Why the WWE Tag Team Division Will Suffer in the Foreseeable Future

There have been a lot of people saying recently that WWE's tag team division needs improving, and I for one agree. So I had a good think last night about what the problems are and the potential solutions to these problems, and I thought I'd share my opinions on the matter.

One slight issue that I could see becoming a problem in the future but which isn’t currently is WWE’s commitment to their tag teams. Most of the tag teams get an appearance on their respective brands the majority of weeks, but if for some reason they decide to allot air time to other rivalries or wrestlers then it wouldn’t help matters.

One point that might be pretty obvious to make is that good tag team needs good wrestlers in it. The majority of wrestlers in tag teams at the moment would not make good singles competitors, and whenever one does reach that standard they push them in singles competition and the tag team seems to fade into the background.

It would be a shame to see someone like John Morrison who is really starting to show potential attempt a half baked singles career just when his team with The Miz is becoming interesting. WWE needs to steady the ship for a while and let some tag teams establish themselves.

In my opinion though, the biggest problem at the minute is numbers. The WWE has 7 tag teams in total, which for a company that supposedly values their tag team division is pretty limited.

On its own some might not see this as a problem but when you think about the brand split it then becomes a much bigger issue. The best way to explain what I mean is to look at the tag teams WWE has and what brand they are on.

The Current tag teams for RAW are; Legacy (although they haven’t competed much as a tag team of late, their time has been spent with Randy Orton), Cryme Tyme, and Miz and Morrison (technically an ECW team but due to the RAW/ECW talent exchange and the fact they took the tag title from RAW they are essentially a RAW tag team)

For SmackDown!; The Brian Kendrick and Ezekiel Jackson, The Colons, Jesse and Festus, and Hawkins and Ryder

As RAW only has 3 tag teams that means there are only 3 possible rivalries within that brand, and things will get stale pretty quickly. I realize this is what the draft is for in the summer, to shake things up a bit, but there will still be the underlying problem that there aren’t enough tag teams.

Things aren’t going to get better either, because it seems that the WWE wants to keep their rosters as small as possible at the moment for financial reasons. The recent cuts in jobs have certainly not done the tag team division any favors. Here’s a quick list of the wrestlers that left and reduced numbers in the tag division:

Bam Neeley – Although he and Chavo were not the best tag team it still provided extra folly for the fray.

Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch – The two were fired after their split, but either way its one less tag team.

Duece and Domino – Deuce attempted to re-brand himself as Sim Snuka on RAW while Domino was left in the dark on SmackDown! following the draft, eventually to be fired.

Shannon Moore – He a Jimmy Wang Yang weren’t a bad tag team on SmackDown!, but again for some reason WWE felt the need to make cuts and he was in the firing line

Paul London – The Brian Kendrick formed his new tag team with Ezekiel Jackson following their split, so all was not lost in his absence.

There is always the possibility that some superstars get paired to have a brief spell as a tag team (e.g. Kofi Kingston and CM Punk), but they never last, and if WWE seriously wants to bring some life back to their tag team division they’re going to need to bulk up the numbers.

I think the issue is that although the WWE wants their tag team division to be a success, they have very limited resources to do it with the way things are currently. But I think that one way they could solve this issue is to unify the tag team titles and defend them across all brands.

That way there are 7 tag teams competing for one title and there is room to vary the rivalries a bit. WWE seems pretty set in its ways about keeping superstars to their own brands as much as possible but they are going to need to do something to improve things.

What are your thoughts on WWE’s tag team division?