Ring of Honor Focus: Can the Kings of Wrestling Be Dethroned?

One look at the current state of tag team wrestling in the United States shows that it has mostly become a lost art.

The two major promotions seem to view tag teams as nothing more than a way to fill time and have spent little effort over the past few years to inject any real excitement into their tag team ranks.

As we approach the mid-point of 2010, it seems the big two are finally starting to show a little more interest in tag teams but they both have a long way to go before the prestige returns to their respective championships.

Thankfully, for fans of tag team wrestling, Ring of Honor has consistently focused on keeping this lost art in the spotlight and by doing so has created some of the most interesting and exciting duos in the business today.

It is within the ranks of ROH that the team of Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli reign supreme as the Kings of Wrestling.

Over the past few months, the Kings have solidly staked their claim as the very best tag team competing in the United States, and perhaps the entire world of professional wrestling.

Hero and Castagnoli have a combination of size, strength, toughness and pure wrestling ability that make them a very formidable duo. Both men stand at 6'5'' and weigh around 230 lbs, giving them a distinct size advantage over most tag teams competing anywhere in pro wrestling.

They can back up that size with an impressive move set including Hero's always deadly rolling elbow strikes and Castagnoli's patented European uppercut. They have one of the best double team finishers in the business; a deadly flipping sitout powerbomb known as the KRS-ONE. 

Put them side-by-side with any current team in the WWE or TNA and it is hard to argue that, on paper, the Kings of Wrestling are not the best team going.

The roots of the Kings run deep and they have teamed together in several independent promotions across the States. The team originally formed in CHIKARA and became their first ever "Campeonatos de Parejas" or tag team champions, in 2006.

Since then Hero and Castagnoli have teamed, and won championships, in Combat Zone Wrestling and Ring of Honor. They currently hold the ROH World Tag Team Championships.

Hero and Castagnoli shocked fans when they reformed at "Final Battle 2009" after nearly two years apart. They laid out the Briscoes, who had just defeated the American Wolves to become six-time champions.

At "The Big Bang" in April, the Kings claimed the gold by defeating the Jay and Mark Briscoe in what many have called one of the best tag team matches in recent years. They continued their feud with the Briscoes by winning a bloody no-disqualification match earlier this month at "Death Before Dishonor VIII."

The Kings of Wrestling have also put on impressive performances against the likes of The Motor City Machine Guns, Up in Smoke and the Dark City Fight Club over the past few months.

As of right now, they seem to be unstoppable.

Next month in Collinsville, IL, the Kings will be teaming with their ally Sara Del Ray in a mixed tag team match against Amazing (formerly Awesome) Kong and the Briscoes.

The heated rivalry between these teams has been going on for months and shows no signs of slowing. This one should prove to be another exciting encounter.

If Hero and Castagnoli can survive that match, they will have their work cut out for them the next night in Chicago when they are set to go up against one of the hottest tandems in wrestling, Generation Me (formerly the Young Bucks).

The titles won't be on the line, as GenMe are still currently under TNA contracts, but a win against the high-flying duo would only further cement the Kings status as the very best in the game today.

The tag team scene in ROH is full of tough competition but the Kings of Wrestling stand above the rest and are looking to keep those championship belts for a long, long time.

They claim there is no one that can beat them, and they could very well be right.

Photo courtesy of Scott Finkelstein