Moments Ago: The Tag Team Scene in Ring of Honor

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Moments Ago: The Tag Team Scene in Ring of Honor

The WWE seems to be paying a tiny bit of attention to their tag team scene as of late. At the very least both brands have their tag titles on actual tag teams: Deuce and Domino and the Hardyz respectively. There are also contenders in the form of Kendrick and London, Cade and Murdoch, the World’s Greatest Tag Team, and Regal and Taylor, so tag team wrestling is at the highest point it has been in recent memory. It is still nothing compared to the tag team scene in Ring of Honor.

Ring of Honor may have fewer tag teams, but that is mostly attributable to their smaller roster. Ring of Honor still has one of the best tag team divisions in wrestling today. This week’s edition of Momenst Ago is going to look at five reasons explaining the greatness of Ring of Honor’s tag team division.

#1 The Briscoe Brothers

In almost every single column this year I have extolled the virtues of the best tag team in wrestling today. Other times Ring of Honor has claimed to have a wrestler who is the best at their particular trade, never has this been truer than for the boys from Sandy Fork, Delaware. Almost every outing for them this year has registered on the Match of the Year Candidate list. They have won three tag team titles and have wrestled, to the best of my knowledge, for three companies. Those are some pretty good numbers.

They are a pure tag team in every sense of the world. They are a brother team made up of actual brothers. They may be the best team since the “Twin Sons of Different Mothers,” the Midnight Express. Like Samoa Joe or “American Dragon” they add instant legitimacy to the belts like no other team. Aries and Strong may have had a more illustrious reign to this point, but I would not be surprised if the Briscoes don’t surpass them.

#2 Challengers

No champion is truly great without believable challengers. There is no shortage of those in Ring of Honor. Ring of Honor has the ability to put on a classic tag team title match every show, and they usually do. It is rarely the case that the Briscoes will walk away with their victory despite being the best. Newcomers like the boys from Chikara further raise the stock of great challengers in Ring of Honor.

#3 Valuable Titles

This is Ring of Honor’s forte as far as the world of professional wrestling is concerned. Great champions like the Briscoes and Aries and Strong have made the Ring of Honor tag titles one of the premier championships in America. Wrestlers team up for the goal of obtaining the championship, teams hone their craft to try and win the straps, wrestlers from other promotions challenge for the belts, stars from across the Pacific Ocean come to Ring of Honor with the sole purpose of winning the tag team titles. This is the mark of a truly meaningful title. This is the value that Ring of Honor has placed on their tag straps. The titles are not held by wresters from two different brands, rejected auditioners from “You’re the One that I Want” or past their prime wrestlers attempting to secure their place in the record books. Ring of Honor puts their belts on wrestlers and those wrestlers defend their belts against other wrestlers. The Ring of Honor tag team titles are wrestling titles. They are meaningful wrestling titles. They are the crowning achievement of the most skilled tag team division in wrestling today.

#4 Tag Whores

Every company has their share of thrown together tag teams, but Ring of Honor seems to make their thrown together teams meaningful. The best example of this is Matt Sydal. Sydal went after the tag titles tooth and nail teaming with people like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and others in a vain attempt to achieve tag team greatness. Eventually a team of mutual respect between him and the “Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels led to tag team gold. Since losing the belts Sydal became the tag team partner, if only for one night, of the newest tag whore Claudio Castagnoli.

Claudio has been a man without much direction since the New Year. After a win against Jay Briscoe, he made it his goal to regain the titles he held with Chris Hero. He teamed up with Sydal at the first PPV taping and had a classic match coming up short. He has once again called upon his former Kings of Wrestling partner Chris Hero to regain the belts on his quest to become another tag whore champion.

#5 Kevin Steen and El Generico

Odd couple teams are nothing new in wrestling, Tony Garea and Haystacks Calhoun and Booker T and Goldust are some of the stranger teams that have achieved success. Mismatched teams are not new to RoH. Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer had one of the most successful tag title reigns in RoH history. The best and oddest of the odd couple teams in RoH may just be El Generico and Kevin Steen.

They had an odd shot here and there in 2005 and 2006 without making an impact, but during the Fifth Year Festival they came in and wrestled a match against the Briscoes with absolutely no hype in a match everyone expected to be a squash. Instead, they took the Briscoes to the limit and had one of the best tag team matches of 2007. They decided they were worthy of a shot at the Ring of Honor tag team titles. In Edison, New Jersey they wrestled the Briscoes again in one of the most dramatic tag team matches I have ever witnessed. At “Respect is Earned” taping the assaulted the Briscoes and had an epic brawl that will surely be one of the highlights of the PPV.

El Generico and Kevin Steen are shaping up to be the type of challenger that truly makes the Briscoes’ Tag Team Title reign absolutely epic. They are awesomely mismatched and the almost inevitable feud between the two when their team runs its course will be just as amazing.

In Conclusion

Those are just five of the reasons that Ring of Honor has one of the best tag team divisions in wrestling. The great periods in the WWF like the days of the Hart Foundation, the British Bulldogs, The Brain Busters and Demolition, and the rivalry between the Hardyz, Edge and Christian and the Dudley Boys are given serious contention by the greatness that is the Ring of Honor tag team division. Last year was hyped as the rebirth of the tag team division, but it appears that this year could surpass it.

I’ll see you next time