EOTR Tag Team Tuesdays: 5 New Generation Tag Teams

By @TrueGodImmortal

Today, I wanted to do something slightly different. Sure, we talk tag teams every Tuesday, but one era of wrestling that we rarely discuss is the New Generation Era. With Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels as the top two singles stars, the tag division was full of gimmicks and interesting teams. There were no true clear cut ahead of the pack teams, but I do think some of them had better moments than the others. Let's take a look at 5 New Generation Tag Teams that made an impact.

*The Smoking Gunns 

-In a way, this team is the best of the era and it's not close. The Smoking Gunns are the most important team of the New Generation and they would be the reason we see Billy Gunn as a true tag team wrestler. Bart and Billy Gunn worked together for years in a cowboy team gimmick, which really doesn't seem to be an interesting gimmick overall, but they made it work. They lasted the entire New Generation era, going from 1993 to 1996, and they were honestly a joy to watch in the ring together. They were solid in ring guys and had a gimmick that the typical wrestling crowd seemed to love. 1995 was the biggest year for the team as they won the tag titles multiple times and had some solid matches in that time. 1996 was a little different, as Billy got injured and the Gunns lost the titles, but their feud with the Godwinns would be big for the WWF. They would turn heel and get managed by Sunny before eventually splitting. The truth be told, the Smoking Gunns are one of the best teams in WWF history so it was a must they got featured on this article.

*The Bodydonnas 

-Chris Candido is an underrated wrestler in history and his work over the years was important in the world of pro wrestling. However, one of his oddest moments came as a member of the Bodydonnas. As Skip, he worked alongside Zip and they were managed by Sunny (and eventually the weird crossdressing Cloudy.... which is still odd today). The gimmick was poorly executed, but they could actually wrestle and that made a huge difference overall. They were tag team champions before and while their reigns weren't very eventful, they stand out as one of the better teams in the New Generation.

*The Headshrinkers 

-Samu and Fatu essentially started the Headshrinkers, and I'll be honest, I wasn't a big fan of this team initially. I did enjoy their work against The Steiners at Wrestlemania 9, but all in all, the team was merely an extension of the Wild Samoans so they weren't as prevalent as they probably should have been. They would feud with Men On A Mission and Smoking Gunns during their hottest period, and eventually Samu was replaced with Sione. However, Sione and Fatu didn't have the same success as Samu and Fatu, as Samu and Fatu were tag team champions and managed to be near the top of the tag team ladder throughout their entire run. The Headshrinkers weren't legends, but they were a noteworthy team in the era.

*Owen Hart And Yokozuna

-Surprisingly, this is the best makeshift team in the New Generation Era. Owen Hart had proven himself as a singles competitor, while Yokozuna was one of the premier stars in the WWF. When they teamed up under the element of surprise, it was only a matter of time before they would run everything. Their first night together would prove to be a big deal, as Yokozuna returned at Wrestlemania 11 to help Owen defeat the Smoking Gunns. With Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette by their side, they had two great managers and after their title win, they would reek havoc on the entire tag division for a while. After a nice 175 day reign, the two lost their belts but would get them back and lose them the same night to the Smoking Gunns. While short-lived, the Owen and Yokozuna team was one of the best of the entire era.

*The Allied Powers 

-An underrated team, the Allied Powers never quite lived up to their potential. I mean, Lex Lugar was a main event talent and the British Bulldog was right there on the cusp of the main event regularly. Together, they should have been tag team champions and running the division. However, WWF seemed hellbent on making them lose and not get a tag team title reign. It's honestly the most confusing thing about this team, as there is no reason why they didn't dethrone Owen and Yokozuna as champions. They had matches with teams like Well Dunn, The Heavenly Bodies, and The Million Dollar Corporation, but the Allied Powers were defeated by Owen and Yokozuna and then they broke up shortly after, with Luger leaving the company. I wish we could have watched this team last a little longer and win the belts, but they were still pretty noteworthy in their short time together.

