Have you guys ever heard the saying “to damn someone with faint praise”? It means when you ostensibly are saying something nice about someone but the fact it’s the only nice thing you can say ends up being way more insulting than saying nothing at all.
It’s like saying to a student “wow, A for effort” or to an actor “wow, how did you learn all those lines” or to a wrestler “And new WWE Tag Team Champions”. I’m not really kidding either.
There are no championships more defunct and heatless in WWE right now than any the Tag Team Championships.
It’s well reported that AJ Styles was disappointed to win the belts at Mania, the SmackDown belts didn’t make it anywhere near the show, and the Women’s Tag straps are more of a prop in the one-woman standup extravaganza that is Nia Jax doing something funny with her bum-area.
Hell, even the 24/7 title appeared on SNL recently. This isn’t a new phenomenon, aside from a spell in the 80s where the WWF had a bustling tag team scene, the big dub have been more than happy to chuck the titles on whoever happens to be standing closest to gorilla at the time and such a total absence of f**ks has led to some real head-scratching champs.
I’m Adam hailing from partsFUNknown and here are 10 WWE Tag Teams You Totally Forgot Were Champions.
10. Rico & Charlie Haas
On the April 20 (blaze it) episode of SmackDown in 2004, Scotty 2 Hotty and Rikishi defended their tag titles (the same ones they retained at WrestleMania 20 in Madison Square Garden no less) against Charlie Haas and a mystery partner.
Who could it be, it’s Rico, who Charlie Haas then pretended he didn’t want to tag with because Rico was gay. “A straight guy and a gay guy, can they co-exist”, said WWE, bleakly.
‘When you’re Rico everyday’s a gay-la’ sniggered Michael Cole. Rico put on chapstick before demanding to be stinkfaced, it’s like Goldust but without the nuance, and then after they win via rollup, Rico called their partnership a fabulous relationship and Haas does an ew face.
Like yes, it’s total lowest common denominator stuff, but over the next two months the two wrestlers actually become friends and some of their segments are not sweet, but sweet for WWE, just in time to drop the belts to the Dudleys before the dreadful Great American Bash 2004, you know, the one with the cement murder.
9. Kenzo Suzuki & Rene Dupree
Sticking with 2004 because it was basically SmackDown going through difficult and strange puberty, side-effects include hair growing in weird places and JBL as WWE champion.
A few months into 2004, WWE started to hype up the arrival of Kenzo Suzuki, coming out of the east, riding on the divine winds of the gods…his ancestry noble, his soul determined, his purpose conquest.
The only things of note he did in his one-year stint with the company was rap against John Cena and win the tag straps with Fellow Evil Foreigner Rene Dupree against a similar Frankenteam of Billy Kidman and Paul London.
The SmackDown tag title scene having a totally normal one in the Ruthless Aggression Era.
Suzuki and Dupree won the belts, because Kidman was having an existential crisis at the time, being unable to perform his shooting star press after botching it against Chavo a few weeks earlier.
They’d hold the belts for three uninteresting months before dropping them to…
8. Rey Mysterio & Rob Van Dam
Why not?! Can’t believe they didn’t call these guys the HIGH-flyers. Do you get it? Do you?! Sorry, the Ruthless Aggression Era is affecting my sense of humour.
On the 9th of December, more like dickcember, sorry, in 2004, Suzuki was kayfabe obsessed with Torrie Wilson, just like Tajiri was, because Torrie has terrible luck with Japanese heels, Oh WWE.
Dupree and Suzuki corner Wilson in the ring before RVD and Mysterio make the save, Teddy Long makes a tag title match player, and then for some reason, Rey Mysterio and RVD cheat to win despite being the babiest of babyfaces. Why not? It’s the tag titles, nothing matters.
Fun fact, this happened on the same episode that saw tiny The Miz battle Daniel Puder in a gladiator-style joust. Why not?
Mysterio and RVD would lose the titles a month later to the Basham Brothers, on the same episode of SmackDown that saw Joy Giovanni go missing and end up being found in the trunk of JBL’s car.
Turns out Kurt Angle kidnapped her. Again, congrats on the purchase, Peacock.
7. 1-2-3 Kid & Marty Jannetty
Just going to take a quick break from the Ruthless Aggression Era because I was starting to feel bugs crawl over my skin.
Off we go to the New Generation Era, another of WWE’s favourite times. And hey you know what, say what you will about the New-Gen but for most of the time the tag straps were held by actual tag teams, The Steiners, Two Dudes with Attitudes, Smoking Gunns, Quebecers, 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty, wait what was that last one?
Yup on the January 10 episode of Raw in 1994, the random pairing of Kid and Janetty A.K.A. the “we made our costumes ourselves twins beat The Quebecers!” Why? Because it was Raw’s one-year anniversary show and sod it, it’s the tag belts.
Nice little celebration pop to kick off the show, then the lads would drop the belts literally the next week. 1-2-3 Kid would make a habit of weird pairing, one year later winning the belts with Bob Holly at the 1995 Royal Rumble, only to drop the to the Smoking Gunns the next night on Raw.
