5 Terrible WWE tag team breakups

WWE RAW confirmed something that fans have been speculating for quite some time. Former World Tag Team Champions A-Town Down Under are no more. Grayson Waller has been warming up to the New Day for the past few weeks, hoping to latch onto their coattails on the way back to the top of the division.

The Aussie Sensation broke the news to Woods and Kingston, hoping to brighten their night after a failed #1 contender's match. "Austin Theory is A-Town...DOWN, mate," exclaimed Waller! "Idiot went and got himself injured! A-Town Down Under is finally done!"

Bitter tag team breakups are pretty common, especially in WWE, and sometimes they can leave fans scratching their heads. Thanks to Grayson Waller, we're looking at five terrible breakups of WWE tag teams.

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#5 A-Town Down and Out

It might be cheating, but yes. We might as well start with this, as the A-Town Down Under breakup has been teased for well over a year. Austin Theory and Grayson Waller's caustic personalities were bound to wear one another down. They'd even ruin each other's major matches as recently as this year, even failing to win a triple threat against NXT Champion Oba Femi earlier this year.

That moment was over five months ago. The two would continue to work as a unit on Main Event and RAW until recently. After over a year of these two superstars throwing petty jabs and, in some cases, costing each other their matches, WWE decided to split these two up over social media.

Waller began trashing his partner on X/Twitter recently. However, if this wasn't enough, Waller confirmed it with the New Day on the July 21 episode of WWE Monday Night RAW. No big turn, no blindsiding his partner during or after a hard-fought bout. Just a tweet and a throwaway line in between matches. While other breakups were bad, yet memorable, this was a "blink and you'll miss it" wrap-up.

After a few months, nobody will remember the way these former champions split.

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#4 Brian Kendrick betrays Paul London - wait, never mind

This is a strange one. If you weren't watching wrestling in the mid-2000s, you may have missed one of the highlights of a, frankly, desolate tag team division. Brian Kendrick and Paul London were two of the most exciting stars on the roster, and captured both the WWE and World Tag Team Titles between their 05-08 run.

London, Kendrick, and MNM carried the scene for a few years, giving us an underappreciated feud. Near the end of their run as a pair, Brian Kendrick began to have a bit of an attitude with his tag partner, and ultimately left Paul London to fend for himself in a handicap match against Umaga on the March 17, 2008, edition of RAW. The crowd booed as the former Spanky walked up the ramp with his tail between his legs.

And then... London and Kendrick were back together as a team two weeks later. Jim Ross clarified for the TV audience that the pair had worked out their differences and were ready to reclaim their championship glory. One of the most exciting, high-octane teams on the planet--Oh, they were split during the WWE draft that year with no fanfare whatsoever. Sure.

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#3 American Alpha breaks up to form two new WWE tag teams

One of the greatest teams to come out of Black and Gold NXT, American Alpha ran with a stacked division that pitted them against the likes of The Revival, AOP, and more. When they arrived on SmackDown in 2016, fans of the young mat-based duo were happy to see them shoot straight to the top of the division.

While unsuccessful in winning a tournament to crown the inaugural SmackDown Tag Champions, they'd ultimately win the titles within five months of their debut match on the WWE main roster. After losing the gold to The Usos, Chad Gable began working as a singles competitor. In a WWE.com interview, Gable stated that they both wanted to see what they could do as singles, now that they had captured the tag titles so easily.

That's nice and all, but why were both Jason Jordan and Gable thrown into tag teams by the end of the year? By August, Gable was working with Shelton Benjamin, and by November, Jordan, then the "son" of Kurt Angle, managed to win the RAW Tag Team Titles with Seth Rollins.

Wanting to test the waters with two bright young Superstars is understandable, but splitting them to lump them into two other tag teams felt lazy. It seemed the experiment was dead before it could begin.

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#2 An IIconic run wasted

One of the most beloved tag teams in the prime days of NXT and post-brand split SmackDown were The IIconics, now known as The IInspiration in TNA. Cassie Lee (formerly Peyton Royce in WWE) and Jessie McKay (formerly Billie Kay) were a hit as two hilarious Australian bullies, who often antagonized backstage interviewers and WWE commentary teams.

In 2019, WWE brought back the Women's Tag Team Titles, and the IIconics seemed like one of the more obvious choices to champion the division. Though they weren't the inaugural champions, The IIconics defeated The Boss'n'Hug Connection at WrestleMania 35 in a four-way to be the second team to hold the gold. After 120 days as champions, they'd lose the belts to Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross, never to hold those titles again.

After that, the pair wallowed on the main roster for a year before losing a match that ultimately split them apart. During the August 31st, 2020, episode of WWE RAW, The IIconics faced The Riott Squad in a bout where the winners would earn a tag title shot, and the losers would disband. At the time, it was seen as ridiculous, with the pair being one of the division's few legit tag teams. In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Cassie Lee (formerly Peyton Royce) admitted that the breakup was her idea, as she wanted to try her luck as a solo competitor.

"I wanted to go singles. There was just things I wanted to tick off my bucket list as a singles competitor," Cassie Lee said. [22:07 onwards]

Since the 2021 budget cuts that led to the IIconics and many others losing their jobs, both Cassie and Jessie McKay have worked for TNA Wrestling, even winning the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Titles that same year. They've also grown their families, with McKay having a son and Cassie, with husband and NXT star Shawn Spears, having two boys.

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#1 Matt Hardy turns on Jeff Hardy and... his dog?

One of the greatest tag teams, not just in WWE history, but in all of professional wrestling, The Hardy Boyz have come to blows on a few occasions. Back in 2002, Matt attacked Jeff over the jealousy of his younger brother earning major singles opportunities, which led to the birth of Mattitude V.1.

The Hardy Boyz took their family feud to TNA Wrestling, where we saw the former WWE Tag Champions go to war in the Broken Hardy Saga. What we're talking about today is the split of the Hardy Boyz in 2009. At this point, both men were working as singles stars, with Matt Hardy recently losing the ECW Championship and Jeff Hardy capturing the WWE Title.

Leading up to the Royal Rumble that year, Jeff Hardy had dealt with some near-death experiences, like his pyro malfunctioning on an episode of SmackDown. However, one of the strangest details emerged after Matt's turn. A year prior, Jeff's house legitimately caught fire and burned to the ground. Luckily, neither Jeff nor his now-wife was home, but the blaze did take the life of his dog, Jack. Matt Hardy took credit for the fire, then cut a promo on his brother while holding what appeared to be a Jack Russell Terrier, similar to the dog Hardy lost.

As bad as all that was, they would reunite in late 2009, before Jeff left WWE, putting all that animosity and hate behind them, including an I Quit Match that took place four months prior. On an episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the elder Hardy stated that he didn't like adding that tragic moment to the story.

"His dog died. It was a really traumatic event for him. Just...for them to put that in our storyline was almost like it was in bad taste. I remember saying, 'I don't know. I mean, I'll do it, but like, this could be too much.'" (H/T to WrestlingNews)

Thankfully, the Hardyz had a better storyline ahead of them with the Broken Universe, and recently regained the TNA Tag Team Championship at Slammiversary.