Usos vs. Wyatts Is the Perfect Feud for WWE Tag Team Championships

photo courtesy: wwe.com

The tag team feud between The Usos and The Wyatts already has a template.

Throughout 2014, fans have been treated to a lengthy feud between John Cena and Bray Wyatt. The rivalry had its ups and downs, but it achieved WWE and Cena’s admitted goal of ushering in the next generation.

Basic as it may sound, Wyatt and Cena worked well together as rivals because they were perfect foils for one another.

On one hand was the square-jawed, cookie-cutter babyface in John Cena. He’s an All-American, real-life Superman who proudly trots out to the ring after a patriotic pre-match salute.

Cena’s bright neon colors are designed to pique the interests and imagination of a family-friendly demographic that is just as vocal (“let’s go Cena!”) and more common than the loud Internet crowd.

It’s the reason John Cena has been the biggest star in the WWE for over 10 years.

That aforementioned loud Internet crowd backs Bray Wyatt. His dark and complex persona appeals to the eclectic tastes of the more seasoned fan. Just as Heath Ledger was critically acclaimed for his role as the Joker, Bray Wyatt sinks deep into character to play the bad guy.

It’s almost as if, following each show, Wyatt throws his gear in a 1985 Dodge Caravan and retires to a compound in the swamps.

Post by WWE Shawn News.

Wyatt is WWE’s modern-day thespian who garners support from the highbrow fan of the wrestling opera.

John Cena is a Saturday morning cartoon come to life. For optimal viewing, watch Cena on a couch with a bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

Cena and Wyatt’s feud spanned three pay-per-views. And although Money in the Bank will represent the first time since Elimination Chamber where the two have not had a singles match, the Cena-Wyatt struggle continues.

Cena and Wyatt’s last match at Payback—a glorious hardcore free-for-all—begat The Usos and Wyatts feud.



On one side were the two Usos: Bright neon colors. Facepaint. A pre-match salute designed to get the fans involved (“When I say ‘Uce!’).

Sound familiar?

The Usos represent the ideal tag team for the John Cena generation. Like Cena, they’re a throwback to the easy-to-digest superhero.

The smiling, yet aggressive, Samoan high-flyers are over for the same reasons John Cena is over. Their entire act is designed to stimulate the senses of a young, non-cynical mind.

Still, The Usos retain an approval rating that is almost universal. They’re relatively new, so there’s no hipster backlash from wrestling snobs. We don’t hear “Uce…No!” from the jaded pockets of live arenas.

Not yet, at least.

Feuds with the old guard (like The New Age Outlaws, who are real-life friends of Triple H and were seen by some as old wrestlers stealing spotlight from young wrestlers) and bland tag teams like Rybaxel have given fans little reason to go full meta on The Usos.

For much of their championship run, there have been no heel tag teams that could make The Usos look cheesy by comparison.

Then along came The Wyatts.



Luke Harper and Erick Rowan (more Harper than Rowan) take the artfulness of The Wyatts a step further.

Harper cut his teeth in Internet Wrestling Community hotbeds like Japan and Ring of Honor. He works a style more similar to Daniel Bryan than Bruiser Brody. The guy can even do a suicide dive.

Because his immense size makes this ironic, he has become almost as beloved by “smart” fans, who boo babyfaces and cheer heels, as Bray Wyatt himself.

Harper and Rowan, like Bray Wyatt, have a gimmick that is so complex and well thought-out it makes the Uso’s pseudo hip-hop act look like Kris Kross.

With a pair of cool heels to get behind, an Usos feud is finally polarizing.

Sunday’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view emanates from Boston, Massachusetts. Boston is a snarky bunch that refuses to surrender its hardcore credentials long enough to cheer for hometown hero John Cena.

SummerSlam in 2006 was held at that venue. During a match between Cena and Edge, James Caldwell of the Pro Wrestling Torch recounted that “a ‘Cena sucks’ chant started early,” and then “another ‘Cena sucks’ chant could be heard.”

Anti-Cena sentiments have only become more mainstream since.