-True 

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Eyes on the Ring 1:53 AM  No comment

EOTR Tag Team Tuesdays: Smackdown Live's Tag Team Division

By @AmeenKnows

The state of the Smackdown Live Tag Team Division is one in horrendous condition with no clear fix in the near future. Since the brand split, Smackdown Live had enjoyed a fresh run of booking from the creative team. They managed to make Alexa Bliss an immediate star overnight, gave us an entertaining angle with Heath Slater and his various number of kids whom he fights for and even gave AJ Styles the WWE Championship run he so rightfully deserved. However that was 2016. With the page turning to a new year, the brand has been struggling from spotty booking basically since WrestleMania 33.
That's a story for another day but the reason why it is being mentioned is because that spotty booking has made the Tag Team Division stick out like a sore thumb.

Let's be honest here. The Smackdown Tag Team Division has been the worst thing going for the brand since the split. However, due to the spotty booking, the brand's creative team can't mask the flaws that have plagued the division. There are currently 7 tag teams on the roster. The Colons are inactive. The Singh Brothers are more so Jinder Mahal's entourage than a team. This leaves us with The Usos, The New Day, The Ascension, The Hype Bros, and Breezango. The Ascension have been glorified jobbers since being called up to the main roster. They had shown flashes of returning to a more aggressive style earlier in the year but that was quickly squandered and now they have been reduced to comedy sketches with Breezango.

The Hype Bros suffered from lost momentum after Zack Ryder's knee injury took him off screen for months. Breezango are good but they aren't being taken serious as they've been logged into the comedic relief role of the brand. It would have been a feel good story had they won at Backlash, but that wouldn't have put the division in better standing honestly. Their most valuable young asset in American Alpha was squandered, left with nothing to do after dropping the Tag Team Titles to The Usos before WrestleMania and officially disbanded after Jason Jordan moved to Raw.

The Usos have been the most consistent presence in the division since the brand split. A refreshing heel turn has bled new life into them but no matter how many times they steal the show, the rest of the division can not keep up with them. The current Tag Team Champions The New Day are good but they aren't as great as they were during their record breaking run. An out of the box thought would be to pair up Harper and Rowan again. They were a very versatile team in their past run as a full time tag team. But that won't suddenly fix the division over night. Smackdown's only chance to fix this division is to somehow regain the light they had at the end of 2016 or risk boring us to death with the same content every week.

-Ameen

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Eyes on the Ring 2:54 AM  1 comment

EOTR Tag Team Tuesdays: LayCool

By @AmeenKnows

Entertaining tag teams almost always display 3 things. Number one, chemistry. Number two, friendship. Number three, gimmick. LayCool crafted and mastered all three of these things in such a short amount of time on screen. When we talk Women's Revolution and evolution, these guys get pushed aside so often it's ridiculous. People can tweet about Victoria, Beth Phoenix and what have you, but those guys aren't in those video packages on Raw and stuff. When they did the Women's Revolution WWE 24 episode, it was Trish this and Lita that. What I won't do is forget one of the great tag teams of all time.

When LayCool started I was unsure of how well Michelle McCool would work out as a heel. Layla I had no worries about because of how stuck up and snobbish she was to Jamie Noble in their short love triangle with William Regal, but that's another story for another day. So creative comes up with the genius idea of putting these two together as kind of a test run in July of 2009, but it didn't take off until Mickie James moved to Smackdown and beat Layla her first night back. So LayCool formed together to bully and antagonize James, leaving her off the Smackdown Women's Bragging Rights team, mocking her weight and calling her Piggie James. This feud led to many memorable moments including a cringe worthy Porky Pig segment, spilling food on Mickie and a fat suit. The fat suit would become their undoing at the Royal Rumble when James beat McCool for the Women's Championship in under 20 seconds.

After accidentally humiliating Vickie Guerrero backstage, Mickie James now had two enemies in LayCool and Vickie, who had now become their manager of sorts. This would prove to be a beneficial move as Guerrero helped McCool defeat James for the Women's Championship as the Special Guest Referee. Without Mickie James in the picture, LayCool continued their rivalry with Beth Phoenix, going as far as mocking her for not fitting the image of a WWE diva, Guerrero putting Phoenix in an "Intergender match" with Layla, and smothering Phoenix's face with makeup. At Extreme Rules, Phoenix defeated McCool in an Extreme Makeover Match for the Women's Championship. Shortly afterwards, McCool cashed in her rematch clause and Guerrero made it a handicap match for the Women's Championship. LayCool came out victorious with Layla scoring the pinfall on Phoenix. After that they began referring to themselves as Co-Champions and carrying two belts to the ring. The two belts wouldn't last as Teddy Long told LayCool to decide who is the real champion with one belt. This led to them breaking one belt in half with each of them taking a piece of one belt to fit Long's demands. In September, LayCool challenged Divas Champion Melina to a unification match at Night of Champions. Despite Layla being the official Women's Champion, McCool defeated Melina in Layla's place to unify the belts and retire the Women's Championship. Their status as Co-Champions was cemented the following night on Raw when Layla defended the Unified Divas Championship against Melina.

