This week will mark the 50th anniversary of the tag team championships in the WWE. Since 1971 these titles have been a staple of WWE programming.
In the ’80s and early ’90s, the tag team straps provided some of the most entertaining television that the WWE had to offer. Teams like the British Bulldogs, Rockers, Hart Foundation, and Demolition tore the house down every night. Their work was amazing to the point that the tag team division became one of the greatest selling points of the company.
As we moved from the early ’90s to the late ’90s and beyond the tag team division that was once the pride of the WWE became a laughing stock. Gone were the best tag teams in the world and in their place were thrown together tag teams that had no business holding the tag team championships.
This trend of butchering the division has, unfortunately, continued until today where the tag team ranks are a joke. The WWE has not taken the tag team division seriously for years and it has completely ruined a once iconic division.
Ruining the division has been a result of many missteps that the WWE has made over the years. The first misstep that they continue to make is the fact that many of their teams are thrown together tandems. In the golden age of tag team wrestling, we had teams that were together for years. It was easy to buy the chemistry between the two men/women because they came up through the ranks together. It is insulting nowadays to have most of the tag teams thrown together. Thinking that they can build the necessary chemistry to be a great tag team is laughable.
Adding on to the previous problem, the WWE has an issue with developing new teams. Throwing together wrestlers, on the roster, who have nothing to do isn’t working. They need to develop some pairings and spend time cultivating them on the main roster. By doing this you are taking young talent and allowing them time to learn their craft while not being forced into singles competition. Then when they do break up you have to legitimate stars that are seasoned wrestlers.
The fact that there are thrown together teams, and ones that aren’t developed well highlights a larger problem with the tag division. There is a huge lack of depth with this division. Going back to the ’80s and 90’s there were a huge amount of teams in the division. This allowed for fresh and exciting feuds to be rotated through the tag team ranks. Nowadays, we are subject to the same two or three teams feuding each week and this becomes irksome. As fans, we don’t want to see the same old sh&# every week, and creating depth in their tag team ranks would alleviate this.
By not having any depth in the division WWE is not giving much television time to their tag teams. Outside of the title feuds, there is very little in the way of tag wrestling on either show. If one were going to bring more attention to the tag teams of WWE it would be a better way to give them more exposure.