A 50-50 reaction for the Usos at Money in the Bank, and similar reactions in the future, will render the Usos carbon copies of Cena. For Jimmy and Jey, this can only mean one thing.

Success.

source: bleacherreport.com

The Shield's Chances of Breaking the Record for Longest WWE Tag Title Reign

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The Shield won their WWE tag titles just two months ago, but it has a chance to break the record for holding those belts the longest.

How often does a new team get thrown into such high-profile matches or are made to look so dominant? It's been clear from the beginning that WWE believes in The Shield.

Though The Shield's undefeated streak is now a memory, this is a team so bursting with momentum and facing such little competition, that Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins have a decent shot at breaking a record that has stood since 2007.

The two have the best chance of anybody, though you still might not want to bet the house on it.

The history of the WWE Tag Team Championship doesn't date as far back as the now-defunct world tag titles, but becoming the longest-reigning champs in the championship's 11-year history would still be impressive.

Record holders Paul London and Brian Kendrick held the title from May 2006 to April 2007, for a total of 331 days.

Brian Kendrick and Paul London vs Kid Kash and Jamie Noble - Grerat American Bash 2006

Since then, more than 20 teams have won the championship. For The Shield to hold the belts longer than any of them and longer than London and Kendrick, Reigns and Rollins would have to keep winning for nine more months and retain their titles until WrestleMania XXX.

That's a tall order, but the majority of The Shield's foes seem incapable of dethroning them.

The Shield faces The Usos at the Money in the Bank pre-show. The Usos will go into that match as massive underdogs, while The Shield has been battling the likes of John Cena, Ryback, Sheamus and Randy Orton on pay-per-view this year. The Usos have been watching those shows from the locker room.

Rollins and Reigns easily dispatched Jimmy and Jey Uso in May. Expect them to do the same on July 14.

The Usos vs. Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns: SmackDown, May 17,
2013


With Christian's help, The Usos did score a victory over the three-man version on WWE SmackDown at the end of June. The Shield got its revenge just a few days later. This back-and-forth is WWE's way of making the Money in the Bank match seem less predictable, the smart money is on The Shield to retain, though.

The rest of the tag division doesn't offer any overwhelming threats.

Tons of Funk and 3MB are comedy acts. Neither team has won a significant match. The Prime Time Players stand a comparatively better shot, but Titus O'Neil and Darren Young once gave way to a hotter team in Team Hell No and will probably do that again with The Shield.

It's more likely that either the Wyatt Family or self-destruction will cause The Shield's downfall.

Bray Wyatt and his creepy followers offer WWE a blank slate. They have not lost a single match. They have not been dominated or embarrassed the way the other teams have at some point.

Should WWE send them on a rampage to open their WWE campaign, they could be built up as contenders for the titles.

Either that or jealousy, mutiny or tension within the group could lead to The Shield falling.

Their path to surpassing London and Kendrick is certainly not without obstacles, but it's a journey we could witness over the next few months. The company has shown that it is not opposed to lengthy tag title runs.

Carlito and Primo Colon, John Morrison and The Miz and Team Hell have all held the title for around 250 days. They were all a few months away from making history themselves.

It would be exciting for The Shield to do what those squads couldn't. WWE is in the business of drumming up excitement and because it can create its own history, The Shield could benefit from a desire to see a record broken, to see dominance reign.

The only thing is, crowning new champs is a thrilling story as well.

Does WWE pull the trigger on new titleholders before The Shield can overtake London and Kendrick, or does it look to make Reigns and Rollins into legends?

It's not as though The Shield has to win 100 matches to break that record.

The tag titles aren't often defended on weekly TV and are often not a part of pay-per-views. Say WWE has plans for The Shield at Survivor Series that don't involve defending the titles. Say Reigns or Rollins or both enter the 2014 Royal Rumble instead of fighting a team of challengers.

That means The Shield would have to win roughly six or seven times on pay-per-view. That's not an impossible number to reach, but it's one that is anything but certain.

In order to become the longest-reigning champs, The Shield must go on a trek with foes lining the mountain it wishes to climb. Count on Reigns and Rollins knocking The Usos out of their way on Sunday.

