10 Thrown-Together Tag Teams that Really Worked

#2 The Acolytes

The Acolytes were pure brutality in human form.

By the summer of 1998, two of WWF's once-hottest prospects had found themselves languishing on the back burner: former WCW World Champion Ron Simmons, now known as Farooq, and Bradshaw, formerly Justin "Hawk" and/or Blackjack Bradshaw.

Bradshaw had been a heavy hitter Texas stereotype since early 1996; he was The Undertaker's Victim of the Night on the WrestleMania XII fallout show when Mankind attacked The Deadman to kick off one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history. WWF tried repackaging him as 1996 led on to 1997 with Barry Windham as a rehash of an old tag team that hadn't been popular in most fans' lifetimes at that point.

Faarooq, meanwhile, was a former Florida State University standout in football who became the first Black wrestler to win a major company's world title in the early 1990s when he became The Man in World Championship Wrestling; upon joining the WWF in 1996, he showed up in an ugly gladiator-themed costume managed, nonsensically, by Sunny.

The gimmick was abandoned quickly until Faarooq became a Malcolm X/Louis Farrakhan-type figure and formed his own faction in the Nation of Domination, recruiting Crush, Savio Vega, and an army of independent and developmental talent to accompany him to the ring. The group evicted its non-Black member is mid-1997, kicking off a three-way gang war and making room for Kama Mustafa (the future Godfather), Mark Henry, and the recently-heel Rocky Maivia. Maivia's star very soon eclipsed Faarooq, who found himself losing his spot to the man now known as The Rock in the spring of 1998.

With the bump from the Ministry, The Acolytes went from forgotten New Generation relics to veritable Mortal Kombat bosses, decimating nearly every team in the World Wrestling Federation en route to three WWF Tag Team Championships.By November of 1998, the two were mostly forgotten victims of Attitude Era trainwreck storytelling, until they reappeared together in matching black gear to attack the Disciples of Apocalypse on RAW. The Jackyl (a.k.a. Don Callis) proclaimed them his Acolytes, but Callis's eventual departure led to the Acolytes' eventual alignment with The Undertaker and his Ministry of Darkness; the duo was a perfect fit as mysterious runes and vaguely occult imagery, in addition to brutal kayfabe violence, had been part of their defining characteristics since their repackaging.

The pairing continued to evolve throughout the Attitude Era, shedding their demonic roots to become a hard-drinking private security company (and, of course, one of them found a little bit of success after that, too).