8 Worst WWE Tag Champs Of Brand Extension Era

5. Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder (Raw)

The Miz Shane McMahon
WWE.com

When your tag champs are acknowledged as long-suffering jobbers who only recently got over losing every match, you’re not going to inspire fan confidence in those champions.

Witness Curt Hawkins, who had lost more than 200 straight matches at the time that he and fellow perennial loser Zack Ryder reunited in early 2019. The former Edgeheads continued to stagnate as WrestleMania 35 drew near, but with the show taking place in New York (with both men claiming Long Island as home), you felt like WWE magic was in the air.

Sure enough, Ryder & Hawkins defeated the Revival to win the Raw tag titles on the Mania kickoff show, a legit nice moment for the two that also ended Hawkins’ losing streak.

But then, the duo all but disappeared from television. Despite being the new tag champs, they only defended the titles the following night on Raw before fading away until June, when they resurfaced to drop the straps back to the Revival on Raw.

So if you’re keeping score, that’s a pre-show title victory, one defense, a multi-week absence, followed by losing the titles on Raw. Just a horrific run for these two.

Contributor
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.