Stay tuned to see the group approach history beyond that, step by step, win by win.

source: bleacherreport.com

Birthday Hugs For The Big Red Machine Kane at Moscow

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While in Moscow, Kane celebrated his birthday with John Cena and fellow WWE Tag Team Champion and Team Hell No partner, Daniel Bryan. Check out WWE.com's exclusive photos of the in-ring party and the rest of WWE's European tour.

Main Event + Kane Birthday Wrestlemania REVENGE in Moscow 2013

Happy Birthday Kane

Happy Birthday Kane

Kane and Daniel Bryan: Why They Have the Best Comedic Chemistry in WWE in Years

photo courtesy: nmalbaugh.blogspot.com

Although I'm not someone who constantly bashes the WWE's PG programming, one area in which it has detracted from the overall quality of the product is when it comes to comedic segments. Many of the WWE's infantile attempts at humor fall short, but Kane and Daniel Bryan seem to be changing that.

When you consider where the new Tag Team champions were several months ago, it's tough to fathom that they are coming close to meeting or exceeding the comedic chemistry that Edge and Christian exemplified for so many years as a team. Everything Kane and Bryan have done over the past month has been fantastic, though.

When Bryan came to WWE he was a spectacular technical wrestler, but he seemed to be lacking when it came to personality. Kane made his long-awaited return under a mask last year and was portrayed as an unstoppable monster, but he has changed significantly as he has gone back to being more of a fan-friendly character.



It's tough to say why with certainty, but Kane and Bryan together as a team just works. The WWE has done a great job of cultivating their partnership by having them feud at first and then playing up their respective psychological problems to make it seem as though they have something in common.

Not only that, but both Bryan and Kane have some history with RAW general manager A.J. Lee. She used her power to further embarrass her former flames by making both of them attend anger-management classes. As simple as they were, the anger-management skits were funnier than anything the WWE has produced in the past few years at least.

Both Kane and Bryan have done such a great job that they actually make me believe that they're mentally unstable sometimes. After they won the Tag Team Championship at Night of Champions, they continually screamed "I am the Tag Team champions" at each other, and as simple as it may sound, I hope they continue that gimmick moving forward.

Kane has played the serious monster for the majority of his career, but he is no stranger to being a comedic character either. That usually happens when he's in tag teams with the likes of Hurricane, X-Pac, Rob Van Dam and others, so it isn't overly surprising to see him doing it now that he's paired with D-Bry.

As far as Bryan is concerned, though, I didn't realize he had this type of entertainment value in him. As "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson, Bryan was always a vicious in-ring competitor with incredible skill, but he had a very serious demeanor that didn't seem to lend itself to comedic excellence.

Perhaps Bryan was actually being held back on the independent scene to some degree, though, as the psychotic comedy act has made him immeasurably more entertaining in my estimation. The old Bryan was great, but he was somewhat one-dimensional, so I have to believe that his new persona is going to launch him to new heights in the WWE.

One of the best features of the Attitude Era was the comedy, and while not everything was as hilarious as Vince McMahon probably thought, there were a lot of great moments. The WWE can't really let loose now like it did back then as far as comedy sketches go, but Kane and Bryan have managed to be funny while staying within the PG guidelines.

Truth be told, Kane and Bryan have a lot of restrictions that could stop them from being funny, but they haven't affected them at all. Kane and Bryan have kept things fairly simple, but the crazy gimmick allows them to act strange and it just seems to work.

I know that Kane and Bryan won't be a team forever, since Bryan has a bright future as a singles competitor, but I'm certainly going to enjoy the ride for now. The tag division has been irrelevant for so long that I'm ecstatic to see to guys working together to bring it back to prominence.

Not only are they doing that for the die-hard fans, but they're keeping all the fringe fans entertained as well with their wacky antics. Kane and Bryan are undoubtedly the best thing going in WWE right now.

courtesy: bleacherreport.com

Why the WWE Tag Team Division Will Now Have a 2nd Chance

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It’s been quite a while since the WWE’s tag team division truly mattered.

