The Piledriver Report 8.06.08: The Birth of the Singles Star Tag Team and the Death of Real Tag Teams

Posted by Ronny Sarnecky on 08.06.2008

This past Monday night, WWE singles stars, Batista and John Cena, captured the World Tag Team Titles. “The Piledriver Report” takes a look at the rise of singles stars winning tag team gold, the fall of true tag teams, and why we are likely to never have another golden age of tag team wrestling.

Throughout the history of professional wrestling, there have been many great teams that were called World Champions. In the seventies, the World Wide Wrestling Federation placed their version of the tag team titles on such teams like Toru Tanaka/Mr. Fuji, the Valiant Brothers, and the Blackjacks. In the National Wrestling Alliance, at this time, the Andersons, Ric Flair/Greg Valentine, and Dusty Rhodes/Dick Slater all held tag team gold.

The eighties have been looked at as the glory years of tag team wrestling. In the WWF, the Wild Samoans, the Moondogs, Mr. Fuji/Saito, the Strongbows, Barry Windham/Mike Rotundo, the British Bulldogs, the Hart Foundation, and Demolition were the teams that set the gold standard throughout the decade. The NWA was also going through a tag team renaissance. Ricky Steamboat/Jay Youngblood, the Brisco Brothers, the Koloffs, the Rock n' Roll Express, Midnight Express, Tully Blanchard/Arn Anderson, and the Road Warriors were the class of the senior circuit's tag team division.

In the nineties, the WWF's top teams included the Hart Foundation, the Road Warriors, the Nasty Boys, Money Inc., the Steiner Brothers, the Quebecers, the Smoking Gunns, and the New Age Outlaws lead the WWF into the Monday Night Wars and beyond. The NWA, now World Championship Wrestling had the Steiner Brothers, Hollywood Blondes, Harlem Heat, Nasty Boys, and the Outsiders. Extreme Championship Wrestling was a hotbed of tag team wrestling in the nineties. Teams like Axl/Ian Rotten, the Public Enemy, the Pitbulls, Sabu/Rob Van Dam, the Gangstas, the Eliminators, the Dudleys, and the Impact Playaz each found their hardcore roots in the land of the extreme.

This current decade has given us teams like Edge/Christian, the Hardys, the Dudleys, Charlie Haas/Shelton Benjamin, MNM, LAX, America's Most Wanted, and Ring of Honor's Briscoe Brothers.

From the seventies until the mid-nineties, tag team wrestling was made up of actual tag teams. Most teams had a team name. Many wore matching outfits. You had two men whose styles meshed well together. The two teammates were thought of as one. In the eighties and early nineties, when you mentioned Marty Jannety, you immediately thought of Shawn Michaels. If Hawk was on TV, you knew Animal was right by his side.

Over the last ten years, something has changed in wrestling. In today's wrestling landscape, you have just as many singles wrestlers that win tag team titles, as you have actual tag teams. There are very few tag team specialist these days. Today, the top teams on a national landscape are the Dudleys, LAX, Miz/Johnny Morrison, and the Briscoe Brothers. Most other "true" tag teams are considered no better then mid-card wrestlers. Before the de-emphasizing of the tag team divisions, tag team wrestlers were looked at as main event talent.

Today, it seems like the only time tag teams are featured as main event players is when main event singles wrestlers team up to create a short term tag team. This trend started during the Monday Night Wars. During this time period in wrestling, Bret Hart/Goldberg, Shawn Michaels/Steve Austin, The Rock/Mankind, Steve Austin/Dude Love, Scott Hall/The Giant, Sting/Kevin Nash, and Steve Austin/Undertaker all held World tag team gold.

Lately, the WWE has been using the tag titles as a prop to put two wrestlers who have a beef with one another, but must work together as a team since they have won the belts. Last year, the WWE put the belts on WWE World Champion John Cena and his upcoming WrestleMania opponent, Shawn Michaels. The WWE thought this worked out so well that when MVP and Matt Hardy started to feud last August, the WWE threw the SmackDown! tag straps on them. Just when you thought that the main event singles wrestlers were being kept away from the tag team belts, the WWE did it again. This past Monday night, the WWE had John Cena and Batista win the tag team titles from the newly created team of Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, Junior.

