Tag team wrestlingis the bread and butter ofWWEhistory. While WWE has always driven more attention to its singles matches, tag teams can be cited as a starting point for individual success. Shawn Michaels started off with The Rockers, Jeff Hardy was introduced as a Hardy Boy before becoming WWE Champion, and heck, the firstWrestleManiaever was main evented by a tag team match.
The point is that it is easy for tag team wrestling to go underappreciated in the grand scheme of WWE history, but tag teams have their place in wrestling that cannot be easily overlooked. It’s also easy to overlook knowing just how many great teams there are out there. Thebest tag teams in WWE historystill get their props from fans who recognize them, but the most underrated teams deserve a second evaluation and, most importantly, an acknowledgment of their greatness.
10Billy and Chuck (Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo)
Committing to the Bit Earned Them Their Respect
Billy Gunn has been a part of some of WWE’s most historically important tag teams, not to mentionone of WWE’s greatest factionsin DX. Similarly, Chuck Palumbo (alongside the late Sean O’Haire of the Natural Born Thrillers) entered WWE as one-half of the final WCW World Tag Team Champions. When Gunn and Palumbo had nothing going on for themselves, story-wise, they were pitched to wrestle as not just a tag team, but as a gay couple.
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Eric Bischoff has recently made an appearance in NXT, which makes this the perfect time to reflect on his best moments from WWE & WCW.
Agreeing to commit to the angle as much as they could without going too raunchy, Billy and Chuck were surprisingly well-received at a time when homosexuality was still considered taboo by mainstream standards. Although the angle had its critics,most fans respected their commitment. This led to them becoming Tag Team Champions, even defeating The Hardys, Dudleys, and APA at WrestleMania X8. Their wedding segment is still one of themost talked-about Ruthless Aggression era segments, but not enough people talk about their in-ring chemistry as a duo.
9Deuce and Domino (Deuce Shade and Dice Domino)
A Fun Team from WWE’s Ruthless Aggression Era
What’s most interesting is that much oftheir best work took place in OVW, where they were formed. In WWE’s pre-NXT developmental territory, Deuce and Domino were The Throwbacks, managed by Cherry Pie. They partially dropped their monikers before being called up to television, but they also dropped a bit of their eccentricities, as the performers seemed to commit far more tothe over-the-top lunacy that a 50s greaser gimmick would entail. The best of Deuce and Domino was found in a feud with Shawn Spears and Cody Rhodes for the Tag Titles, where Cherry briefly defected to Cody.
Still, even without the spark that greased their fire in Ohio Valley Wrestling, they still exceeded expectations as WWE Tag Team Champions. Despite being slightly more grounded than their previous iteration, they were still fun to watch on SmackDown. At a time when the tag division was a little overstuffed,Deuce and Domino stood out for character workthat extended into gritty, rough-and-tough in-ring work that made sense for their personas.
8Lucha Dragons (Sin Cara and Kalisto)
Forgotten Pillars of WWE’s Tag Teams from the Reality Era
At the height of their then-record-breakingWWE Tag Team Championship reign, the New Dayspent much of 2015 feuding with The Usos and The Lucha Dragons, to the point that all three teams were featured in a Ladder Match for the Tag Titles at TLC 2015. Ignoring the fact that the match itself was fantastic and underrated in itself, their collision was framed by WWE at the time asa changing of the guardin tag team wrestling.
The Dragons were utterly entertaining and brought back a lucha style that had long been absent from WWE television at the time.
It’s hard not to see these three teams feuding in a Ladder Match and not think about the feud between the Hardys, Dudleys, and Edge and Christian of old, definitive for a new era. The pioneering success of The Usos and The New Day can be seen as clear as day, but the former NXT Tag Champions get shafted in the history books. The Dragons were utterly entertaining and brought back a lucha style that had long been absent from WWE television at the time.
7(Typhoon and Earthquake)
The Golden Era’s Most Dominant Pairing
Both Earthquake and Typhoon have largely been forgotten by the WWE Universe, butin their heyday were massively overas an intimidating force to be reckoned with. Earthquake (John Tenta) was a man dangerous enough to put Hulk Hogan on the shelf for months at the height of Hulkamania, while Fred Ottman’s shift from Tugboat to Typhoon turned out to be one of WWE’s most drastic heel-to-babyface switches that changed his career for the better. Together, they pulverized just about every team in their path, which made for a fun watch every time.
Their run is highlighted best bya win for the Tag Titles, a feud with the Legion of Doom, and being managed by Jimmy Hart. That partnership ended when Hart betrayed the Natural Disasters, giving their title shot to another underrated tag team, Money Inc.
6Divas of Doom (Natalya and Beth Phoenix)
A Women’s Tag Team That Dominated Without a Division
In 2010, when Natalya won the Divas Championship, Beth Phoenix returned from injury to back up the Hart Dungeon graduate in her ongoing feud with the dastardly Laycool. From then on, the Divas of Doom were born. As such,Nattie and Phoenix were a women’s tag team when a women’s tag team division didn’t exist, nor did Women’s Tag Team Championships. The Divas of Doom and Laycool were pretty much WWE’s only women’s tag teams at the time, but the Divas of Doom were fun to watch to the point that the idea ofwomen’s tag teams started to spark fan interest.
