All Time Favourite/Best Tag Team and Why?

[Liam O'Rourke]

So for this week's podcast we're taking a look at great tag teams, and are looking to get a sense of which teams come to people minds when the question is posed:

 

Do you have an all-time favourite tag team, or a combination that you firmly believe are the best tandem to ever grace the squared circle? If so, why them, and what is it that sets them apart to you as favourite, or what is the defining element that makes them the best you've ever seen?

 

I think there's a murky line between 'favourite' and 'best', so tackle this one however you wish, but I find it interesting to narrow it down to the one team you set above all others. As always the best answers will be read on the podcast, and you'll be credited accordingly.

 

So who is that one team for you, and why?

 

EDIT - The podcast discussing your picks for favourite/best tag team is now available at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/i3h5p2/SCGRadio41-AllTimeFavouriteorBestTagTeam.mp3

[JakeRobertsParoleOfficer]

 

This is a tough one:

 

i suppose for best it has to be Road warriors as they won everything in every territory and made shed loads of $$$$

 

Favoutite has to be......Hart Foundation. The smooth in ring operator and the rock hard powerhouse who was borderline insane. just worked on every level!

[ThumpSquids]

The Dangerous Alliance of Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton for me. I love a simple story told well, and they combined cowardly heel tactics, vicious attacks, shit-eating grins, some fancy high-flying and of-course, that spine buster. 

[Gordon_The_Gopher]

Brainbusters because of their seamless work and ability to make anyone look like a star... Ah but what about LOD for the pop... No wait the Twin Towers for looking absolutely dominant and having amazing music. No no - Demolition for being my first favourite thing in wrestling not called Hulk or Hogan... In fact The Rockers because they were electricity and excitement personified whilst mixing state of the art offence with sympathy and love... Argh too hard!! So many more to think of!!

 

Gun to my head - Brainbusters for best as they were just absolute magic to watch - clinically and precisely executing opponents tied with The Rockers for everything above. Put the two together and it's the best tag team match of all time. (Tied with Rockers vs Orient Express...)

 

Favourite - have to go with my heart on this one and say Demolition - you never forget your first love. The look, music, style... Ax and Smash take it for me.

[bAzTNM#1]

Obviously not the best tag team ever, but I don't think MNM get the love that they should.

[wandshogun09]

The Steiners for me every time. Well, they're my favourite team anyway. I suppose the best depends on how you rate them - match quality, money they made/drew, longevity etc. I guess the Road Warriors will be most peoples' choice for best team based on their success over a long period.

 

The Steiners will always be my favourite tag team though. The contrast between Rick's basic but brutal offence and Scott's flashy but just as brutal offence was great. The suplexes were awesome. Their double-team moves were unreal as well. They had the best double-team moves in the sport for me. Yeah, the Road Warriors' Doomsday Device was good, but Rick and Scott one-upped that with their bulldog and DDT versions. And of course, Scott's Frankensteiner was breathtaking. Especially for someone of his size to be pulling a move like that off.

 

They had cool and colourful ring gear, looked like the could rip your limbs off and worked pretty much everywhere that mattered during their era - WCW, WWF, ECW and New Japan. They were incredible between about 1989 and 1996. I don't remember seeing a bad match from them in that period. They even had fun big man battles with Fire & Ice in 1996, who no-one else was really gelling with as I recall.

 

The only thing they weren't great at was interviews. But I don't remember that mattering at the time. They did enough things really well that they just worked as a believable badass team.

 

That's one thing LOD had the Steiners beat on - interviews. Hawk had that distinctive voice and could talk well and they had Paul Ellering to hit all the important points. Animal was shite though. He seemed to go by the thinking that volume equaled quality where promos were concerned. Just an annoying shouty bastard. Even as a kid I wished he'd just shut the fuck up and looked forward to him saying "Tell 'em Hawk", because then I knew he was finished.

 

The Hart Foundation would be my #2 favourites. Them being so opposite in look, size, character and in-ring style really worked well for them. The matches were usually excellent and they somehow made bright pink look cool.

[Zebra Kid Mark]

New Age Outlaws with out a doubt.

 

I loved their tag run. I loved their singles run when Road Dog won the IC title and Billy won the hardcore and vice versa. Everything about them I loved. I loved it when they beat the Dust brothers last year and hated it when they lost to the Ascension this year.

[Fanny Pack]

The LOD, im watchin Raws from Sept 98 when they were on their arse and im still rootin for them to beat DOA.

 

To me the golden age was that 2 year stint from 90-92, as a kid/teen/adult they were bad ass. Animal was always my fed champion. Look at him as a hasbro. How could he not be?

 

Will have to watch their 80's NWA/AWA stuff but on there WWF tenure alone there my faves.

 

Honourable mentions to...

 

E&C

APA

Team Hell No

Owen & Davey

New Age Outlaws

[Mr.Showtime]

My top 5 are the APA, Dudley Boyz, Edge & Christian, Demolition and Head Cheese. Out of those, I've gotta go with D'Von and Bubba as my favourite. And I'm pretty sure someone could make a decent case for them being among the best ever too.

[HarmonicGenerator]

I agree that MNM should get more recognition. Undoubtedly the best team of the brand extension era.

