Firestarter: How Biasness Killed Tag Team Professional Wrestling

Can you hear it? Do you feel it? That familiar beginning that starts with a girl laughing and ends with flames flying into the air is followed by the arrival of two of the strongest and toughest African American tag teams in recent memory. And they basically picked up where DOOM left off.

In a sport dominated by White America, Stevie Ray and Booker T (better known as Harlem Heat) burst onto WCW's good ol' fashioned Four Horsemen Territory and began their climb to the top of the tag team division in World Championship Wrestling. In a time where Samoans and African Americans were seen as nothing more than obstacles for team such as The Rock and Roll Express, The Midnight Express and of course, The Four Horsemen, teams such as SST (Samoan Swat Team) and DOOM managed to find some dominance, but not enough to overtake the so called main eventers in ol' school WCW.

Now in my later years, the teams became a little more known. The Road Warriors. The Steiners. Lex Luger & Sting. And of course, the main reason for this column: Harlem Heat. The duo managed to do everything possible to become main eventers. And en route to 10 reigns as WCW Tag Team Champions, the real life brothers would cement themselves as arguably one of the greatest tag teams of all time.

But nowadays, there is something missing out of the tag team division in both WWE and TNA: Diversity. One could make an argument that since the days of Harlem Heat, there hasn't been an array of African American tag teams to find success in either company. And just when it looked as if there would be, the writers (as well as the powers that be) continued to shy away from the thought.

Sure, we've seen interracial tag teams find success in the past decade or so: The APA, The Dudley Boyz (aka Team 3D), The World's Greatest Tag Team. But with two African American Tag Teams in the company right now (Cryme Tyme and Lethal Consequences), and neither being allowed to capitalize on their successful runs, can we say that The Heat were the last AA tag team to climb the ladder and reach the top of the mountain?

At this point, I would say yes. Instead of trying to spread the love as well as the wealth to all the superstars, they instead leave them to suffer the same defeat as the tag teams before them.

Now I can't say that the two companies are biased towards a certain color, but in tag team divisions, look at the teams that have found success in the past year:

The Dirt Sheet (A brown noser from WCW & A MTV Reject)

The Colons (The only minority in WWE with a championship)

In all honesty, Cryme Tyme has been in the spotlight and the running for a run as Tag Team Champions, but they (the PTB) continue turning the tag team division into The Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

To make it legitimate, TNA formed the team of Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed to spice things up. The duo, now known as Lethal Consequences found success quickly as they defeated Beer Money to become TNA World Tag Team Champions...

For three days.

So while interracial tag teams continue to find success, two of the most athletic and entertaining tag teams have to suffer the downside of trying to constantly defy the odds.

Will we see Cryme Tyme finally win some gold (considering that Kofi Kingston won gold with CM Punk and has been IC Champion)? Will TNA do the right thing and give this young AA team of Lethal Consequences another run as the TNA Tag Team Champions?

Or will this continue to be all about appeasing the MTV generation?

If we've learned anything from Ron Simmons, Butch Reed, Booker T & Stevie Ray, it's that if you give a team a chance to shine, some will let you down...but some go on to become something bigger than they imagined.

And isn't that just as good for business as having the same two guys win the same pair of gold every single time?