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”The Doc” Chad Matthews has been a featured writer for LOP since 2004. Initially offering detailed recaps and reviews for WWE's top programs, he transitioned to writing columns in 2010. In addition to his discussion-provoking current event pieces, he has written many acclaimed series about WrestleMania, as well as a popular short story chronicle. The Doc has also penned a book, The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment, published in 2013. It has been called “the best wrestling book I have ever read” and holds a 5-star rating on Amazon, where it peaked at #3 on the wrestling charts. Follow @TheDocLOP Following the response to our collaboration last summer regarding the greatest superstars of the post-Attitude Era, Dave Fenichel and I have teamed up again for another Top 100 list. Between now and June, we will take an in-depth look at tag team history throughout the WrestleMania Era, even including teams that fall beyond the footprint of WWE and NWA/WCW, with rankings shaped by championship pedigree, classic matches, personal memories, the historical scope of the promotion(s) that hosted the duo, the roster positional heights that the team was able to reach (i.e. escaping the mid-card for main-event status), and impact left on tag team lore. Enjoy the journey and feel free to share your thoughts on the teams and their rankings. QUESTION OF THE DAY: The Strike Force narrative arc between Mania IV and late 1989 is one of our favorite tag team storylines ever. What do you think is the greatest tag team storyline ever? 50. The Colons 49. Air Boom 48. The Varsity Club 47. The Fantastics 46. The Quebecers 45. The APA 44. Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch 43. The Rhodes Brothers 42. D-Generation X 41. Strike Force 50. Carlito and Primo The second half of our countdown starts with The Colons. To distinguish between the team of Epico and Primo, this was Primo teaming up with Carlito. To be honest, they didn’t do anything memorable at all. They are this high on the countdown for the singular reason that they had a title run of over 9 months. Primo is a worthless stiff to me, but I was always intrigued by Carlito. He was very underrated in the ring, could work a mic and oozed charisma. He had a unique personality to him, and I think the fans always took to him as a result. I never understood why he couldn’t get over the hump and be a major player. He is another missed opportunity. We can call him the Hispanic Cody Rhodes. What do you think about that one Chad? I think that's a reasonably fair assessment, though since Carlito came first, maybe we should call Rhodes a Caucasian Carlito. He who was Caribbean Cool once seemed destined to be a major player; the pop for his Hall of Fame appearance a couple of years ago reflected well on his legacy. Unfortunately, by the latter part of his WWE tenure, he was “just a tag team wrestler.” The division back then being so putrid, it was a place to be that put him on the chopping block, even though he reigned for so long as champion a year prior to his release; 280 days is a really long time to reign as Tag Team titleholders even in a weak division. I don't remember The Colons fondly; I have often wondered, though, if my perception of them would have changed had their strong match with Miz and Morrison that unified the Raw and Smackdown Tag Team Titles on the WrestleMania 25 pre-show been featured on the main card instead. 49. Air Boom Air Boom, the combination of Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne, are ranked ahead of The Colons despite holding the Tag Team Championships for roughly half the time and the simple reason is because in collaborative projects, you have to compromise. All those concessions Dave has written about earlier? They were not one-sided to favor my opinions, as many of you might clearly recognize in this instance of a borderline Top 100 Honorable Mention making the Top 50. Air Boom had a couple of good matches and were marginally over, but 2011 was another of the years that have dominated the last decade-plus of tag team wrestling really struggling to find a place that mattered. As much of a historian as I am, I cannot tell you exactly when they won the titles or when they lost them. They were just another decent pairing during a meager period for the division. BLASPHEMY! First off, Air Boom has a singular reign of over six months. That alone makes them worthy of their spot on the countdown, as it is longer than several teams yet to come. Air Boom had great matches on every PPV in which they defended their titles. They held the titles in during a period of time in which wrestling was absolutely awful. There was very little on Pay Per View shows that was worth watching. There was