 

I love a good tag team. And generally, I don't mind a bad one either. If you've got any combination of a team name, matching outfits, a shared entrance and some nifty double team moves, then I'll probably like you, even if you're actually not very good like the Basham Brothers or the Heart Throbs.

 

I've only seen a lot of the Golden Age of Tag Teams in retrospect, but my favourites at the time... And, well, they still are, a bit... were The Bushwhackers. They were great fun, and I had both their Hasbros, which was proof that I considered them among the best because I think at one point I only had Hogan, Warrior and them. I like that when you think of them, you can't really separate either of them from the team - they'll always be The Bushwhackers. And they're Hall of Famers now, so they can't have been that bad.

 

I got hooked on WWF in what I suppose you'd call the Second Golden Age of Tag Teams, led by the Hardys, Dudleys and E&C, with the likes of Too Cool underneath. I preferred the Hardys at the time (I bought their book...) but the Dudleys were definitely the best team. Most people had a favourite Hardy (Jeff) or preferred Edge to Christian or vice versa, but with the Dudleys, again you thought of them together. The 3-D was such a brilliant finisher. You'd be hard pressed not to include them on a list of greatest tag teams. It's just a pity their TNA run soured me on them. I'd love a mini-reunion run back in WWE, though.

 

My favourite of all time? I know they're really recent, but I have to say it's The Shield. They were just excellent. Of course they're all great as singles guys but as a team... Sublime. I loved the idea (as demonstrated in their WM29 match) that even if you're three former World Champions, you can take down one of them, but the other two are always there, and you cannot take them down together - as a team, they're practically unstoppable. They had a fantastic combination of styles and they all gelled perfectly together - the madness of Ambrose, the dives of Rollins and then Reigns in to smash people up. You could put them against The Usos or against Evolution and you were guaranteed a great match pretty much whenever they came out. The Rhodes Brothers match and the Wyatt Family match being two examples. The Shield basically carried WWE through 2013. I miss them. Definitely my favourite team ever. I know they're a three man team so might not count as a tag team, but even so... I believe in The Shield.

 

An interesting side-discussion is who are the best tag team wrestlers of all time? Guys who might have had singles runs but just always did better in a team? Both the New Age Outlaws fit into that category for me. Especially Billy Gunn, but especially Road Dogg. I'd put Cody Rhodes in that category as well - he's had singles runs a few times but he's always been at his best in a tag team, whether that's Legacy, Rhodes Scholars or the Dust Brothers.

[Loligan]

Steiner brothers and road warriors are neck and neck for me. Can't decide. When i think of tag teams they are what I think of.

[air_raid]

For me, the best tag team ever has to be Tully & Arn. People often think they were together for donkeys' years but they weren't actually regular partners for all that long, but they assembled such a catalogue of fantastic matches it feels like they dominated the sport for ages. Blanchard and Anderson were utterly amazing antagonists and what made them was their intelligence and versatility. They were equally adept at being sneaky and infuriating adopting "hit and run" tactics against bruisers like the Road Warriors or Demolition, as they were at bullying or grinding down smaller guys like the Rock N Rolls or Shawn & Marty - who they had no problems keeping up with when the pace quickened, either. I personally adored any time they were in the ring with the Hart Foundation as they got to display both facets of their work, winding up and running from the Anvil, and beating the shit out of Bret.

 

More than just the work bell-to-bell however, Tully & Arn had an aura about them - they were the big fucking deal. Again, I imagine people think their title reigns were long and epic when actually, they were fairly standard for the time, and that's down to the aura. As members of the Horsemen, they always gave you the impression that beating them was going to be as tough as wresting the big belt from Flair, i.e. show up on their worst day and your best day and it was still nigh on impossible. I just buy that you can't beat these two guys ; they're that good. Maybe being members of The Four Horsemen has something to do with it, but every tag title defence that was built up for them gives me that buzz that it's a gigantic event that deserves to go on last and is a worthy headline attraction if Flair isn't on the card, and I don't think I can say that about any other tag team in US wrestling history. People like to talk about when the WWF tag team division was amazing and the tag belts meant something, but in the time period for American wrestling that I'm most into and most familiar with (80s-now) the WWF never put on regular tag team events (with full time teams) that sparkled like "Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard defend the World Tag Team Championship" for Crockett. I'm gutted I never got to see them against The Steiners.

 

 

By the by, my favourite tag team of all time was the Hart Foundation, down to good old fashioned "they were my favourites and I wanted them to win every time."

[Hounds Of Justice]

My Top 5 are following.

 

1.) The Steiner Brothers

2.) LOD

3.) The Hardyz

4.) The Dudleyz

5.) The Brainbusters

[fraserbee]

I'm going to put in a mention for The Midnight Express team of Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane.

They were a brilliant, innovative heel team who had fantastic feuds and matches with The Rock and Roll Express, Road Warriors, the Horsemen, the Fantastics, Dusty Rhodes and the Original Midnight Express among others. They also benefitted from having Jim Cornette in their corner at a time when he genuinely was one of the best managers around.

What's more, they were half of perhaps my favourite tag team match ever with The Southern Boys from GAB 1990.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I don't have a favourite there is just so much competition for top spot. My 2nd favourite are The British Bulldogs. If Dynamite had actually broken Mick Foley's jaw so bad he could never speak again in that squash match in 1986 then they would have been my Number 1. Not having to that miserable fucker whine on over the years would have sealed it for The Bulldogs.