While singles wrestling gets most of the glory, tag team wrestling has also contributed a lot to the sport over the years. Some of the biggest events in wrestling history, including several WWE WrestleMania’s, were headlined by major tag team matches. Also, many great performers started their careers as part of tag teams.
While most wrestling tag teams break up at some point during their careers, these duos stayed together.
That doesn’t mean every tag team is a winner though. Over the years, fans have seen their fair share of bad tag teams. A handful of these bad tag teams even doubled down on their bad presentation and included a less-than-stellar manager.
Adding Sunny To The Mix Only Sped Up Their Decline
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 1983-2003 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments |
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| Other Notable Performers Managed By Sunny |
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This will be borderline blasphemous to many readers but the truth is, by 1998, The Road Warriors were over the hill. The once-dominant duo officially jumped the shark at WrestleMania 14 when they debuted a new look, attitude, and manager in the shape of the seductive Sunny.
On the surface, the shift to “LOD 2000” seemed like the shot in the arm the tandem needed. However, it would quickly become obvious that the new look didn’t fix what was wrong with the team. As far as Sunny goes, she enhanced the team’s look but didn’t provide much else and could oftentimes be a distraction.
9 Mark Henry & Rodney Mack Never Really Quite Gelled Together
Teddy Long’s Racially Charged Promos Didn’t Do Them Any Favors
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 2003-2004 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments |
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| Other Notable Performers Managed By Teddy Long |
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Race and race relations are an understandably touchy subject in pro wrestling. That didn’t stop WWE from booking Teddy Long to cut some racially charged promos as the manager of Mark Henry, Rodney Mack, and the rest of Thuggin’ & Buggin’ Enterprises. Long had years of experience as a heel manager in WCW.
In WWE though, Long was mostly known for his referee work. Either way, Long as manager didn’t do much at all to help get over the random pairing of Henry and Mack. The duo wasn’t terrible but they never meshed well together and always came across as a team that was just thrown together.
8 Men On A Mission Were Entertaining But Far From A Good Team
Oscar Could Rap But Had No Business Being A Manager
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 1993-1996 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments |
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| Other Notable Performers Managed By Oscar | None |
To the shock of many fans, Vince McMahon wasn’t a total hip-hop head during the 90s. This is probably why Vinnie Mac was so easily impressed by the lyrical talents of Oscar when the latter kicked an impromptu freestyle for McMahon and a group of wrestlers in Las Vegas.
The performance made such an impression on McMahon that he paired Oscar with Mable and Mo to form Men On A Mission. Unfortunately, Oscar was far from a seasoned pro wrestling manager, and Mabel and Mo were far from good wrestlers. Men On A Mission was fun for what it was but all three members had glaring deficiencies.
7 Kenzo Suzuki & Rene Dupree Were The Definition Of A Random Pairing
Hiroko Was Technically Their Manager But Didn’t Contribute Much To The Team
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 2004-2005 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments | WWE Tag Team Champions |
| Other Notable Performers Managed By Hiroko | None |
On very rare occasions random tag team pairings can lead to great tandems like X-Pac & Kane, Rob Van Dam & Kane, and Daniel Bryan & Kane. Maybe Kane is the common denominator here? Either way, sometimes random pairings work. Kenzo Suzuki and Rene Dupree were not one of those pairings.
WWE & WCW has put together oddball tag teams over the years, but who knew Roman Reigns and Tyler Breeze were once a tag team in FCW?
Don’t let the fact that they were briefly WWE Tag Team Champions fool you. They were not a good tandem. What’s worse is they were technically managed by Suzuki’s geisha wife, Hiroko. Not sure if anyone in WWE was well-versed in geisha culture at the time but managing wrestlers wasn’t one of their strong suits.
6 The Beverly Brothers Would’ve Struggled To Catch On In Any Era
Somehow The Genius & Coach Had The Misfortune Of Managing This Tandem At Different Times
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 1989-1998 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments | AWA World Tag Team Champions |
| Other Notable Performers Managed By The Genius & The Coach | Mr. Perfect (Managed By Both At Different Times) |
Fake siblings and family members were a lot more prevalent in pro wrestling before the rise of the internet. The Beverly Brothers are a great example of a tag team comprised of two fake brothers who just couldn’t get over. The combination of Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom had decent in-ring chemistry.
Unfortunately, their presentation was subpar. The team needed a mouthpiece since neither Enos nor Bloom were gifted talkers. That’s where Coach and eventually, The Genius came into play. Neither was anything resembling a good manager though and The Beverly Brothers struggled because of it.
