Tag Teams Like the Briscos, the Hardys and the Dudleys Are a Thing of the Past

Jack and Jerry Brisco helped define tag team wrestling in the last 1970s. The Road Warriors helped define the division in the 1980s and early 1990s. Teams like the Dudleys, Edge and Christian and The Hardy Brothers did their part to shape the wrestling scene in the last decade. But as wrestling continues to move forward, with basically two major machines competing to control the cable television dial, tag teams have been moved to the bottom of the list in importance of sports entertainment.

Today, wrestlers are bigger, stronger, faster and competing more in singles competition—much to the delight of the fan that plunks down money for tickets to events and merchandise. Gone is the science of keeping your opponent in your corner, beating the heck out of them and then just when you think they are going to tag in the fresh partner, you pull them back from the center of the ring to inflict more punishment.

The true art of tag team wrestling is lost on this generation of performers and the current crowd of fans who are still wet behind the ears and in need of a good wrestling history lesson. When local wrestling shows appeared on the television on Saturday mornings or at night on TBS, tag teams were prominent. Partners who would forego wrestling singles matches to team together week after week and form some of the best rivalries in the sport (it was a sport back then). Now try and tell John Cena or Randy Orton or Kurt Angle that all they would do is wrestle with a partner every time they got into the ring. They wouldn’t hear of it and neither would the fan.

Part of the issue deals with WCW and WWE when they battled the “Monday Night Wars.” Tag teams were pushed to the side so bigger, stronger and faster wrestlers could steal the stage and show for ratings. And in the process, a niche was last.

The Hardys, The Dudleys and Edge and Christian were a hit in the late 1990s and into the next millennium because they would put themselves and their partners on the line each night by crashing through tables and chairs and ladders to woo audiences and cash in on ratings. But in most cases, with the exception of the Dudleys, four of those six superstars went on to careers as great singles champions. Bubba Ray now wrestles as a singles competitor in TNA, but his former partner and rival, Devon looks lost without the help of a teammate.

As a young adult, I would love watching the Andersons, The Steiners and The Freebirds compete at the highest level of wrestling. They feuded with other tag teams and created the existence that you cannot find today. You saw superstars in Michael Hayes and Arn and Ole Anderson, the Rock and Roll Express and Nikita Koloff and Dusty Rhodes. But none of them would be significant today. While Arn Anderson, Dusty and Nikita could compete on their own and held gold, Ricky Morton stuck with his partner Robert Gibson and lost out on singles success like Marty Janetty did when he and Shawn Michaels split as the Midnight Rockers.

I’d like to see more tag teams introduced to the wrestling scene and hopefully gain in popularity as it did two decades ago. There has to be a way to market this division like the different wrestling machines have worked to bring divas to prominence. If not, they are taking away a vital part of the history of this form of entertainment.