Welcome yet again to another edition of The People’s Column. This week is shaping up to be a fun one with Night of Champions on the horizon. Be sure to check out itswilltime.wordpress.com this weekend to see my Night of Champions predictions, post on my favorite tag team of all time and some Raw General Manager speculation. Enough with the plugs, on with the column!
With Night of Champions looming, there is just one championship match that has yet to be signed. That match is for the WWE Tag Team Championships that are currently held by The Hart Dynasty. This does a lot to speak to the sad state of the WWE rage team division today.
The last time the tag division seemed prominent was the era from 2000 to 2002. With Edge and Christian, The Hardys and The Dudley Boys revolutionizing the ladder match and tag team wrestling at the same time. This era is remembered for some amazing matches (Royal Rumble 2000, Wrestlemania 2000, Summerslam 2000 and Wrestlemania X-7) and this one three-way feud stretching out all the way through it. The only downside to this was that the gimmick matches were more revolutionized than the art of tag team wrestling.
Since then tag teams have been in a slump. The last time I even remember eight tag teams existing was at Wrestlemania XX where there were two four way tag matches. Tag team wrestling has been forgotten in the current WWE style of ring work. There seems to be only one tag match, and it is just repeated time and time again. The teams may change, but the match remains the same.
This problem looked like it was going to work itself out when the Tag Team championships were set to be unified at Wrestlemania 25. Finally, these belts would be featured on the biggest show of the year and a legitimate tag team would win them. Sadly, Kid Rock wanted to play horrible music for fifteen minutes and this match was bumped from the card. I know Kid Rock was supposed to be a big deal, but can you really say that you value tag team wrestling if he removes the two best teams in your company from a show?
The era of Jeri-Show was another one where it looked like tag team wrestling could once again be emphasized. Chris Jericho had worked magic with the Intercontinental Championship, so there was no reason that he could not do so with the Tag Team Championship. These two men were emphasized, but the titles they held were not.
Now, WWE has an opportunity. They have some passable tag teams on their roster today. With The Dudebusters, The Gate Crashers, Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre, The Hart Dynasty, The Usos and any combination of two Nexus members WWE can have some real competition. This division suddenly got deeper than it has been in years. The Harts are good champions for this era, although Rhodes and McIntyre might be better, since WWE is guaranteed to give them promo time.
To rebuild tag team wrestling, the first thing they will need is time. WWE needs to devote a lot of time for the tag team division. This time should be spent not only on matches, but on promos. These belts are not something that should be taken lightly. If WWE does give them more time on each show, they could even see themselves in a situation where tag teams can main event house shows for them. It may seem odd at first but within a few weeks it will be normal to see a good tag team promo and a fun match featuring tag team wrestlers on Raw. WWE should take this even further a d feature title defenses for these belts on almost every PPV.
It will also take focus. This is not a one week and done rebuild. This needs to be a year long strategy to get the focus back on tag teams. TNA did this fairly well with the best of five series between the Motor City Machine Guns (the best tag team in wrestling today) and Beer Money (the second best tag team in wrestling today). With all of the complaints that I had about that series, it was a hell of a way to build up your tag champs. I would love to see something similar in WWE, even if it included all of the errors of the TNA version.
Finally, I believe that WWE can being tag team wrestling back to the forefront. Look at a guys like Edge, Jeff Hardy and Shawn Michaels. All of them started in tag teams and moved into being huge, main event stars. A healthy promotion needs a healthy tag team division.
That’s all for me this week folks! Make sure to check out my blog to see posts about my favorite tag team of all time and some Raw General Manager speculation. All that and more at itswilltime.wordpress.com!
