I loved Addie’s recent blog (Here) about fixing tag teams but didn’t think he 
went far enough in explaining how to repair the division, as just making a bunch of teams isn’t enough to get it going again if they still book it like it’s a joke. So I’m going to take what he started, with one change as I think Mysterio should team with Evan Bourne not Sin Cara, and expand on what I’d do with it. Who knows, maybe we can actually get the tag team division to the point where it can draw money (I know, I know).
Tag teams need to be seen as their own brand, and the wrestlers in them need to be seen as having unique skills that make them better suited to this division than single stars and vice versa, so after the tags are built up you need to largely keep them apart from the singles division, but 1st off you need to get them to the point people understand that, so how do we do that?
The moment the tag team division for me officially died was January 24, 2005. On that night Batista defeated La Resistance in a handicapped Royal Rumble qualifying match, which Batista would go on to win in order to challenge Triple H for the title at Wrestlemania 21, which he also won.
What made this so bad in my eyes was the way it was done. The psychology of a handicap match is that the odds are so stacked against the individual facing the team that he has no chance. In this handicap match the individual squashed the team in 4 minutes while they got no offense in at all. You may think this is ok, since Batista was destined to win the title at mania, but the problem wasn’t even that he destroyed an established team so easily, it was that they were the tag team champions.
That’s right, with all the individuals they could have him destroy they had him run through the top of the tag division with ease. The tag belts were already damaged before this, but this was a blow to the division that they never recovered from to me. The titles wouldn’t even be defended at mania as the holders would be participants in a battle royal dark match!
So why the hell should I care about geeks defending the title against other geeks that aren’t good enough to carry the bags of the real stars? I don’t, and haven’t really since, because I know even when they do put a little shine on the belts that the WWE’s true feelings are they don’t matter, and they’ll treat them like they mean nothing soon anyway.
And since this fateful night Batista and La Resistance killed the Tag Team division I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a handicapped match where an established team gets defeated by one man. THIS MUST STOP! It is counter productive, as is putting an established team against 2 singles stars, no matter how high up the card they are, and having them lose (this past April 16th, 2012 RAW where Big Show & Great Khali defeated tag champs Primo & Epico in a 1:55 a prime example). Nothing kills the division faster.
Plus if the underdog in 19 straight handicapped matches lost maybe the 20th time when someone pulls out a miracle victory he will be seen as something special, but I regress…
So now that the stupidity of that booking is solved, what do you do? Well, start by putting all ten teams on TV competing against each other for 3 straight months, and sell the idea each team is trying hard to climb the rankings but that the competition is tough so it’s hard to do. Make the idea that earning a tag team title shot is very difficult. Keep the guys in the teams away from guys in the singles category and don’t have any singles guys team up during this period to establish the identity of each. And have the announce teams constantly bring up how stars like Edge, HBK and Bret Hart first established themselves in tag teams so people feel like this may be where they will see the next emerging legend.
Then announce that with the tag team division at it’s hottest in years, (it’s ok if it’s not yet, that’s all part of promotion) put together a tournament for tag teams. Announce it will take place on PPV only, and be decided over the course of 3 separate shows. Give a prize that’s big but legitimate sounding, like say $ 500k to the winning team to split, plus the winning team gets to pick which title shots they want. Make it clear that each member of the winning team gets a shot at whatever title they want.
Then start having singles stars want to team up, because the prize is so huge. The tournament has all that money but even more important, a chance for the winners to pick a title to challenge for.
Then, hold the tournament, but have teams that have been established over the past 3 months consistently pin clean the teams of singles stars thrown together, with maybe one exception. It’s ok if 2 main eventers in the singles category get pinned by tag team wrestlers in these matches, because when this is all over and the tag team division has been established you can have singles matches giving guys their wins back, except for the tag champions and # 1 contenders, as they shouldn’t lose to anyone for a while. This would further establish how great the teams are at tag matches, and how great the singles stars are at their specialties.
Also, on the way to the finals of this tournament the tag champions (we’ll go with Epico & Primo just as an example) should be beat clean by the eventual winners of the tournament (let’s say The Usos for now to keep it simple). And the final 4 should consist of 3 established teams and one of singles stars (such as Jericho & Miz or even Punk & Orton), with the final 2 being established teams.
When the team wins the tournament have Josh Mathews get in the ring and interview them. Then have him congratulate them and tell them they are expected to announce which titles they will challenge for tomorrow night on RAW. Instead have them pull Mathews back into the ring and say “we don’t want to wait till tomorrow on RAW to announce, and we don’t want individual titles, we just want one shot at the titles that would mean the most to us, the Tag Team Championships”
Then you have Epico & Primo come out with their belts and stare down the Usos in the ring. You go off the air with that showdown in the ring because this of course was the main event of the PPV, and you show that footage in it’s entirety the next night on RAW. And if you don’t like it being those teams then that’s fine, go ahead and use any of the teams you like or that Addie put together. It’s not so much about it being The Usos or Epico & Primo as it is about the booking of whoever you put there to establish them as stars and the division as relevant.
So there you have it, between me and my We Talk Wrestling co-host Addie that’s how you fix the tag team division in 2012.
Simple right?