After becoming Unified Divas "Co-Champions", LayCool started to go down hill beginning with their loss of the Divas title to Natalya in a Handicap match at Survivor Series. They lost their rematch at the TLC PPV in the first ever Divas Table Match to Natalya. They were given another rematch at the Royal Rumble 2011, in a Fatal-4-Way with Natalya and Eve. Eve would go on to win that match. Their struggles would become more prominent with both going on losing streaks through the start of the year including a loss to Trish Stratus and Snooki at WrestleMania. The tension finally began to boil over when McCool attacked Layla during couples therapy causing them to disband. McCool's mocking and bullying led to Layla reaching her breaking point and attacking McCool. The two ended their rivalry with Layla defeating McCool in a no disqualification match at Extreme Rules with a Loser Leaves WWE Stipulation.

Since there was no Divas Tag Team Division, LayCool weren't often put into positions to show off their tag team expertise but together as a unit they showed all time great teamwork. In fact, they are the first tag team I've covered to not win a Tag Team Championship. My doubts about Michelle being able to play villain were quickly put to rest as she had shown herself to be better at being hated than loved. They have even been shown to have an influence on current NXT team the Iconic Twins, Peyton Royce and Billie Kay, who are quite entertaining themselves.

-Ameen

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Eyes on the Ring 11:56 PM  No comment

EOTR Tag Team Tuesdays: JeriShow

By @AmeenKnows 

The thing I love most about my favorite wrestlers are how well they adapt to situations and display their versatility. Like how well a main event talent adjusts to being pushed back to the midcard to give someone else a chance. In 2009, Chris Jericho was still in the midst of his best character, in my opinion of course. The year prior, he was the World Heavyweight Champion on Raw. He was drafted to Smackdown and engaged in one of the best feuds of the year with Rey Mysterio over the Intercontinental Championship, thus showing his versatility. Leading up to their partnership, The Big Show was in a feud with John Cena (Sidenote: I hate when WWE makes feuds like these because of the outcome. For example, Cena definitively beat Show twice on PPV but Show beats Cena on Raw and he's declared the winner of the feud. Makes absolutely zero sense). However an untimely injury would bring these two stars together.

At The Bash, Chris Jericho and Edge were surprisingly added to a tag team title match with the Colons and Legacy for the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship. (Sidenote: Teddy Long was pressured by Vince to improve the quality of matches on Smackdown so that's why Edge and Jericho were added. All in storyline of course). Edge and Jericho would go on to win the titles but shortly thereafter, it was announced that Edge had suffered a torn Achilles. So without a partner, Teddy Long tried to strip Jericho of the tag team titles but Jericho had a loophole in his contract which would give him time to find another partner.

At Night of Champions, Jericho was set to defend the titles with his mystery partner against Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr. Jericho revealed that The Big Show was his new partner and they defeated Legacy to retain the titles. With Big Show on Raw and Jericho on Smackdown, holding the Unified Tag Team Titles allowed for them to travel across brands. Their first feud came against Cryme Tyme, who they went on to defeat at SummerSlam to retain their titles. Then they faced MVP and Mark Henry, who proposed a very formidable challenge for the Tag Team Champions. Like Cryme Tyme, they too would fail to win the titles at Breaking Point.

Their next short feud would come against Batista and Rey Mysterio, and they too were defeated by Jeri-Show at Hell in a Cell. Before Bragging Rights, the champions started a feud with DX after losing a non-title match. The feud would be put on pause for a while as the two teams competed at Bragging Rights in a Team Smackdown vs Team Raw match. Then, Jeri-Show would be placed in a triple threat match with the Undertaker for the World Heavyweight Championship while DX was placed in a triple threat with John Cena for the WWE Championship. Both Teams failed in their quest to become World Champions thus allowing them to continue their feud.  At the TLC PPV, DX beat Jeri-Show to become the new Unified Tag Team Champions. A night later, Jeri-Show was awarded the Slammy Award for Tag Team of the Year and beat DX by Disqualification. DX granted Jeri-Show a rematch under the condition that if DX wins, Jericho is banned from Raw. Jeri-Show would lose this match, marking the end of the team.

