WRESTLETALK
If you have seen some of the posts on this blog about wrestling then you may know that I have watched pro wrestling since 1987 and one of the aspects of pro wrestling that I always liked and which intrigued me from an historical point of view was tag team wrestling.
So, I took the time to write a huge document detailing pro wrestling tag team history in terms of the World Tag Team Championship. As I said, it is a huge document that mainly consists of which team beat which team for a certain tag team title and I won't bore you, the readers of this blog with its voluminous content but here is the introduction of the document which describes the four types of tag teams in pro wrestling.
World Tag Team Championship History
In 1948, the National Wrestling Alliance was formed and a World Heavyweight Champion was crowned. However, at the time, the NWA chose not to create a NWA World tag title allowing the various territories to create and name champions and keep them at the local level. Unlike the NWA World Champion, who traveled the different territories defending the title against the local competition, a tag team championship could be created and held by the local talent and often came to be the most sought after title in the territory (such as in the East with Capitol’s United States Tag Team title).
Tag Team wrestling had been around for most of century and had evolved from “tornado” matches in which all four men were in the ring at once and no tagging really took place to the form that we know it today.
There are basically four types of tag teams:
1) The Brother Tag Team – This is a tag team consisting of what it sounds like, brothers. This includes both real-life brothers such as The Sharpe Brothers, The Tolos Brothers, The Steiner Brothers or The Hardy Boyz and kayfabe (fake) brother teams such as The Lisowskis (Reggie “the Crusher” and Stan, who was really Stan Neilson who would wrestle with his own brother Art Neilson as The Nelsons), The Kalmikoffs, The Smiths, or The Dudley Boyz. It would also include family teams such as cousins, uncle/nephew, or father/son (either real or kayfabe) teams.
 |
| The Sharpe Brothers |
 |
| The Steiner Brothers |
2) The Bookend Tag Team – This is a tag team with a gimmick. They often dress alike and basically are formed around an idea of characterization. Most of the best tag teams are bookend tag teams such as The Road Warriors, The Fabulous Kangaroos, and The British Bulldogs. They become the best because they make a dedication to tag team wrestling and rarely wrestle as singles stars thus perfecting their skills and refining their talents as tag team competitors.
 |
| The Fabulous Kangaroos |
 |
| The Road Warriors |
 |
The British Bulldogs
|
3) The Partner Tag Team – These are the teams of two unrelated guys that come together for a significant length of time but don’t develop a gimmick but are still a lasting and significant tag team. Examples of this kind of tag team are teams such as Johnny Weaver and George Becker, Nick Bockwinkel and Ray Stevens, Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson, and Tony Borne and Moondog Mayne and you also could include Pat Patterson and Ray Stevens (although they did dress alike and both had bleached blonde hair). And perhaps the best example of this kind of team is the legendary team of Dick the Bruiser and The Crusher.
 |
| The Crusher & The Bruiser |
4) The Makeshift Tag Team – This kind of team is simply two guys who tag up and have no gimmick, relation or history with one another. They often get together and tag for a while to settle a score or feud and then go their separate ways once they win a championship or defeat a feud opponent. Often they are singles stars who are thrown together and don’t form a great team but as they are both good wrestlers they are able to achieve success. Some people feel that this is a slap in the face to the Bookend and Partner teams but it is a part of the sport and history of tag team wrestling and it is here to stay.