some really brutal stuff. Air Boom was the lone bright spot on several PPVs. They provided the hot opener over and over again. As a result, they got me excited about shows that I could otherwise care less about. They were over, they were great in the ring, and they had a prolonged title run. That’s a lot more than many teams on this list can say. 48. The Varsity Club Speaking of teams on this list that baffle me, that brings us to the Varsity Club. Chad wants to complain about Air Boom yet wants this trash team higher up the list. While Air Boom had a length title reign, The Varsity Club’s two title runs combined for less than four months total. That doesn’t scream impressive at all. The truth is, Mike Rotunda and Dr. Death Steve Williams were part of a worthless tag team under the umbrella of an even more worthless stable. Seriously, The Varsity Club didn’t accomplish ANYTHING. Chad is going to defend this embarrassment of a ranking by stating that they wrestled during the best time period for tag team wrestling. I’m going to tune him out, stick a few fingers in my mouth, and barf all over my keyboard. The floor is yours friend. Even if I wanted to be nice and call Air Boom, “The Varsity Club of the early part of this decade,” the difference between them would be simple: The Varsity Club peaked when five of the top twenty tag teams of all-time were dominant forces in tag team wrestling (the stats are actually even more impressive, but I do not wish to give too much away here). Does that matter? Of course it matters. Historical context is in part shaped by the strength of the era. Be it Rotunda and Dr. Death or the other prominent members such as Kevin Sullivan or Rick Steiner, any pairing from The Varsity Club had really enjoyable matches and a gimmick that can perhaps best be described as the precursor to Team Angle. Their best-of list is at least as long as Air Boom's for crying out loud. Seriously, younger fans, do some WWE Networking of The Varsity Club and ignore Dave Fenichel. 47. The Fantastics Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers combined to form one of the most enjoyable tag teams of the 1980s that predominantly 1990s or later members of the wrestling fan fraternity have probably never heard of. “The Fantastics,” they were dubbed, and many a great match they had indeed during the same time period that Dave has sought to downplay the historical significance of (for what reasons I am unsure). The NWA tag team scene in the mid-to-late 1980s was so good that it needed two sets of championships – one for the World and one for the United States, the latter of which The Fantastics held on two separate occasions for a combined 94 days (we counted both sets for this project's rankings). The quality of their matches (see if you can get your hands on the NWA Crockett Cups from '86-'88) was simply more consistent than The Varsity Club's, hence the slight boost ahead of them on the list. “If you hate on the fantastic, we’re not friends anymore.” Pause for several seconds. “You’re going to hate on the fantastic aren’t you?” Pause for a few seconds. “I’m telling Bobby Fulton. We’re Facebook friends…that’s for life .” Relax Chad, it’s all good in the hood when it comes to the Fantastics. While I don’t value the time period as much as Chad does, as I think it’s top heavy and he values too many mediocre teams that had the privilege of working with the best, Chad is right on The Fantastics. They were, pun intended, fantastic in ring workers. They had a ton of great tag matches during the 80s. I have a particular affinity for their Brawl against The Midnight Express at Clash of the Champions I. The WWE included it in their “100 matches to see before you die” collection with good reason. Breathe easy Chad, we’re good here. 46. The Quebecers Has there been a tag team that made more out of less than The Quebecers? They had a cheesy gimmick. Jacques Rougeau was on the down side of his in ring career by the time they got together. Pierre moved decently for a big man but was far from a great worker. Yet here we are. 46th best tag team of all time. This is largely built on three separate title reigns combining for 216 days. Their most memorable moment by far was being the team opposite Bret and Owen Hart turned heel on him. Although they were the B side of the match and storyline, this match has tremendous long term implications. Other than that, they had a ho hum match against Men On a Mission at Wrestlemania 10 and not much else to hang your hat on. Chad hates Canadians, so I suspect we’ve got quite the thrashing coming here. Not especially thrashing by any means. I wouldn't say that I have an overly strong opinion of The Quebecers. The fact that the most memorable thing about them, to me, was the manner in which Bret Hart pronounced them (Que-bakers) in his reasonably famous “United we stand, divided we fall, right brother?” promo probably suggests to everyone that I didn't care for them, but that is not true. I liked them just fine. I think, though, that their placement on the countdown is a good example of how statistical analysis in pro wrestling yields some pretty interesting results sometimes. My book is testament to that as well, but this is a different kind of scale, applying it largely to mid-card acts who can only be judged but on a few of the gold standard rankings data. Thanks to their golden trophy case, Jacques and Pierre faired very well here. (PS – I am very fond of Canadians, thank you very much). 