Top 10 tag teams of the decade

Earlier this week, we listed our top female wrestlers of the decade. With that providing as much debate as it did, we thought it’d only be appropriate if we moved on to the duos of the sport. Like with our women’s selections, this list was equally difficult to narrow down to just the ten.

Despite their rather poor booking of tag teams over the year, WWE has spoiled us at times, with teams such that The Shield, The Bar, and American Alpha not quite making the cut.

Lucha Brothers and The Grizzled Young Veterans have pleased us on a consistent basis, while fans of intergender wrestling will be disappointed not to see Joey Ryan and Candice Le Rae appear.

Despite this, we hope you enjoy our choices, and expect you to debate them as much as you did the women’s list.

So here are our top ten tag teams of the decade.

#10 Polo Promotions

They may not get the same worldwide recognition as other teams on this list, but at several points over the decade, no team was better in Europe than the Polos.

The duo of Mark Coffey and Jackie Polo gelled together instantly like a moth to a flame. They were an old school throw back before The Revival were a thing, and played a major role in putting British Wrestling on the map.

On four occasions, Polo Promotions reigned as Insane Championship Wrestling Tag Team Champions in Scotland - the first of which lasted over one whole year.

A strong list of matches across the decade saw the pair square off with the likes of The Dudley Boyz, The Viking Raiders, and The Grizzled Young Veterans.

While they still appear together on occasion, seeing The Polos as a pair is a rarity now on the UK scene. While Polo is more focused on his coaching at the Glasgow Pro Wrestling Asylum, Mark makes up one half of the NXT UK Tag Team Champions with Wolfgang as part of Gallus.

#9 Moustache Mountain

The second British team on the list are more revered across the globe.

A combination of trainer and apprentice, Trent Seven originally paired up with Pete Dunne to become a Tag Team Champion in the London-based promotion Progress. When ‘The Bruiserweight’ transitioned to the main event scene, Tyler Bate joined Seven to form Moustache Mountain.

The pair would go on to dominate the European Tag Team scene over the next 12 months. On top of their run in Progress, where their feud with CCK was a stand out in 2017, Moustache Mountain made their presence known in promotions such as ICW, OTT, and WXW.

It was in 2018, however, when the duo broke out on the global stage. During that year's WWE UK Title Tournament in London, they successfully defeated The Undisputed Era to win the NXT Tag Team Championship.

Although this reign was relatively short, the rivalry between the two teams produced several top quality match ups, including one on NXT TV that received a five star rating from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Moustache Mountain have teamed less regularly in 2019, but when they have, they’ve continued to show why they are one of the best, with their losing performance at NXT Takeover: Blackpool being a classic example.

#8 Guerrillas of Destiny

A recurring theme throughout this list will be the combination of two biological brothers with natural chemistry. The first of which is a team who have played a major role in the New Japan tag division for the last four years.

Having went their separate ways early in the decade, Tanga Loa joined his brother Tama Tonga in New Japan Pro-Wrestling in the Bullet Club stable after a spell in WWE as Camacho.

Instantly, the pair added a new dimension to the promotion's tag team division, winning the IWGP Tag Team Championships on five occasions.

Their feuds with The Young Bucks and Evil & Sanada helped establish the company as the place to be for tag team wrestling.

Despite never winning New Japan’s Tag Team staple, The World Tag League, The Guerrillas of Destiny cemented their legacy by winning both the IWGP and ROH Tag Titles at the historic joint event G1 Supercard this April at Madison Square Garden.

While The Bullet Club's level of popularity isn't what it once was, they remain an imposing presence in Japan - arguably more than they were during The Elite's tenure. The Guerrillas of Destiny play a major role in this.

#7 Evil & Sanada

Every great team needs an equally good sparring partner to help cement their legacy, someone who will highlight their strength and make them up their game any time they go toe-to-toe with one another.

In Japan at New Japan Pro-Wrestling, when you think of Guerrillas of Destiny, you instantly associate them with Evil & Sanada.

Like with the GOD, Evil & Sanada make up a small part of a larger group, this time Los Ingobernables de Japon. The pairing came together in 2016 after Sanada made a surprise debut at Invasion Attack, following a stint with TNA.

While they’ve held less IWGP Tag Titles than their long-time rivals, it is their dominance of The World Tag League that places them higher on the list.

Their victory in 2018 saw them become the second team to successfully win the tournament two years in a row under the current format, each time scoring the victory over their greatest rivals in Guerrillas of Destiny. On both occasions, these victories eventually led to the duo winning the IWGP Tag Team Championships at Wrestle Kingdom.

#6 The Usos

The Usos are the second brotherly duo to make the top ten and the sons of the legendary Attitude Era wrestler Rikishi.

Indeed, Jimmy and Jey Uso come from the famous Anao’i family of Samoan wrestlers that also includes The Rock, Yokozuna, and Roman Reigns.

Debuting on WWE TV in 2010, The Usos would begin as heels alongside another family member in Tamina Snuka. Soon afterwards though, the company allowed their natural characters to shine through, as the pair would soon transition into colorful fun-loving characters who would often make reference to their culture. Despite being the consistent team in the division throughout the first half of the decade, it took nearly four years for The Usos to win their first Tag Team Championships just before WrestleMania XX.

