Give WWE some credit: The company set out to focus on and strengthen its tag team division, and theyve done a nice job of creating credible teams during the past year or so. The Wyatt Family, Rhodes Brothers, Real Americans, Rybaxel and Los Matadores (depending on whether you want to count masked Colons as a new team) all got their start in 2013, while The Shield began decimating the opposition in late 2012. This is a huge improvement from a few years ago, when WWE seemingly forgot that Primo and Epico were Tag Team champs, and there werent any viable teams to compete against them. Still, when a WrestleMania four-way elimination tag match features two glorified jobber teams, its telling that the division isnt as deep as youd believe. The Shield and Wyatts seem to have moved beyond the tag ranks and compete as a stable against other groups. With the Real Americans breaking up, the list of existing tag teams vying for the titles consists mainly of 4-5 pairs. There are plenty of wrestlers on the roster who arent doing anything of note who could benefit from at least being given something to do. At the very least, putting a few of these guys together and competing on the B-shows would give them a purpose and a chance to showcase their talents instead of being relegated to jobber status. Look at the New Age Outlaws. They werent doing much of note before they were stuck together. Here are a few pairings that could prove interesting and provide a spark for both themselves and tag team wrestling in general.
Honorable Mention: Zach Ryder And Curt Hawkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCWlDCE1pkc It seems like a lifetime ago that Hawkins and Ryder were portraying Edgeheads, serving as backup for the Rated-R Superstar. They also were Tag Team champs for a couple months. That was nearly six years ago. Since then, Ryder has gone on to become an internet sensation and win the U.S. Championship and get pushed in a wheelchair off the Raw stage by Kane, kicked in the groin by Eve and shuttled down the card faster than a skydiver without a parachute. Hawkins teamed with Vance Archer and Tyler Reks for a while, and he served as The Rocks sparring partner in the lead-up to WrestleMania 28. Oh, and he was the Funkasaurus first victim. More on him in a moment. Reforming a former championship team might work well for these two. Theyre clearly not going anywhere as singles wrestlers, so why not team them back up? They run into each other backstage, maybe after another Ryder loss, and they decide theyre tired of losing alone and see if they can recapture past glory.
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.
