WWE currently has two sets of Tag Team Championships, which is not new to the promotion, as it has had a pair of tag titles for many years during the original brand split. Right now there are multiple teams that are all cohesive units and share a common bond with each other.
In the past, that wasn’t such the case. Or, when it was the case, the teams were just, well, bad.
Sometimes WWE just didn’t have the manpower on the rosters to create enough tag teams for two separate sets of titles. Sometimes the creative team was just plain lazy and didn’t try to make the tag teams any good, and just had the belts for the sake of having them. And it showed, based on some of the teams on this list.
Here’s a look at 7 teams that never should have won tag team gold in WWE.
#7 Kenzo Suzuki and Rene Dupree
A tag team that lasted a short stint in 2004, SmackDown’s Rene Dupree and Kenzo Suzuki had less-than-successful singles runs. Suzuki, in fact, was such a disappointment that he was moved from a possible main event role due to his increasingly poor performances in the ring.
The two men actually made for a somewhat charming team, but they were clunky and inexperienced in the ring and had some very poor matches. A youthful Frenchman and a formerly evil, but now just silly and clumsy Japanese man meet in a bar. They form a tag team.
That’s not much of a joke, and they weren’t much of a team. They actually held the tag titles on SmackDown for three months before losing them to the equally short-lived SmackDown team of Rob Van Dam and Rey Mysterio.
#6 Road Warrior Animal and Heidenreich
Who thought that reuniting the Road Warriors (or Legion of Doom, if you prefer) by using the guy who was afraid of caskets and carried around a gigantic Hershey’s bar was a good idea? After being beaten up and taunted by the talented team of MNM, Heidenreich, who was once thought of as a formidable opponent of The Undertaker, was saved by former tag team great Animal.
Animal, was having a boring singles run (much like another old school wrestler, Tatanka, who was also on the SmackDown roster around that time), and needed something else to do. He was paired up with Heidenreich to help bolster a weak tag team division, and they had a forgettable run that saw them win the tag team championships, holding them for a couple of months.
They eventually lost the belts back to MNM, in a match that featured William Regal and a young Paul Burchill (before he was a pirate) and the Mexicools. Like I said, weak tag division.
#5 Charlie Haas and Rico
They held the belts for two months in 2004, shortly after Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin were broken up by the brand split. Shelton went on to defeat Triple H on RAW, and Charlie went on to partner with Rico and his soon-to-be wife Jackie Gayda.
In another nod to how weak the tag team division was, they won the titles very shortly after becoming a team and defended them against the likes of the reunited partial team of Almost Too Cool, Rikishi and Scotty II Hotty. That’s another team that shouldn’t have existed at all.
In any event, it was a bumbling error, they lost the titles to the Dudley Boyz after a short stint, and were broken up as a team almost immediately. SmackDown had a rough period in the spring and summer of 2004.
#4 David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty
Oh, the New Nexus. It was a second iteration of the group, post-second season of the original version of NXT. CM Punk had taken control of the band of ragtag misfits for his own personal gain, but some of them had personal gains of their own.
The dreadfully dull team of NXT Season 2 rookie Michael McGillicutty and NXT Season 1 rookie David Otunga won the tag titles in May of 2011.
The team defended the titles two times, once successfully defeating The Usos (back when they were a pair of under pushed kids) in July, and on their second defence, just days later, lost the titles to Zack Ryder and Santino Marella.
Wow. WWE has a pretty rough history with tag teams, huh?
#3 La Resistance
From 2003 into early 2005 the French Canadian tag team, which became a trio in 2004, stunk up the joint in a lot of bad matches. They were not the most experienced group, with the exception of the addition of Rob Conway, who was a very good wrestler, and their matches proved that.
They got a lot of “heat” from the American crowds for being an anti-USA team, which is why WWE gave them the titles in the first place, but that doesn’t mean it was a good idea.
The team held the titles on three separate occasions, once with Rene Dupree and Sylvan Grenier and twice with Grenier and Rob Conway (even though he isn’t a Canadian). They never really got much of a reaction from the crowd during their sub-par performances inside the ring, rather only during their anti-USA promos.
Having teams like this is a long-standing pro wrestling tradition, but it’s usually best when they can wrestle.
#2 Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel (The Corre)
Can we all just agree that The Corre (misspelt for no apparent reason) was a bad idea? After the original Nexus was disbanded, Wade Barrett decided to take the remnants that wanted to stick with him (Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel) and add Ezekiel Jackson to create a new stable for him to run.
Slater and Gabriel held the titles for a little over a month as a team representing The Nexus and technically held the belts twice, while representing The Corre in 2011 (they lost them and won them back on the same night on February 21, 2011).
The Corre disbanded after only existing for six months, and most people have pushed the group as far back in their minds as possible.
#1 Deuce ‘n Domino
In 2007, WWE brought a very inexperienced tag team with a silly 1950s gimmick up to the main roster, specifically the SmackDown brand. They won the tag team titles from the long-reigning champions Paul London and Brian Kendrick after only four months, and held them for about 4 months as well before the audiences were put out of their misery.
The team was not well received, as they were average-at-best in the ring and did nothing to make themselves must-see wrestlers, although that wasn’t their fault, as the gimmick they were given was laughable.
Either way, between a bad gimmick, lacking promo abilities and below average in-ring wrestling, the duo of Deuce ‘n Domino is possibly the worst team that ever held the WWE Tag Team Championship.
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