New Age Outlaws vs. the Ascension: Winner, Reaction from 2015 Royal Rumble

The Ascension have discussed their superiority over legendary tag teams since joining the WWE roster, and they lent some credence to their words Sunday night at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view by defeating The New Age Outlaws.

WWE provided pictures on Twitter and Instagram of the winners:

Charlotte of WWE NXT offered up her congrats on Twitter:

ESPN's Dan Szymborski provided his thoughts on the match:

Road Dogg and Billy Gunn are unquestionably one of the greatest duos in WWE history. As five-time WWE Tag Team champions, The Outlaws were a great choice to face a tag team that is still new to the roster.

After being the most dominant tag team in the history of NXT, The Ascension finally got elevated to the main roster recently. Konnor and Viktor have destroyed enhancement talent, and they have also ruffled some feathers along the way.

Most of their promos have focused on being better than legendary tag teams such as the Legion of Doom, Demolition and Powers of Pain. The Ascension's tough talk led to some comeuppance on the go-home edition of Monday Night Raw prior to the Rumble.

Several legends were in attendance for the Raw Reunion show, including Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman of the nWo. The Ascension boldly interrupted them and made it clear that they weren't impressed by the all-time greats that stood before them, according to WWE Universe on Twitter:

Before Konnor and Viktor could attack, though, they were interrupted by JBL, who called out Ron Simmons to temporarily reform the APA. They were followed by The New Age Outlaws, and the trio of legendary teams proceeded to teach The Ascension a lesson.

That particular lesson was punctuated by a Clothesline From Hell courtesy of JBL:

After getting embarrassed in the middle of the ring, The Ascension were booked to take on The New Age Outlaws at the Royal Rumble.

Viktor vowed to give Road Dogg and Gunn a taste of their own medicine:

Konnor agreed, and he made it clear that The Ascension intended to get some retribution for what happened to them on Raw:

That was the expectation that most observers had due to the fact that The Ascension are a team that WWE is presumably trying to build up. WWE did that effectively on Sunday as The Ascension proved that The New Age Outlaws were no match for them.

Reactions were somewhat mixed after The Ascension got beaten down on Raw. While there is no doubt that it was an entertaining moment that the live crowd enjoyed, some of the more cynical fans suggested that Konnor and Viktor were "buried."

The overarching assumption was that The Ascension would beat The New Age Outlaws in fairly dominant fashion at the Royal Rumble, which would have essentially erased what happened on Raw. WWE subscribed to the same school of thought, which means Konnor and Viktor now enter WrestleMania season with a ton of momentum on their side.

There are plenty of possibilities at WWE's disposal relating to The Ascension moving forward. They could make a run at the tag team titles in the near future, or they could potentially continue to run through legendary tag teams, which would be an entertaining and crowd-pleasing angle.

Whatever the case, WWE made the right decision by having The Ascension go over at the Royal Rumble. They now have some credibility with casual fans, which may very well help them become a successful part of WWE's tag team division for a long time to come.

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