That Wrestling Podcast Episode 47

That Wrestling Podcast Episode 47 by Dave Hatton on Mixcloud

This episode sees the debut of a new recurring feature. It is imaginatively titled Three Things. The premise of it is simple. We take three wrestlers, tag teams, or other role in wrestling and think of things (three to be precise) that could be done to improve them.

Here we apply it to three WWE tag teams. I won’t mention any specifics because I think finding out who we’re talking about and how we think they could be bettered is a large part of what makes the episode enjoyable. Although it’s possible you can guess through a process of elimination.

I will say that I think WWE is overlooking their tag team division and not doing as much as they could with the teams they have. It’s not that the doubles scene is bad. It’s been improving for around eighteen months now. In that time we’ve seen Team Hell No, The Rhodes Scholars, The Shield and the Rhodes bros doing everything they can to make the division and the titles mean something. The spate of six man tags involving The Shield and The Wyatt Family has helped too.

Do we have ideas to improve Goldust and Cody Rhodes

But WWE are at risk of losing this. The Rhodes brothers seem to have been cooled off a little since losing the championships in January and The Shield have been moved away from doubles action this year. Even The Prime Time Players, a duo who had lots of potential to work as a fun supporting act but never got the chance to be as good as they could be, have been split (read my thoughts on that stupidity here). The division is currently in the hands of teams that are mostly proficient but seem unlikely to keep the momentum of recent times going.

Of course, wrestling well is fine. It’s better to have good wrestling than bad, especially when it comes to an aspect of WWE programming that hasn’t been handled too well for much of the last decade. But there’s more to wrestling than just putting on good matches, especially in WWE. The tag scene is the perfect place for WWE to be experimental with characters and gimmicks or for humour to be inserted into shows. These things are important to keeping shows varied and for experimenting with guys who could be stars for the company in the future.

If the Usos are left as the centrepiece team of the division it’s not going to take long for the good work of Daniel Bryan, Kane, Cody Rhodes, Goldust and ‘The Hounds of Justice’ to be undone. Even if Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, the obvious choices to oppose Jimmy and Jey in the post-‘Mania season, are moved into the division it will lack the variety of the last year and a half.