The 411 Wrestling Top 5 5.13.09: Week 22 – The Best Tag Team Matches

Hello everyone and welcome to 411 Wrestling’s Top 5 List. What we are going to is take a topic each week and all the writers here on 411 wrestling will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, plus up to three honorable mentions. At the end, based on where all these matches rank on people’s list, we will create the 411 Wrestling Top 5 list. The scoring is very similar to the Wrestler of the Week as it looks like this:

#1 Choice – 5 points
#2 Choice – 4 points
#3 choice – 3 points
#4 Choice – 2 points
#5 Choice – 1 point
Honorable Mentions will break ties, but get no points.

Also, in the case of a tie, the most votes win, regardless of where it is listed in the individual Top 5. I will also use this rule in the event that one item is mentioned more often, but is one point behind. For example, one second place vote and two Honorable Mentions will defeat simply one first place vote.

So, on to this week’s topic…

THE TOP 5 TAG TEAM MATCHES

The art of Tag Team Wrestling has been lost ever since the WCW and ECW buyouts by Vince McMahon and the WWE. And as such, so has been the ability of the 411 writers to even remember what great Tag Team matches are. This week, we told the writers to list their Top 5 Tag team Matches, but using the following criteria, which was the only piece of criteria: For this list, these must be traditional 2 on 2 tag team matches. No TLC, no hardcore matches, no cages, nothing other than straight wrestling. Hence to say, this was a little tricky. So tricky in fact that not even I could come up with five matches that I remember being that good. In light of this, there is no overall Top 5 this week.

So what did our group of writers select? Let’s find out…

Ryan Byers

HONORABLE MENTIONS

– The Heavenly Bodies vs. The Steiner Brothers (Survivor Series 1993) – This is a favorite of mine which largely gets forgotten by wrestling history. The WWF had a working relationship with Smokey Mountain Wrestling at the time, and it resulted in SMW’s top act, the Heavenly Bodies, defending their SMW Tag Team Titles against Rick and Scott Steiner. The Steiners were pretty well directionless in the WWF at this time, and the Bodies were virtual unknowns. However, they came out of nowhere and put on an AWESOME match, probably the best one on the card. It’s fun to occasionally be caught offguard by a quality bout, and there’s no better example than this one.

– Bret & Owen Hart vs. The Steiner Brothers (WWF Wrestlefest 1994) – This match RULED. However, I’ve kept it off the main list since it is relatively obscure. Instead of airing on television or pay per view, it was taped exclusively for a Coliseum Home Video release at the end of what was otherwise a run of the mill WWF television taping for squash-laden shows like Superstars and Wrestling Challenge. These Coliseum “exclusive” matches were usually two minute throwaways with inconclusive endings, but the two sets of brothers went out there and put on a match which blew away most of what you were seeing on pay per view in 1994. Plus, for those of you who are marks for big, dangerous moves, the bout featured Owen eating Scotty’s big Steiner Screwdriver.

– The Jersey Triad vs. Perry Saturn & Chris Benoit (Bash at the Beach 1999) – I think I could count the good things about WCW in 1999 on one hand. However, one of those digits would be devoted to the feud between the Triad and Benoit and Saturn. All five guys were at or near their athletic primes and new exactly what to do in order to bring the best out of each other. Of all of their various bouts, this one was probably the highlight.

5. Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit vs. Rey Misterio & Edge (No Mercy 2002) – There’s no way that this list could be complete without some nod to the “Smackdown Six,” who absolutely tore up WWF rings towards the end of 2002. Tag team wrestling was largely considered a lost art at this point, but, with Paul Heyman as the lead writer for the Smackdown brand, it came back with a vengeance for a few glorious months. I know that some prefer the three-way matches between Angle/Benoit, Misterio/Edge, and Los Guerreros, but I’m a bit more of a traditionalist on this front, and this was my favorite of the two-on-two bouts between the crew.

4. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood vs. Jack & Gerry Brisco (Starrcade 1983) – The first Starrcade was an epic event, one that highlighted everything that was great about Jim Crockett Promotions, and, to a lesser extent, the National Wrestling Alliance as a whole. In order to do that, you needed some top shelf tag team wrestling, and there were probably no four better men to turn to than Steamboat, Youngblood, and the Briscos. Jack had already established himself as a legend by this point of his career, and Gerry was always a solid hand. Steamboat, meanwhile, was one of the best workers in the free world, and Youngblood was a young man who seemed set to approach the Steamer’s level. The four of them put in to the ring together was magic, and it was the perfect tag team compliment to the brilliant Ric Flair/Harley Race match that headlined the evening.

3. Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki (AJW Dream Slam 1993) – In the early and mid-1990’s, the most innovative, exciting professional wrestling in the world wasn’t taking place in North American, nor did it involve male competitors. All Japan Women’s pro wrestling was THE place to be for athletic, dramatic grappling, and their two Dream Slam shows in Yokohama and Osaka may have been the apex of that period in wrestling. Though it was not the main event, the most memorable match of the show saw the storied tag team of Kyoko & Takako Inoue (no relation) against Cutie Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki. The bell rang, the action began, the the action literally did not stop until fifteen minutes after the initial bell. It was a sprint of a match, and it was one of the best sprints that professional wrestling has ever seen.

2. Art Barr & Eddy Guerrero vs. Octagon & El Hijo del Santo (AAA When Worlds Collide 1994) – Lucha libre often gets the short shrift on this website, in large part because lucha historically has not been as widely available to English-speaking fans as other foreign wrestling has (which is odd when you start to think about it). However, one match which was widely distributed north of the border was also one of lucha’s most memorable. The Terror Pair of Eddy Guerrero and Art Barr, put their hair on the line against the masks of Mexican mainstays El Hijo del Santo and Octagon. There was an intense feud between the two teams already, built around Guerrero and Santo forming a tag team which mirrored the team that their fathers had formed a generation earlier. Barr put an end to that, swaying Guerrero to the dark side. So, not only was the heat off of the charts for this one, but the in-ring work managed to match the emotion on just about every level.

1. The Rock n’ Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express (Pick One) – On one hand, I can’t imagine anything else topping this list, but, on the other hand, I also find it impossible to select an individual match that these two teams put on for this position. They’ve feuded with one another for literally decades, and they’ve feuded with one another in just about every wrestling promotion imaginable. It’s rivalry which has produced so many memorable moments and great matches that I can’t pick just one. The only thing that I know for sure is that my selection would NOT be their godawful scaffold match. Eaton, Condrey, Lane, Morton, Gibson, Cornette, hell, even Randy Rose and Norvell Austin . . . here’s to all of them.

Larry Csonka

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Note: This list was HARD AS HELL!

Clash of the Champions I – The Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics – I was a big fan of both The Midnight Express and The Fantastics, and this match was a classic. Oh how I long for the days of awesome tag team wrestling on Free TV.

The Rock and Roll vs. Midnight Express Feud – These guys made me love tag team wrestling.

Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit vs. Rey Misterio and Edge (No Mercy 2002) – While tag team wrestling in WWE is often forgotten, during the time of the often discussed “Smackdown Six” there were some sweet ass matches going on, and this one needs to be mentioned.

5. Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki (AJW Dream Slam 1993) – Thanks to Byers, I am not the only one to discuss the All Japan Women. In the early 90’s these women were the state of the art as far as wrestling goes, and if you talk to a guy like Shane Helms and others from his generation, they will admit to “stealing” a lot from these ladies. If you want to fine EXCELLENT women’s wrestling, search for the All Japan Women from the early 90’s, they will not disappoint.

4. The Heavenly Bodies vs. The Steiner Brothers – This is another personal favorite of mine. A match thrown together through the WWF’s relationship with Cornette’s Smokey Mountain, what was supposed to be filler became an awesome match. The Heavenly Bodies are completely underrated.

3. Art Barr and Eddy Guerrero vs. Octagon and El Hijo del Santo (AAA When Worlds Collide 1994) – AAA When Worlds Collide 1994 was one of the first tapes I got when I began my tape trading. AAA, along with WCW produced the show, and it was eye opening to me. I saw Rey, Juvi, La Parka and many others and fell in love with them. But what stood out to me, and is still a favorite is the 2 of three falls match between Art Barr and Eddy Guerrero vs. Octagon and El Hijo del Santo. Incredible heat, amazing work and a match that is truly one of the best tag team matches of all time.

2. Bret and Owen Hart vs. The Steiner Brothers (WWF Wrestlefest 1994) – This is considered a hidden gem to some, as the WWF Wrestlefest 1994 tape isn’t always easy to find. But if you are lucky enough to find the tape, THIS is the ONLY reason to own the tape. Even without a finish, the Bret and Owen Hart vs. The Steiner Brothers match is just insanely awesome. Bret and Owen were great, and the Steiners were one of the very best teams at one time. This is another tape in the collection that is cherished, due to this match.

1. Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada vs. AJPW Unified Tag Team Champions Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi (06.09.95) – If you are a fan of wrestling, and If you love tag team wrestling, you NEED to own this match. Some call this the greatest All Japan tag team match of all time, some say that their rematch was better, but the fact is that THIS match could be used as a definition of tag team wrestling. Some of the all time greats, 60-minutes, glorious.

Aaron Hubbard

HONORABLE MENTIONS

AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels vs. America’s Most Wanted (TNA Slammiversary 2006) – I was struggling to find a non-gimmick match to represent TNA’s awesome tag team division, and this is the best I’ve got. Awesome, awesome match.

