Degeneration Next?

Throughout the past forty years, tag team wrestling has been a staple in the professional wrestling business. The 1970s, 80s, and 90s saw some incredible tag teams. Now, after the millennium, tag team wrestling is a dying art. The WWE is focused on selling poorly crafted generic characters and Hollywood tie-ins, and after TNA broke away from it’s NWA ties, TNA is going in the same direction.While WWE has seen some very good teams in the last ten years--teams like MNM and London & Kendrick for example--the number of those teams is a small one. The Hardy Boyz have split and made lucrative singles careers for themselves. Edge and Christian can no longer be the goofy heels that they were during their run as tag team champs, there characters have changed too much. While a rehashing of the Hardys vs. Edge & Christian feud is probably something to be expected with Christians return to WWE, tag team wrestling is still nearly dead in the WWE. With the recent split of Miz & Morrison, the only cohesive team--and really the only team at all--is the Colon brothers.

While TNA has been making a claim lately that they are the only company that still has good tag team wrestling, the claim rings very hollow in my ears. Yes, they have the Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) as well as the team of No Limit, Beer Money, LAX, The British Invasion (real original right?), and Lethal Consequences (catchy but corny), they still aren’t any match for the greats of the past. There is nothing to me that says any of these teams--with the possible exception of LAX and the MCMGs--have any kind of truly cohesive feel to them. Plus, with the garbage that I have to wade through to find any good wrestling in TNA, I’m just not that excited about the company in general these days. I could care less about the British Invasion. I’m sick of the dumb Black Machismo character, Consequences Creed is a corny cliché, Beer Money is boring, Team 3D (always the Dudley Boyz to me) seem to have grown complacent, and putting Eric young together with a minimally repackaged Trevor Murdock does nothing for me.

Ring of Honor is doing their best to keep tag team wrestling alive, but even they aren’t hitting on all cylinders. Steen and El Generico are great and the Briscoes are awesome. While The American Wolves are good in the ring, they don’t measure up to the greats of the past. Danielson and Tyler Black are both fan favorites, but I don’t see them making careers out of tagging with each other. The Vulture Squad--arguably the best cruiserweights in the world today--have broken up and there’s nobody stepping up to fill the void.

Tag team wrestling is just not as important--in the eyes of bookers and storyline writers--as it once was. Teams like the Fabulous Freebirds, The Eliminators, the Hart Foundation (the original Hart Foundation, not the one WWE is getting ready to push), RVD & Sabu, Benoit & Malenko, and tons of other teams are just not to be found these days. Wrestling is increasingly focused on getting more singles competition onto the card. The only tag team matches I see on a consistent basis are ones that unite two or more different singles feuds. It’s always something like Cena and Batista to take on their current rivals Orton and Big Show. Not only are these matches boring, they’re also completely predictable and of absolutely no consequence to anybody. They’re just an easy way to maximize TV time and to bring bad angles together.