6. Drew McIntyre & Cody Rhodes
Well, this team would probably be more of a big deal if it happened today, huh.
Cody Rhodes has a fun relationship with Tag Team Championships, once managing to win the straps from himself at Night of Champions 2008, turning up with Bob Holly as champs, turning on Holly, allying with Ted DiBiase and switching teams before the bell.
Two years later, also at Night of Champions, WWE would hold a Tag Team Turmoil Match which shone an UNFORGIVING light on their total lack of tag teams, as the match featured the Usos, and the Hart Dynasty, but also Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov, random pairing Evan Bourne and Mark Henry, and random pairing Cody and Drew.
Quite a division. I mean you might as well switch the belts, the Raw before the pay-per-view saw Chris Jericho beat then-champions The Hart Dynasty in a 2-on-1 Cage Match. Nothing matters.
Cody and Drew held the belts for a month before dropping them to…
5. John Cena & David Otunga – Bragging Rights 2010
WWE bloody love whacking the Tag Team Titles on singles star John Cena and [insert person that John Cena is feuding with here] because nothing gives Vince more a downstairs chuckle than an established tag team with established tag team chemistry not being able to beat two random singles stars who actively don’t want to work together.
Literally, John Cena has only ever held Tag Championship gold with people that he was feuding with. They did it with Cena and Shawn Michaels beating Rated RKO before WrestleMania 23, with Cena and Batista beating Legacy before SummerSlam 2008, with The Miz beating The Corre before WrestleMania XXVII and at Bragging Rights 2010.
John Cena, who was forced to be the nexus’s indentured servant, won them with David Otunga OF ALL PEOPLE, before, of course, losing them in an all Nexus Fingerpoke of Doom the next night on Raw.
Why does WWE hate the Tag Team Championships?
4. William Regal & Eugene
Urrrghgh. William Regal is the best, Eugene was the worst. Back to 2004, we go then, good year that.
At Survivor Series 2004, Randy Orton, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho and Maven each got to run Raw for a week.
Because Maven is the worst of the four, he created a three-way tag team elimination match for the gold, Rhyno and Tajiri vs. champions and actual tag team La Resistance vs. Eugene and Regal.
Eugene got the pin with the People’s Elbow and oh the sight of William Regal jumping for joy, smiling next to Eugene, it’s not right please hurry up and win King of the Ring Willy Reegs.
Running around in a circle with actual children, like it’s just… it’s… oh never mind, WWE you are so weird.
The team actually held the belts for two months before losing them back to La Resistance at a Canadian house show. At a house show! Why not?!
3. Eddie Guerrero & Tajiri
…Sure. They might as well have won them. Yeah.
SmackDown was pretty good in 2003, we were still in the era of the smackdown six after all, and at Judgment Day WWE booked a Tag Team Championship Ladder Match between Los Guerreros and the World’s Greatest Tag Team.
Uh, yes please. Unfortunately, Chavo got injured before the show and was replaced on the day with the Japanese Buzzsaw, makes sense he’s practically a Guerrero. Orale Vato, Tajiri-san.
The match is pretty fun, sunset flip powerbombs off ladders are always a good thing, and the finish saw Tajiri spraying green mist in the face of Shelton Benjamin allowing Eddie to grab the belts crowning a very silly, thrown-together championship team.
They only held the straps for 40 days before dropping them back to Benjamin and Haas.
2. CM Punk & Kofi Kingston
Ah Kofi Kingston, the patron saint of thrown-together tag teams.
For a year between 2011 and 2012 Kofi actually held tag gold for 285 days with two different teams. 139 of them Air Boom with Evan Bourne that at least had a team name, even if the team name sounded like f**king nerf came up with it.
Then Kofi and R-truth held the belts for even longer 146 days which is very silly, but before both of them came Kofi’s title run with random-ass CM Punk in 2008, dethroning Legacy – Manu Edition – on a random Raw on October 27.
This was back during Kofi’s Jamaican phase that everyone goes through. Fun fact, CM Punk had been World Heavyweight Champion the month before. Never mind.
They defended the belts only once on TV before dropping them to Miz and Morrison at a house show in Canada. Never mind.
1. Ric Flair & Roddy Piper
What? Doesn’t feel like the kind of team you’d forget, but I’m still convinced that Wikipedia and the WWE Network are lying to me.
Cyber Sunday 2006, A.K.A. the pay-per-view that WWE made when someone told them about computers.
The champs going into the match were the bloody f**k oh no Spirit Squad represented in the match by KENNY and MIKEY. However those bouncy twats were not enough to contain Ric Flair and his partner chosen by the fans, Rowdy Roddy Piper, in some tiny Roddy pants.
The combined age of 109 beat the spirit squad in less than seven minutes, for a fleeting nostalgia pop, before losing the titles to Rated RKO after 8 days.
They got beat in Manchester, England in front of fans who proved why we’re the best and most annoying fans in the world by making a gigantic woo sign that was present on the hard cam throughout.
Sucks to be you, people behind the banner. And that’s the tag championships, they haven’t been important for ages, so why not AJ and Omos. Might as well.
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