Bret Hart & Owen Hart vs. The Steiner Bros – A relatively obscure but fairly well known match from a WWF Coliseum video. Excellent match although I personally don’t like it as much as others do.

Eddy Guerrero & Art Barr vs. El Hijo Del Santo (When Worlds Collide 1994) – Fantastic storytelling makes and incredible drama makes up for a somewhat sketchy in-ring performance. And before one of you idiots pipes off, it’s on Eddie’s “Cheating Death, Stealing Life” DVD. Even WWE acknowledges how great this is.

5.Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Jun Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa – The Holy Demon Army bookends my top five matches. Excellent storytelling and tons of hard hitting action. Well worth going out of your way to see, trust me.

4.Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki (AJW Dream Slam 1993) – My second favorite women’s match ever. If you like workrate, these four will go out there and show you how to do “workrate”. There is literally not a dull moment in the entire fifteen minutes of this. Plus, Cutie’s fun to look at. What? At least I’m honest. And come on, Hot Japanese Women + Five Star Match = EPICALLY EPIC WIN!

3.Briscoe Brothers vs. Murder City Machine Guns (Good Times, Great Memories) – Take two excellent junior heavyweights from Detroit. Have Scott D’Amore train them, making sure one is an outstanding user of American Strong Style and the other is an innovative technician. Add in two redneck brothers from Sandy Fork, Delaware, one who hits hard and often and the other who is crazy. Mix together on high speed for thirty minutes. Serves plenty.

2.Edge & Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle (No Mercy 2002) – Even though this match never happened, it was still a great match. The Smackdown Five had many great matches, but this was the very best. It’s pretty sad that two makeshift tag teams put anything else in WWE Tag Team history to shame, but given the talent of the three individuals involved, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Shame that it never happened though. (Yes, I’m just being pissy. Deal with it.)

1.Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (06.09.95) – Pretty much any match these two teams had against each other was at least ****. However, I’m specifically talking about a match from 1995 where Kawada got his big win over Misawa. It’s as close to perfect as any match can be, and in my opinion is The Greatest Match Ever. Obviously, that makes it a lock for best tag team match.

Scott Rutherford

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Midnight Express vs The Fantastics – Most people pimp their Clash of the Champions match as the best they ever had but this little seen match from WCW Worldwide a short time later just blows it out of the water. Usually anything by these two teams is gold but this is truly something special.

The Enforcers vs Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Steamboat – Steamboats return as a mystery partner to Rhodes was the precursor to a fantastic match. Not spectacular but three veterans working a super match creating tons of heat.

The Steiner Bros vs. Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki – From the first WCW/New Japan supershow. Just four guys pounding the piss out of each other for 13 minutes. Awesome.

5.The Midnight Express vs The Southern Boys (GAB 1990) – MX were almost gone by this point but just to prove how great they were they pulled this baby out of their hat. The Boys were Tracey Smothers and Steve Armstrong who later changed their name to the Young Pistols because Southern Boys was just no gay enough. The match is required viewing on how tag wrestling should be with all the classic MX stuff on show and great aside moments like Stan Lane and Smothers breaking out into a martial arts duel mid-match. The babyface switcheroo false ending only adds to the coolness of the match seeing as it would nearly mean a victory when usually done and the typical MX team work getting the victory was the perfect cap for the match. Jim Cornette rates it one the very best MX matches ever and I hold it above anything they did with the Rock ‘n Roll Express.

4.Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs Steve Austin & Shawn Michels – Mismatched tag team partners is hardly a new concept but it’s usually an extension of piss poor planning and lack of ideas for certain wrestlers. On this occasion however it worked a treat and provided a fantastic match to boot. Both Austin and Michaels hated each other but they had a common enemy in The Hart Foundation. When Austin needed a partner to challenge Hart and Bulldog the returning Michaels was a perfect fit creating automatic intrigue as to how they would work together. As I said, the match was an insta-classic with Austin and Michael working well together against the common enemy. Some have called this match overrated but you can’t really match it for quality ring work, storyline advancement and excitement. A gem of a match during a time when RAW was must-see.

3.Triple H & Steve Austin vs Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho – So much surrounds this match that sometimes it overshadows just how completely awesome the match was. Of course we all know this match was the death of the IWC-loved HHH workrate machine as he tore his first quad and sat out the next 8 odd months. This match was also was supposed to signify the breakthrough of Jericho and Benoit but that proved to be a minomer as Jericho only flirted with the main event for much of the year until his started feuding with The Rock and Benoit hurt his neck not long after. The match itself however is great stuff as the underdogs fought hard against the champions countering all their cheating tactics and pulled out the huge win. This was a fantastic mark out moment for a lot of smarks as we saw it as the glass ceiling finally being broken which sadly turned into false hope. For all that was wrong about the two man power trip era, this match came of it thus making it worthwhile because it’s the matches we go back and watch, not the angles.