The Baron Was Such A Bad Fit As Manager That Mr. Fuji Replaced Him
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 1987-Present |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments | NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Champions (With Ivan Koloff) |
| Other Notable Performers Managed By The Baron | El Gran Markus (1975) |
Uneducated wrestling fans who want to sound smart might say something like “Demolition was just a rip-off of The Road Warriors”. The reality is that the Road Warrior Rip-Offs were The Powers Of Pain, not Demolition. The regrettable part is Warlord and Barbarian weren’t terrible wrestlers. Okay, maybe Warlord was.
The problem with The Powers Of Pain was they were just too similar to The Road Warriors without being as good as them. When they first arrived in WWE, they also had the misfortune of being managed by The Baron, who was Baron Von Raschke under a hood. To be fair, the managerial switch to Mr. Fuji didn’t help the pair much either.
4 The Prime Time Players Weren’t Quite Ready For Prime Time
Abraham Washington Sealed His Fate With A Controversial Line
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 2012-2016 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments | WWE Tag Team Champions |
| Other Notable Performers Managed By Abraham Washington |
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By all accounts, Titus O’Neil is an incredible human being. Being a good person doesn’t make you a good wrestler though. Neither does being paired with another mediocre performer like Darren Young. That’s what happened in 2012 though when O’Neil and Young were under Abraham Washington’s leadership as The Prime Time Players.
The team was far from good but they were at least entertaining. Washington wasn’t a good manager by any means but he’d occasionally drop some good lines during promos. Regrettably, “AW” would seal his fate with an ill-advised off-the-cuff line about Kobe Bryant in Utah. He’d immediately disappear from WWE after the incident, leaving O’Neil and Young to fend for themselves.
3 Kai En Tai Faced An Uphill Battle In WWE’s Tag Team Division
Yamaguchi-San Is Only Remembered For One Thing
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 1994-2001 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments |
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| Other Notable Performers Managed By Yamaguchi San |
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The Kai En Tai faction is a great example of how American promoters struggled to book Japanese talent in the 80s and 90s. The faction featured several talented performers, including Dick Togo, Terry Boy, Taka Michinoku, and Funaki. They were managed by Yamaguchi-San early on in their WWE tenure.
Let’s look at the entire run of Kai En Tai and what fans should know about them, from its origins in Japan to its later days as a two-man operation.
Despite being talented, their presentation was never going to get them over as they were always presented as being lesser than domestic WWE stars. As far as Yamaguchi-san goes, American wrestling fans mostly remember him for the infamous “Choppy choppy pee pee” incident with Val Venis. When Yamaguchi-San, Dick Togo, and Terry Boy left WWE it hardly affected Michinoku and Funaki.
2 D’Lo Brown & Chaz Were Always Going To Be A Tough Sell As A Team
Tiger Ali Singh As Manager Was The Kiss Of Death For This Duo
| Tenure As A Tag Team | 2000-2001 |
|---|---|
| Accomplishments |
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| Other Notable Performers Managed By Tiger Ali Singh | None |
Anyone who saw D’Lo Brown wrestle in the 90s knows there was a lot of raw talent and potential there. Unfortunately, D’Lo never had the luxury of good booking. Case in point, his random pairing with Chaz. The former Headbanger was a decent worker but he and D’Lo didn’t have any business teaming together.
To make matters worse, the random pairing was managed by the most random manager ever, Tiger Ali Singh. Who seriously expected that team to get over? Why would Ali Singh be looked at as potentially a good mouthpiece? Just bad decisions all around on this one.
1 Fans Are Better Off Not Remembering Deuce ‘N’ Domino
Cherry Fit Their Gimmick Well, But The Gimmick Was Horrendous
| Tenure As A Tag Team |
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|---|---|
| Accomplishments | WWE Tag Team Champions |
| Other Notable Performers Managed By Cherry Pie | None |
Remember Deuce ‘N Domino? No? Lucky you. Not sure why a 1950s greaser gimmick was greenlit for an entire faction in 2006 but WWE did it. The results were every bit as bad as you’d expect. From an in-ring standpoint, Deuce ‘N Domino actually weren’t terrible. The pair had good chemistry from their time teaming together in OVW.
The gimmick was just too bad to overcome though. Their manager Cherry, formerly Cherry Pie, made sense as part of the group but can hardly be credited with contributing much to the team. Surprisingly, Deuce ‘N Domino briefly held the WWE Tag Team Championships but that doesn’t make them a good team.