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

WWE Tag Team Champions R-Truth & Kofi Kingston vs. Kane & Daniel Bryan : Night Of Champions 2012

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In light of a unforeseen turn of occasions on Crude, the peculiar-poignant couple of Kane & Daniel Bryan has supplanted The Prime Time Players as No. 1 contenders to WWE Tag Crew Champions Kofi Kingston & R-Truth. WWE's most hazardous “odd couple” will test out their tenuous matching in opposition to the authoritative champions this Sunday During the evening of Champions.

Kane and Bryan scored the exceptionally-essential opening by overcoming Titus O’Neil & Darren Youthful on Crude Monday night. Former to the challenge, Crude General Supervisor AJ Lee had affirmed that The Prime Time Players, who were granted No. 1 contender status days previous on SmackDown, still had one crew to demolish before they might move on to the champions. Unfortunately for the swaggering Players, the remaining obstruction was the improbable but adequate tandem of The Great Red Beast and WWE's chief docility master.

Initially conceptualized by Dr. Shelby, the crew of Kane and Bryan indicated just a sight of coherence in their win over O'Neil & Green. Indeed, the winning pinfall came following Kane—surprise that Bryan had tagged himself in—Chokeslammed Bryan onto Junior.

Unthinkable as it might appear, the previous enemies will now need to rely on one another depending on if they want to leave Boston with championship gold this Sunday. Will the atypical crew authenticate to be the toughest challenge yet to Kingston and Truth's championship rule, which is now in its fifth month?

On one hand, the uneasy cooperation appears to be an ideal formula for accomplishment. Preceding Globe Champions Kane and Bryan are thought about a few of WWE's most fit singles contenders, and history decidedly proposes that a significant number of singles contestants have transitioned finally into WWE's tag group division.

Yet, there is no denying that Kane and Bryan still show up less-than-easy—and more-than-ignitable—filling in as a unit. However their offered encounter in an indignation administration course carried the several Superstars closer as one than ever soon after, their RAWActive “Embrace It Out” Match on the Sept. 3 Crude did not closure warmly. With the WWE Tag Group Titles hanging to be decided, can Kane and Bryan put their departures aside, or is this blending basically excessively combustible to succeed?

Regardless of the fact that Kane and Bryan are ready to get on the same page, their group may still be lethally blocked by every Superstar's single unfriendliness. Dr. Shelby's exertions to control their annoyance situations have indicated trends toward moderate advance, but the WWE Universe could be hard-pressed to portray either Kane or Bryan as without anger actually, Bryan's outrage to the “Yes!”-droning force in Milwaukee, Wis., on Crude several weeks in the past initiated him to lose his temper and lose through number-out to R-Truth.)

That might spell hang-up for the challengers, as standing opposite the ring from them this Sunday should be the generally-oiled machine regarded as the WWE Tag Crew Champions. Kofi Kingston & R-Truth have stood on WWE's gathered tag group division for practically part of a year, and over the course of their rule, they’ve turned back one crew following a different one. Durable and amusement-cherishing, Kingston and Truth are completely contrary influences of Kane and Bryan, and there appears to be small explanation to think they will update their methodology Around evening time of Champions.

Who will leave Night of Champions with the WWE Tag Crew Titles? Will Truth & Kingston include yet a different towering-profile triumph to their presently extended record of defeated challengers? Then again will Kane and Bryan stun the WWE Universe—and perhaps even one another—by producing an auspicious unit? Discover this Sunday Around evening time of Champions

WWE Tag Team Champion Kane def. Mason Ryan by Disqualfication, WWE Raw May 2, 2011

Mason Ryan is for substantial. When The New Nexus power station faced off up against WWE Tag Team Champion Kane, he anhandled The Big Red Monster. Not that Kane was about to deliver any ground he slammed right back in. That is, right until Ryans fellow Nexi bulldozed into the four squared ring and bushwhacked him.

After the mate, Ryan proceeded to squash his enemy. When Kanes partner, Big Show, tried a saving, The New Nexus weakened him up and permitted their giant to complete him off with a spear. Later, Ryan came apart from the squad and went out up the entranceway ramp solo.

Watch the match now!

Part 1

Part 2