I wasn't big on these guys as a team but looking back at it, Jeri-Show had 2 stars who were already well established as decorated world champions. I can't really think of another team that was paired up together this late with careers more successful than these two. That's not counting teams who later got back together after going on hiatus like DX and The Brothers of Destruction.
Anyways, I mentioned versatility in the beginning and Chris Jericho's run from 2008-2010 is my favorite example. He was World Heavyweight Champion, then fell out of the main event scene to elevate the midcard with Rey Mysterio for the Intercontinental Championship, and after all that, he gave the Tag team division a much needed boost of fresh air. Show, who was originally placed in the WWE Championship 6 Pack Challenge and would likely have lost, was given a new direction to go in. Jericho's sneaky and cunning tactics combined with Show's brute force made for a very deadly combination which could have been even better to showcase if they had better teams to work with back then. The split also didn't hurt either star as Jericho would go on to regain the World Heavyweight Championship while Show formed Show-Miz with The Miz and that team went on to defeat DX to win the Unified Tag Team Titles.

-Ameen

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Eyes on the Ring 11:50 PM  No comment

CJ's Top Five Tag Teams

In the spirit of the upcoming six-team Elimination Chamber match this Sunday for the WWE Tag Team Championship, I thought I would share my top five WWE tag teams. Now, fair warning. This may one of the oddest lists you read, but keep in mind that these are my personal favorites.

5. Edge & Christian

"For the benefit of those with flash photography..." 

As great as Edge and Christian were as members of The Brood, they both really came into their own when they broke away from Gangrel. They made the most out of what they were given, and because one of the most successful, and entertaining, teams in history. They went on to win the tag teams titles on seven different occasions, and helped set a standard for tag team wrestling.

4. The Shield

Hands down, the most dominate team of the 2010s so far. They debuted in my hometown of Indianapolis at Survivor Series 2012 and proceeded to rule and wreak havoc until the day they disbanded. They won the tag team titles at Extreme Rules 2013, and also won at back-to-back WrestleManias (29 & 30). The Shield is the perfect example of bringing up 3 fresh faces and giving them the opportunity to carve out their own path, and in the process, created 3 new stars in Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Roman Reigns.

3. The Hardys

Be honest with yourselves. Even though both Matt and Jeff have gone a bit off the deep end at times, we all wanted to be The Hardys as kids. It was an excellent dynamic that captivated wrestling fans in the '90s and early 2000s. Matt's more grounded, solid style of wrestling, coupled with Jeff's high flying and out of this world charisma, became a recipe for success that culminated in six WWE Tag Team Championship reigns. We all wanted to be Jeff because of his acrobatics,...but we really envied Matt because he had Lita on his arm. If you want a screenshot of the late '90s, look no further than Team Xtreme.

2. L.O.D.

Domination. That's the first word that comes to mind when I hear the names Hawk and Animal. While the majority of they're rule over tag team wrestling may have been with other organizations, they were, without a doubt, my favorite tag team in WWF. They held the tag titles on three separate occasions during their WWF run, and made an impression on millions of young fans, myself included. Everytime they set up for that dreaded Doomsday Device, you knew a 3-count wasn't far behind. To this day, I'm still trying to find some old shoulder pads so I can attach some spikes to them.

1. The Dudleys

Not only are Bubba and D-Von my favorite tag team, but I think they're the greatest tag team in the history of pro wrestling. Not only are they the most decorated, but for my money, they are the most entertaining and polarizing tag team as well. I remember seeing the TLC match from Wrestlemania 17, seeing Bubba and Matt getting pushed off the ladder through that wall of tables, seeing all of the carnage that they not only dished out, but took as well, just showed how far they were willing to go to be the best. Not to mention, they are the owners of the greatest tag finisher in history, the 3D. As a former trampoline wrestler (yes, that's a real thing. YouTube it; it's pretty awesome), whenever I did tag matches, we always used the 3D to put away the opponent. The Dudleys are still the measuring stick for tag teams everywhere, and I don't see them getting eclipsed anytime soon.

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Eyes on the Ring 7:35 AM  No comment