The Blueprint to Fix WWE's Failing Men's Tag Team Division

Tag teams have been a major part of pro wrestling for decades, and they can often produce more exciting matches than one-on-one encounters, but it isn't always sunshine and rainbows.

WWE arguably has the best tag team division in the world. It has teams of all shapes and sizes and recently created a tag division for the women, with Bayley and Sasha Banks becoming the inaugural champions before losing the belts to The IIconics.

The women's tag team division is still in its infancy, so it still has time to establish itself, but the men on both brands have been suffering for years because of poor booking.

Let's take a look at the biggest problems facing each brand's tag team division and map out how WWE can make improvements. 

Before we get into the issues, here is a list of all the tag teams on Raw and SmackDown.

Raw

• The Usos
• Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows
• The Revival
• The Ascension
• The Authors of Pain
• Breezango
• Lucha House Party
• Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder
• Rhyno and Heath Slater
• The Viking Raiders

SmackDown

• The New Day
• The B-Team
• The Colons
• The Hardy Boyz
• Heavy Machinery
• Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura
• The Singh Brothers

Uneven Distribution

Raw is always going to have a slightly bigger roster than SmackDown because of the extra hour on Mondays, but the tag teams division is not allocated properly. 

The red brand has 10 tag teams to SmackDown's seven, and The Singh Brothers barely count since they work as enforcers for Jinder Mahal and rarely work matches on the main roster.

Over on Raw, Breezango and AOP are out of the mix because of injuries. As for The Ascension and the team of Heath Slater and Rhyno, they are lucky if they get a spot on Main Event.

When it comes to SmackDown, The Hardys had to relinquish the titles on Tuesday so Jeff could have knee surgery and Heavy Machinery already appear to be lost in the shuffle. They have only made a couple of appearances since being called up in January and do not appear to be a priority.

The easiest way to fix this would be to move a couple of teams over to SmackDown from Raw to even things out, but that will only matter if those duos are going to be used regularly.

Breezango thrived on SmackDown when the Fashion Police segments were still a thing, so perhaps WWE should revisit that gimmick by moving them back to the blue brand and giving them the freedom to create more skits.

Non-Title Storylines Barely Exist

WWE is a complicated machine with a lot of moving parts. There can be upwards of a dozen storylines running at any given time, and that doesn't even count NXT, NXT UK and 205 Live.

Some of these stories are personal in nature, but most revolve around championships. Somebody has a belt that somebody else wants. That is the basis for the majority of pro wrestling feuds. 

As far as the tag team division is concerned, non-title storylines are practically nonexistent. If you aren't one of the champions or the No. 1 contenders, you are probably sitting on the bench.

Even if it's just a short-term feud, WWE needs to start booking more tag teams outside of the title picture so the fans have a reason to care about them when they finally earn title shots.

The Usos, The New Day and The Hardy Boyz are established teams that can afford to take a backseat for weeks or months at a time so other people can shine. The rest of the division doesn't have that luxury.

Some fans have probably forgotten Heavy Machinery already, and it wouldn't be surprising to find out a lot of people didn't know Konnor and Viktor still worked for WWE.

These guys need time to build a following before they can be taken seriously as championship contenders, and the only way to do it is to give them something to sink their teeth into.

Random Pairings Rarely Work

When WWE pairs two Superstars together to form a new tag team, it happens for one of two reasons. WWE either thinks they will work well together or it has nothing better for them to do g.

When Cesaro and Sheamus were put together, it made sense. They were struggling as individuals but thrived as a duo because they were so similar.

Chad Gable and Bobby Roode is the perfect example of management having two talented Superstars with no direction work together just so they had an excuse to use them on television.

Granted, Gable and Roode won the belts once and developed decent chemistry, but they never felt like a true tag team. Gable has been through three partners in as many years, which suggests WWE sees potential in him but doesn't know how to tap into it.

Aleister Black and Ricochet worked well in the ring but their characters were too different to ever mesh into a cohesive unit. The same can be said about Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura.

Unless there is a good reason to put two people together, WWE needs to stop creating tag teams that won't end up doing anything significant when it has so many duos waiting for an opportunity to show the world what they can do.

The Titles Don't Feel Important

Over the past year, WWE has booked pay-per-view main events featuring the WWE, Universal, Women's and Intercontinental Championships. When was the last time a tag title bout headlined a PPV?

The WWE Tag Team Championships have never been treated like top titles despite being the only prize available for tag teams to win in WWE.

Some of the best matches of the past few years have been fought over the Raw and SmackDown tag belts, but they rarely end up as the main event on Raw or SmackDown.

How are the fans supposed to think of these belts as prestigious when they often feel like afterthoughts? It took WWE until the week before WrestleMania 35 to book the two sets of champions to defend their titles in matches with virtually no storylines.

The last time it felt like the belts meant something was at Hell in a Cell 2017, when The Usos faced The New Day.

In order for WWE to make the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships look good, management needs to start making them look like prizes everyone should want to get their hands on.

Giving them the main event spot at a few B-level PPVs would go a long way toward building prestige. 

Putting It All Together

If WWE wants to make the tag titles important again, all it has to do is follow these four suggestions:

• Stop putting random Superstars together unless they have a reason to be on the same team.
• Move a couple of teams so Raw and SmackDown have even rosters.
• Start booking some non-title storylines to further develop new characters like Otis, Tucker, Erik and Ivar.
• Make the titles mean something through PPV main events and better storylines

If WWE can do these things while still keeping the men's and women's singles divisions running strong, the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships will regain the prestige they have lost in recent years.