We hear it often that Vince McMahon doesn’t care for tag team wrestling and that WWE is death for tag teams. It’s weird since those early WWE shows featured several tag team matches per card. Even on TV, you had several tag matches with most of them being squashes.
Decrease In Denim Donning Damagers Dashes Duos’ Dreams
However, there is something to the notion of both opinions to the point they become fact. WWE is just lousy for tag teams. It isn’t a knock on the quality of tag teams but rather on the lack of them. Listen, the company currently has two Tag Team titles on the flagship brands. There aren’t that many long-term tag teams that serve as the foundation the titles.
You have the Usos and the New Day. Those are your teams that are unlikely to be broken up—and I just jinxed them both. WWE has a history of breaking up established teams or doing something weird with them. Just look at the Rockers, the Headbangers, and Legion of Doom.
Whatever that was in 1998 with LOD 2000 and the alcoholic Hawk angle was terrible. Alas, it was the Attitude Era: big hits surrounded by a lot of misses and mediocrity. Tag teams aren’t safe in WWE but as our own CP Bialois noted, “Vince has a type.”
Perhaps a lack of these particular kinds of gimmicks result in tag teams taking the hit.
Vince McMahon Loves His Hillbillies and Cowboys
Hillbillies and cowboys are two gimmicks that have been around since the territories. They’re gimmick alumni along with the Native American, evil Russian, and harsh German gimmicks. When there is an abundance of tag teams in the company, you can bet there is someone wrestling as a hillbilly or cowboy. Vince loves these gimmicks or anything redneck adjacent. He didn’t need “Dirty White Boy” Tony Anthony in WWE but he made him T.L Hooper anyway.
Sometimes, both are in the company at the same time. During Hulkamania, WWE had Hillbilly Jim and Ron Bass in the company. This period saw the Hart Foundation, Strike Force, the Young Stallions, the Fabulous Rougeaus, Demolition, Colossal Connection, the Rockers, and a few other tandems.
Jump to the New Generation of WWE and you had the Godwinns along with the Smoking Gunns while the Attitude Era had the Godwinns and the New Blackjacks. Both periods saw a number of tag teams come through. During the Ruthless Aggression era, Jesse & Fetus represented Vince’s love of hillbillies. Lance Cade was the cowboy rep with Jimmy Wang Yang as the last cowboy.
As long as there are hillbillies and cowboys in WWE, tag teams are safe for a time. You’ll even see an uptick in the number of regular tag teams as long as these two gimmicks are featured in one. Vince is happy with his hokey gimmicks that have no place in the company’s product after a certain period.
Now that we’re in a new age in WWE and there’s really no place for either, tag teams suffer.
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