45. The APA All of those things that Dave has been saying about NWA teams from the 1980s? Very applicable here for the APA, Farooq and Bradshaw. By association with a golden age of tag team wrestling, they sneak into the Top 50 despite never really sniffing a leadership role in the division. They were secondary and sometimes tertiary players, but to their credit they struck silver (not gold) with a solid gimmick that allowed them personic range; they could be hired guns or they could sit backstage, drink beer, and make people chuckle. Royal Rumble 2000 was kind of a microcosm, in my mind, of their in-ring achievements, in that they were featured against The New Age Outlaws with a hype video package to accent the occasion, but their match lasted all of four minutes and amounted to little more than a fun little blip on the radar that night. That was the APA to me – an entertaining blip on the radar. We cannot forget for a single solitary second that above anything else, this is the entertainment business. They may not have the title accolades or the in-ring wrestling accomplishments, but I challenge you to argue that there were ten teams in wrestling history more entertaining than the APA. They had a fantastic gimmick that led to an endless number of segments that were comedic gold. I felt like the APA backstage shenanigans were consistently a highlight of Monday Night Raw during the Attitude Era. In an era when being cool mattered, Faarooq and Bradshaw were as cool as cool gets. Chad likes to spit in the face of people who are cool, but luckily for the readers, I do not. It blows my mind that he can have an affinity for teams such as The Varsity Club but can’t see the brilliance that was the APA. Simply shameful I tell you. 44. Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch The majority of the people reading this probably don’t know anything about the team of Adrian Adonis and Dirty Dick Murdoch, and that’s ok. I always got a kick out of guy dressing up as a Drag Queen teaming with a guy named Dick. My adolescent maturity level aside, this team was a regular fixture of the early 1980s. They had a single title run for 279 days, a very impressive feat. They also were involved in many tag team matches with great teams and great individuals, including the US Express, The Wild Samoans, the Briscoe Brothers, and Tony Atlas and Rocky Johnson. Their biggest claim to fame was teaming up with Big John Studd in a handicap match against Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant in 1984. Hogan and Andre were by far the two biggest stars in the industry at the time, so this was a big deal. Their long title reign is what gets them this lofty spot on the countdown, but they were involved in many important matches to boot. Adrian Adonis was an irresistible force; Dick Murdoch was an immoveable object. With their powers combined... Wait, I'm sorry. No disrespect to the team that carried the World Tag Team Championships for much of the first year of the WrestleMania Era, but as talented as I have always thought Adonis to be (Murdoch was a known racist and generally has come across to me over the years as a scumbag), the main reason why they rank so highly is that title reign. When you consider that a team like Edge and Christian, who we will not discuss until the very late stages of the countdown, only held the titles for a combined 207 days over 7 reigns (an average length of just under a month) or that the longest WCW Tag Title reign ever was just a few days longer than 9.33 months, Adonis and Murdoch's reign jumps off the page and had to be respected. 