In 2019, Beth Phoenix would briefly come out of retirement to reunite with Natalya to challenge for the titles they never had the chance to challenge for during the PG Era, the Women’s Tag Team Championship, at WrestleMania 35.
The duo also made history at that year’s TLC whenthey won the first-ever Women’s Tag Team Tables Match, defeating Laycool. The following year, they proved just as entertaining as heels as they were babyfaces, later adopting an Anti-Diva gimmick against anyone they considered to be Barbie bimbos.
The Best Tag Team to Never Win the Titles
Some will scoff at the fact that Cryme Tyme’s characters perpetuated stereotypes about “thugs” and “gangsters” towards black people, but in the mid-2000s Ruthless Aggression Era, every culture’s stereotype was represented. What may seem problematic today was considered the norm back then. Whether it was right or not demands a separate debate, but what’s worth praising is how JTG and Shad made the most of these charactersby being endlessly charmingin the roles they played.
Combined with impressive in-ring skill, Cryme Tyme’s natural ability and immense popularity allowed them to share the ring with the likes of celebrities like Shaq and, for a short-lived CTC stable, John Cena. One of the biggest blunders of the era was never crowning Cryme Tyme with tag team gold despite them consistently being among the most widely over acts on the roster.
4Cesaro and Tyson Kidd
An Immensely Underrated Pair of Workhorses
As individuals alone, Tyson Kidd and Cesaro (now Claudio Castagnoli in AEW) have always been considered underrated and amongthe best workhorses in WWE history. The workhorse title is usually attributed to wrestlers who may not always get the main event push, but are always called upon because they’re dependable. They’re capable of having a good match with anyone and will always make their opponents look good. When WWE saw they had nothing major planned for Kidd or Cesaro, they were paired as a tag team.
WWE had a lot of random tag team pairings, but this onefelt like lightning in a bottle. They had excellent in-ring chemistry that not only allowed them to maintain their workhorse credibility, but also gave them time to actually shine as WWE Tag Team Champions, even retaining their belts at WrestleMania 31. Unfortunately, Tyson Kidd’s career-ending injury would mark the end for this team.
3Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch
A Throwback to the Territories
Trevor Murdoch and Lance Cade playedtwo different sides of the redneck stereotype spectrum. Cade leaned toward the pretty boy cowboy archetype that was gaining attention at the time thanks toBrokeback Mountain, while Murdoch was the classic tobacco-spitting, truck-driving redneck (who, oddly enough, had a penchant for singing). Their styles as characters and competitors complimented each other, opening the door for a three-year run together that amounted to three Tag Title wins.
In many ways, Cade and Murdoch felt likea throwback to classic, hard-hitting teamsthat one would find in the 80s during the days of the territories. Their unwitting demeanor helped them emerge as unexpected master manipulators who could outsmart their opponents. The dynamic led to some entertaining feuds and matches, particularly during a lengthy 2007 feud with The Hardy Boyz. Unfortunately, they were both released from the WWE roughly at the same time shortly after their team was split up, and they never teamed again before Cade’s passing in 2010.
2Money Inc. (IRS and Ted Dibiase)
The Tag Team That No One Remembers Beat Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania
Ted Dibiase and Irwin R. Schyster (the father of the late Bray Wyatt) arethe result of perfectly timed happenstance. It was sheer coincidence that both men happened to have money-based villain characters at the same time, and once WWE noticed the coincidence, plans were in motion to pair them together. Onscreen, the “Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart dumped the previously mentioned Natural Disasters and gave the tag title shot he acquired for them to his new clients, who ended up winning.
They defended their belts at WrestleMania IX against Hulk Hogan and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, collectively the Mega-Maniacs. Miraculously, Money Inc. retained their titles. They received a DQ win, but a win’s a win, and in an era whereHogan rarely lost,especially at Mania, Money Inc. beating The Hulkster doesn’t get talked about enough. Money Inc. may not get five-star matches out of most teams, but they draw the ire of the crowd like nobody’s business.
1Rated RKO (Randy Orton and Edge)
A Short-Lived But Unforgettable Duo in WWE
On the October 2nd, 2006 episode ofRaw, Edge tried to get Cade and Murdoch to interfere on his behalf to win the WWE Championship from John Cena. DX would stop that from happening, with a deceptive Sweet Chin Music keeping The Rated R Superstar from escaping the cage. Hellbent on payback, Edge would recruit a ghost from Triple H’s past in Randy Orton on the following week’s Raw, certain they had a common enemy in D-Generation X. Along with fueling a new tag team rivalry, WWE’sbest short-lived tag team was born.
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The two only lasted about five months, parting ways before WrestleMania 23, buttheyaccomplished so much in that time. A reign as World Tag Team Champions, an entertaining blood feud with DX, leading one of thebest traditional Survivor Series matches, and not to mention, a rockin' remixed mash-up of their theme songs. Obviously, both men were too big of a star to stay in a tag team too long, but curating such a devoted fanbase in a short amount of time makes themWWE’smost underrated tag team.