Since then, they’ve held the titles on six occasions, four of which were the SmackDown Tag Championships following the 2016 Brand Split. It was in this latter spell that The Usos achieved their peak run, turning heel in 2016 to develop new edgy characters.

Their feud in 2017 with The New Day stood out as the stand out feud of that year, as both teams put out classics bouts, including the blow out match inside Hell in A Cell.

#5 The Revival

Say yeah!!

Fans of the late 80s/early 90s style of wrestling instantly fell in love with the team of Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder.

The pair first came together as The Revival in 2015, making it to the semi-finals of the inaugural Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.

Such was the then-make shift duo's performance in the tournament that NXT management instantly strapped a rocket onto the team. Tag team gold would soon come their way, as they’d become the first team to hold the NXT Tag Team Championships on two occasions. In a time where teams were hitting superkicks and high-flying moves, The Revival's emphasis on 'No flips, just fists' was a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the division and allowed them to stand out as a team.

Their 2016 feuds and matches with American Alpha, DIY, and Authors of Pain helped put NXT on the map.

Since their call up to the main roster in 2017, The Revival have had mixed success with injuries and indifferent booking getting in the way.

Nevertheless, they are still the only team in WWE to win the NXT, RAW, and SmackDown Tag Team Championships. Not a bad decade indeed.

#4 Undisputed Era

The current list of champions in NXT perfectly highlights how The Undisputed Era have dominated the brand since 2017.

A staple of their dominance has been the iron grip they have had on the tag team division. While Roderick Strong proved a great partner to Kyle O’Reilly in 2018, it’s the latter’s partnership with Bobby Fish both before and after Fish suffered a serious injury early that year, that makes it onto our list just inside the top five.

Before making WWE their home in 2017, Fish and O’Reilly were one of the most loved teams on the independent circuit as ReDragon. From 2012 to 2017, they’d win championships in both Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

When both signed on individually to WWE and NXT, the brand was smart enough to pair both men together again instantly. Within five months of arriving, they were NXT Tag Team Champions.

In the two years since, Undisputed Era have been a constant in NXT’s tag scene, with Kyle O’Reilly standing out as a three time champion, twice with Fish.

With NXT now an expanded product on the USA Network, expect the pair to dominate the Black and Gold brand for years to come.

#3 Viking Raiders

Throughout wrestling history, two men or women are often thrown together randomly as a tag team. Often, it ends in failure, as the chemistry never quite hits the level it should with a tag team, but on the rare occasion it works, and to great success.

The best example of this may be when Ring of Honor decided to pair Hanson and Raymond Rowe - the two finalists in that year’s Top Prospect Tournament - together as a destructive duo.

In the five years since, whether you prefer them as War Machine, War Raiders, or Viking Raiders, they are certainly a team who always amaze.

Be it their hard hitting style or their ability to do things big man wrestlers shouldn’t do, they have far more great than bad match ups. Take their respective battles in NXT earlier this year against the teams of Undisputed Era and Aleister Black & Ricochet respectively.

Having competed for companies all over the globe, their resume certainly speaks for itself. Upon winning the RAW Tag Team Championships in 2019, it meant they ended the decade having won titles in NJPW, Ring of Honor, NXT, and on the WWE main roster.

#2 New Day

OHHH SportsKeeda readers!! Don’t you dare be sour!! Clap for your world famous, seven time champs, and FEEL THE POWERRRR!! It's a New Day, yes it is!

Readers will likely recognize the 'world famous' New Day introduction. Be it any combination of Kofi Kingston, Big E, or Xavier Woods, the group certainly have reinvented the WWE tag scene over the course of the decade.

Upon initially coming together in 2014, The New Day was originally a dead end gospel group who the fans soured on from the get go. It was only once they turned heel the following year as comical villains that the wrestling audience began to take notice of them.

Their list of accolades certainly do make for impressive reading. The New Day are five time SmackDown Tag Team Champions as well as two time RAW Tag Champs, with their second reign standing as the longest in WWE history at 478 days.

Even five years after coming together, The New Day’s level of popularity still remains as buoyant as ever, and remain one of the company’s top merchandise sellers.

2019 saw them dominate SmackDown, with Woods and E holding tag gold and Kofi Kingston capping off a fantastic career becoming WWE Champion for the first time.

#1 The Young Bucks

It really couldn’t have been anyone else - The Young Bucks are the third brother duo to make our list.

When Matt and Nick Jackson first burst onto the national TV wrestling scene with TNA at the beginning of the decade, their talent was instantly apparent.

As Generation Me, their battles with The Motor City Machine Guns were some of the best of all time. However, it wasn’t until they joined Bullet Club that their popularity truly skyrocketed.

Everywhere they went in the second half of the decade, gold came their way. The Bucks were IWGP Jr Tag Team Champions on seven occasions. They were Ring of Honor Tag Champions three times and four time Pro Wrestling Guerrilla Tag Champions.

The fact that they’ve been named best tag team on multiple occasions by respected publications such as Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter shows the constantly high standards The Young Bucks have set themselves.

Stand out match ups include their battles with ReDragon, Evil & Sanada, and Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi.

Upon the formation of All Elite Wrestling earlier this year, Matt and Nick outlined early their intention to continue to produce the best tag division in the world.

If their matches so far with Private Party, Proud n Powerful, and SCU are anything to go by, the next decade should be equally as fruitful for our top team of the 2010’s, and wrestling fans should get ready for more Superkick Parties.