43. The ‘Dust Brothers Dave and I have disagreed frequently throughout this project, but I think that we will be able to agree that the team of Cody Rhodes and Goldust, later repackaged as Goldust and Stardust, deserve some recognition for helping bring tag team wrestling back to respectability. As of today, tag team wrestling still is not where we would all collectively like it to be, but it is certainly better off now than when it was being held by borderline meaningless teams who were engaging in borderline meaningless matches. For my tastes, when the Rhodes Brothers defeated The Shield to win the titles on Raw in October 2013, it was the culmination of probably the best storyline with the Tag Team Championships involved since the Attitude Era; one could argue that to have been the peak of Cody's vastly underappreciated time in WWE and it coincided with Goldust's renaissance. Let there be light! Chad and I are finally in agreement about a tag team. The Rhodes Brothers, along with a couple other teams that will show up much later in our countdown, were responsible for the rejuvenation of the tag team division during the early parts of this decade. While I agree with Chad in that their tag title win on Raw was memorable, the match that sticks out in my mind is the match that saved their jobs the night before on PPV against The Shield. It’s rare that magic is captured the way it was that night. Their victory and subsequent embrace with their father was absolutely the best moment in tag team wrestling of the past ten years if not longer. Their entire run in 2014 was perfect. I can’t say enough good things about The Rhodes Brothers, so I will stop trying. 42. D-Generation X If you’ve been reading our countdown from the beginning, you already know all about my disdain for singles wrestlers being overrated for the tag teams that they were a part of. Degeneration X does not fit that mold. While Shawn Michaels and Triple H are two of the all-time great performers, their singles accomplishments tower over their tag accomplishments, and they only had one title reign lasting less than two months, they are undoubtedly worthy of their rank as the 42nd best tag team of all time. We’ve already talked about DX as a tag in length of this countdown. Three teams that we have already discussed, The Spirit Squad, Legacy and Rated RKO, all had arguably their best feuds with DX. Add those to an incredibly underrated main event feud and series of matches with Shane and Vince McMahon and you’ve got quite the resume of tag team accomplishments. Insert crotch chop here, I’m on board. Dave and I are in agreement again; DX as a tag team in the mid-to-late 2000s was both highly entertaining (albeit in a different way than they had been before) and very strong in the ring against a variety of stylistically unique opponents. From The Spirit Squad to The McMahons (and Big Show) to Rated-RKO to Rhodes and DiBiase to Jeri-Show, DX faced a lot of different teams and had critical success against all of them. They were the rare “main-event” tag team and, though I would argue that tag team wrestling as a genre never consistently benefited from their presence, Michaels and Hunter did at least remind the wrestling world that tag team competition could easily be a headlining attraction – they had three PPV main-events as a duo – should WWE simply decide to make it so, something that I would argue is a big part of the legacy of Degeneration X's second run from the mid-to-late 2000s. 41. Strike Force Now, it's getting good. Personally, I always find it interesting to do countdowns of 100 or greater because the bottom of the list helps better put into context the top. As we move into the better part of this project featuring the really substantial tag teams of the WrestleMania Era, you can start to see how different the division has been over the years and across promotions. Strike Force, the team of current Hall of Famer Tito Santana and (hopefully) sure-fire future Hall of Famer Rick Martel, did not have a long shelf-life in the stacked WWE Golden Age of tag team wrestling, but their impact was considerable. They reigned as champions for five months before dropping the titles to Demolition and proceeded to have one of the most memorable tag team break-up storylines of all-time (and one of my personal favorite mid-card storylines ever). Either as partners or opponents, few duos had better chemistry than Strike Force. Chad took the words right out of my mouth here regarding Strikeforce. We’re finally reaching the upper echelon of tag team lore. I loved Strikeforce growing up. I was devastated when they lost their titles to Demolition at Wrestlemania IV, and even more devastated when Rick Martel turned on Tito Santana against the Brainbusters at Wrestlemania V. In an era where even half decent storylines could extend from one Wrestlemania to the next, it blows my mind that this amazing feud couldn’t survive to a blow off match at Wrestlemania VI. Anyhow, they were exactly what you looked for in a baby face tag team during the late 1980s. They were great in the ring, played the underdog role well and always got the crowd into an event via the hot opener. They were absolutely one of the best tag teams of their generation.
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