I don't understand the WWE's fascination with taking top singles wrestlers, and giving them the tag straps for no reason, but to push a singles feud. Why would you put the belt on a World singles championship caliber wrestler, like John Cena? Are the tag team titles going to get stronger because Cena holds one half of those belts? The answer is no. How could the titles get the rub when the main point of his teaming with Batista is to see how the two partners get along? It has nothing to do with Cena and Batista teaming for months and months, and now all of their hard work has been paid off with a tag team title victory. Their title win on Monday night didn't leave the fans thinking that Batista and Cena are the greatest team in the world.

Quite the contrary. When The Midnight Express and the Rock n' Roll Express fought for the NWA World Tag Team championships, you knew the winner of that match was arguably the greatest tag team in the land. Today, when random singles wrestler A and random singles wrestler B wins the belts, you do not get that same feeling.

Another ploy the WWE likes to use every so often is when they put the tag team titles around the waist of one of their singles champions. Why would they do this? It makes no sense, except that it buries the tag team championship as being an after thought. How tough can tag team wrestling be if a singles title holder, who is mainly concerned with defending his singles title, is able to step right in to the tag team division, and win it's top prize?

You never saw Stan Lane or Bobby Eaton win a singles title while they held the NWA World tag team championships. Most tag team wrestlers, who win singles gold, do so after a long period of time after being removed from the tag team ranks. Shawn Michaels won his first WWF Intercontinental Championship ten months AFTER he put Marty Jannety through the Barber Shop's plate glass window.

This isn't to say that singles champions never won tag team gold before the "Attitude Era." On August 9th, 1980, the WWF World Champion Bob Backlund teamed up with Pedro Morales to beat the Wild Samoans to win the WWF World Tag Team titles. Over fifteen years later, on September 24,1995, WWF World Champion Diesel and the WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels captured the WWF World Tag Team titles from Owen Hart and Yokozuna. At least in these two instances, the new champions vacated the tag straps since they already held singles gold. The two divisions were kept separate, the way it should be.

I'm not against all "singles stars win the tag team gold" angle, as long as it elevates the tag team championships. When Edge and Randy Orton started to team up with each other, it was mainly to further their singles feuds against Shawn Michaels and Triple H. Eventually, the two gelled as a team. They even had an old school team name when they called themselves "Rated RKO." When they won the tag team titles, you had the feeling that they really wanted to win the belts. When they lost the titles, you believed that they were not happy to have the belts taken from them.

Heading into SummerSlam 2008, Batista and John Cena became the latest singles stars to win the tag straps. While the belts may serve as a prop to help build the tension between the two stars, I think that putting the tag titles on Cena and Batista is a big mistake. The WWE is in the early stages of pushing new young stars to the forefront. In recent weeks, Ted DiBiase, Jr. and Cody Rhodes were wrestling in the main event match on Monday Night RAW. DiBiase has looked like a future star. Rhodes is starting to show a charisma as a heel that he was lacking as a face in his months since being called up from development. The WWE just put the tag straps on the duo a little over a month ago. They team was just starting to get their wheels in motion. The tag team belts made Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, Jr. a legitimate piece of talent that should be taken seriously. Instead, their development is stunted just so the WWE can play their "I don't like you but am forced to defend the tag titles with you" game between Batista and John Cena.

The days of tag team glory that the fans enjoyed in the eighties, and again during the Edge/Christian, Dudleys, and Hardys wars of 2000-2001 will probably never be experienced again. Instead, the fans will continue to see mid-card level teams or single stars holding the gold. Tag teams will never be given a chance to flourish. If a team is hot, the promotion will eventually break them up to put the wrestlers in the singles scene. A perfect example of this was the tag team MNM. They broke up Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro too soon. Its too bad as they were probably the last great true tag team in the WWF/E. My advice to tag team enthusiasts is to watch WWE 24/7 and buy the WrestleMania and SummerSlam Anthologies. It's here that you will be able to see tag team wrestling the way it was and ought to be, featuring legendary teams, and not two-month pretenders.