photo courtesy: wwe.com
Though it’s had a few flashes of potential here and there over the last couple of years, I’m not sure that tag team wrestling has truly mattered since late 2009 or early 2010, when teams like Jeri-Show, DX and ShoMiz were involved in the WWE tag team-championship scene.
But that’s about to change, because the tag team division is finally getting a second chance.
One of my main complaints about the WWE’s tag “division” is that it, in fact, hasn’t really been a division at all. Having one or two full-time teams and then throwing another team or two together every now and then doesn’t exactly qualify it as a division.
Now, however, a clear-cut tag team division is actually taking shape.
There are the WWE tag team champions, Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, who have been teaming up for the majority of 2012 and have held the tag team titles since April 30. Then, of course, we have the Usos, the Prime Time Players (Darren Young and Titus O’Neil), Primo and Epico, and the on-again-off-again duo of Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel.
That is a great core of tag teams right there, one that is bigger than the tag team-division core we’ve gotten over the last few years. It features at least four quality teams, the majority of which work extremely well because they look like they belong together.
The fact that the WWE has more tag teams now that any point in recent memory is a big-enough reason to be very optimistic about the future of the tag team division.
But what’s perhaps even more exciting is that the WWE is giving the division some much-needed star power.
While guys like Kingston and Kidd are ridiculously talented, they’re not really viewed as main-event-level or even upper-midcard guys by WWE management and the vast majority of the fans.
So, it makes sense to bring a handful of big names to the tag team division, if for no other reason than to make it seem more important, and thus, make the fans care more about it.
That’s what the WWE seems to be doing by having the odd and awkward pairing of Daniel Bryan and Kane become the No. 1 contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championship on Monday’s Raw.
They’re two former Money in the Bank winners and world champions, but perhaps more importantly, they’re insanely over right now. Kane is doing some of the best work of his career, while Bryan has been the hottest act in pro wrestling for much of 2012.
When they find themselves involved in the tag team title picture (no matter how it happens), they bring a ton of credibility and exposure to a tag team division that desperately needs it.
The same can be said about the unofficial tag team of Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara.
Though neither is a bona fide main-eventer at this stage of his career, they are still big-time names in pro wrestling. Mysterio is one of the WWE’s most popular stars in recent history, while Sin Cara is one of the most well-known Hispanic wrestlers on the planet.
Wrestling fans know about them, care about them and are interested in seeing what they do on Raw and SmackDown every week. Now that they seem to be becoming a part of the tag team division, the fans will start to care about the tag team division more, too.
This is a very simple philosophy that we fans have been begging to see for months upon months, if not years: Create more tag teams, and give the tag team division some more star power, and just like that, you’ve got the makings of a much-needed and much-desired tag team revival.
While there’s no telling how long the Kane/Bryan and Mysterio/Sin Cara pairings will last. We should sit back and enjoy the ride, because they appear poised to play huge roles in tag team wrestling for the foreseeable future.
That is, of course, a great thing for a tag team division that seemed damn near extinction not all that long ago.
source: bleacherreport.com