2.Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi v. Jushin Liger & Minoru Tanaka – August 29, 2002 – I’m a casual puro guy at the best of times and normally don’t go out of my way to watch it but one of my buddies pointed me to this match from 2002 that was part of the NOAH/New Japan inter-promotional feud that was happening at that time and for the IWGP Tag Team Titles but I’m not 100% sure. This was a rematch from an earlier meeting, which was pimped as a MOTYC by many puro fans but was blasted away by this meeting. For fans of North American wrestling who can’t get into the puro style this is a match you really should check out because it’s just wall-to-wall action and you don’t even need to really know the back story to get the match. This match took place in a NJ arena and Liger & Minoru played dick heels so well that the crowd started turning on them and Kikuchi (a long time partner of Kenta Kobashi), gained so much empathy that the New Japan crowd actually started chanting for him. Technically this is the most perfect tag match I have ever seen and is practically flawless in its execution I cannot give it my top stop because I just don’t have an emotional investment in the participants which does hurt it slightly. However, if you ever want to see the very best of what the Japanese style can offer, you can’t go past this supremely superior tag match.

1.Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle vs Rey Mysterio & Edge – Take four shit hot wrestlers that can really go and “get” how to put on a match that entertains the fans , put them in the ring for a tag match and sit back. The formula is so simple yet their series of match still surprised with their sheer awesomeness. You had the two wrestling machines in Angle and Benoit that didn’t show a lot of team work but were a relentless assault because when one tagged out the other that came in was just as bad ass. In Rey and Edge you had two high-risk wrestlers that worked well together and used tandem moves to create high impact strikes. The blend was incredible when all four were together. I was going to list the 2/3 falls match and their No Mercy match one and two but I felt that would be cheating and rather than doing a cop out and naming both matches in the one entry I’m going to go the 2/3 falls match from SD. Everything about this match was note perfect as you had the at-odds Angle and Benoit holding off the focused attack of Rey and Edge and when you threw in the false finish and the 4th fall it created just an absolutely insanely great atmosphere as you just didn’t know who was going to win. I can watch their matches any day of the week and this is my favourite tag match of all time.

Jeremy Thomas

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Los Guerreros vs. World’s Greatest Tag Team (SmackDown 12.11.03) – While not the best match of the SmackDown Six (see below), this one is one I very specifically remember as being a great match, and is probably the best TV tag team match in the last several years.

5.Strike Force vs. Demolition (WrestleMania IV) – Pure personal preference here, but hey it’s my list, right? I was huge into both of these teams, and while in terms of the match itself it may not rank for others, I remember just being incredibly into this. The booking was pretty classic tag booking and when Fuji cost Strike Force the belts, I was one pissed-off mark. That’s what a good wrestling match should do.

4.Triple H & Steve Austin vs Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho – This gets mention because, even with the amazing fact that ‘H finished the match with the torn quad aside, it was just a fantastic piece of work that tried really hard to elevate the Chrises to the top of the card. The underdog faces versus the Two-Man Power Trip got the crowd firmly behind Benoit & Jericho, and while it would be a while until they made it to the top the match was still superb and it easily deserves to be on this list.

3.The Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics (Clash of the Champions I) – I rated this in our Top Five Free Television matches, and I’d be remiss not to include it here. Most people recognize Clash I for Flair/Sting, but for me it was this amazing match between two great tag teams that is foremost in my memory. There was some fabulous brawling between the two teams and they just beat the living hell out of each other; for a long time this was the tag team match I compared all other tag matches to.

2.Art Barr & Eddy Guerrero vs. Octagon & El Hijo del Santo (AAA When Worlds Collide 1994) – I grew up watching Portland Wrestling and Art Barr, who’s father Sandy ran the promotion, was always a favorite of mine. Much later, when I learned that he’d spent a lot of time in Mexico I went hunting for his matches, and I saw this one before it showed up on Eddy’s DVD. It’s easily one of my favorite tag team matches. The in-ring work is spectacular, the crowd reaction is amazing and the storytelling was a classic. What more needs to be said?

1.Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit vs. Rey Misterio and Edge (No Mercy 2002) – There are probably better matches out there, but I will admit to not having seen every tag team match in history and out of the ones I’ve seen, this takes the cake. The days of the SmackDown Six were an epic era in tag team wrestling, and they produced some absolutely fantastic matches; this was he best of them. What can I say that the others haven’t? It’s too bad the ‘E never picked up on how amazing tag team wrestling can be and failed to bring the format back to prominence, but at least we still have this one to love.

Join us next week as we continue with the month of May, which will be a completely themed 411 Wrestling Top 5, as we look back at the greatest matches in Wrestling History. Next week will be the Top 5 Gimmick Matches.