On May 20 of last year, the Usos defeated RK-Bro in a winner takes all tag team championship match to unify the WWE tag team titles. At the time, it made sense to put the both sets of titles on the hottest tag team in the company but over six months later, was it the right call?
Why Combining the WWE Tag Team Championships Wasn’t a Good Idea
Sure, the Usos have been known as workhorses, especially in the tag team division, for over a decade, but I am not sure what the end goal of this move was.
My best guess is the same goal as putting both world titles on Roman Reigns. Have the hottest act in the company work both shows to pull in ratings for both shows.
Half a year later, we see how that has been going. Roman barely appears on Smackdown and even less on Raw.
The Usos appear weekly on Smackdown and almost every week on Raw. The issue with the tag team titles is that with the Usos being on the Smackdown brand, most of the matches and title defenses that they have are on that show.
This leaves Monday nights in a weird spot. It isn’t as bad because of Raw’s lack of tag teams, but it sure don’t help when you see the same two teams on television week to week.
The biggest flaw that this leads to is the fact that you have a three hour show that is not only missing its top title, but the tag team titles too.
If this was Smackdown with two hours, there is a possibility that you could get away with just two titles, especially if the women’s tag team champions came to the show sometimes.
This doesn’t work the other way around though. Raw need meaningful things to fill its time and right now, there isn’t much to follow.
How is WWE Going to Fix This Issue
From the way they advertised the tag team turmoil match that was won by the Judgement Day on Monday, they will get a shot at the Raw tag team titles but not both sets.
If this is the route that they are going, I think that it is a great idea. I also think that Judgement Day would be great as first champions back too.
The titles should have never been combined in the first place and this is the first step to rehabbing Monday Nights.
Week after week, WWE tries to put on a good three-hour show, but it cannot be done without championships for the wrestlers to chase after.
There is a whole tag team division on Raw that is basically dormant because they don’t have anything to strive for.
A great way to get the titles off of the Usos without making them look weak include adding another tag team somehow. On Monday, we saw Mustafa Ali get bothered by Dolph Ziggler canceling on their tag team turmoil spot to wrestle Solo Sikoa.
Maybe this could lead to Adam Pearce putting them into the match somehow and making it a triple threat tag team match for the titles and have Judgement Day pin Dolph or Ali to win the titles.
They could always beat the Usos in a regular tag team match somewhere down the line but I think that WWE is saving the Usos first clean title loss for WrestleMania against probably Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz8uGiItP-o
