, before inevitably imploding and then feuding with one another. After all, they can always get back together and reform their team at a later date if need be. No harm done.

Despite how foolproof this scenario seems to be on paper (it really isn't that hard to do), it doesn't always come off well in practise. Sometimes the whole thing falls flat because fans simply don't want to see the former partners face off with one another or, in other cases, the team weren't sufficiently over enough to do the whole split/feud thing in the first place.

On rare occasions, tag team partners will wrestle one another without actually splitting. This could be because a title is at stake or some other plot device is at play. At the end of it, though, they will keep tagging in pursuit of doubles glory. Looking back at recent WWE history, I've chosen eight times established tag team partners fought with one another, why they happened and what the results were.

I'm talking here about 'proper' tag teams, mind you, not some thrown-together pairs. Hardys, Rockers, Guerreros - that kind of thing. Hence why you won't see legendary World Tag Team Champions John Cena and Shawn Michaels and the ilk on this list (they were going to fight anyway, they just happened to be the tag champs).

And now...

The unlikely duo of Rob Van Dam and Kane were, along with the even unlikelier duo of Booker T and Goldust, one of the highlights of Raw in the early 2000s. From late 2002 to mid-2003, Kane and Rob Van Dam went out there and entertained whether it was against Chris Jericho and Christian, Scott Steiner and Test or a greener than Kermit the Frog's a** La Resistance.

Their kooky dynamic worked and they established themselves as one of Raw's best teams. However, when WWE decided to reboot Kane as a monster heel, RVD had to go. Furthermore, he had to be sacrificed to The Big Red Machine as a way of getting him over.

In the wake of his unmasking at the hands of Triple H on the June 23 2003 episode, Kane went a little bit crazy and attacked his tag team partner - although, let's face it, he got off light when you consider what happened to Eric Bischoff, Linda McMahon and Jim Ross - chokeslammed off the stage, Tombstoned on the stage and set on fire, respectively.

Defending his honour, dude, RVD squared off against Kane in a No DQ match at SummerSlam. Regrettably, the overly-long contest was a bit of a stinker and the two men displayed a fraction of the chemistry they had as a tag team as opponents. Kane won the match following a Tombstone piledriver on the steel stairs.

The two men continued to face off in the weeks and months that followed, notably clashing in a cage match on Raw and main eventing several Raw brand house shows, as the memory of their once-fun alliance dimmed.