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What's the story?
The WWE's tag team division features great teams like The Bar, The New Day, The Revival, AOP, The Usos, and SANitY. However, even with all the talent they have and the recent tag team wars we've seen over the past few years, the division seems to be at one of its weakest points, specifically when it comes to the Raw brand. In a recent interview, Road Warrior Animal agreed.
In case you didn't know...
Since 2017, Raw's tag team titles have been relegated to a side story for big-time players. In both 2017 and 2018, the belts were tossed to the Shield as they went to war with two separate factions, both led by Braun Strowman. Strowman's ongoing feud with Roman Reigns eventually led to a Shield reunion last year, forcing Braun Strowman to unite with The Bar, The Miz, and the Miztourage, locking the tag team titles down for a while.
While this isn't always terrible, the issue is that once Dean Ambrose returned from injury, we saw the exact same thing happen again. The Raw Tag Team Titles were put on center stage, but merely as props for the bigger picture.
Each time the belts were taken away from the main storyline, they sort of lost their relevance. Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt were thrown together just to add to the division that had been depleted over the early months of 2018, and they quickly lost the titles to the B-Team.
Many assumed that The Revival would finally get a shot at the top at this point, only for another makeshift tag team, Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler, to be put together to obliterate the entire division in order to set up a showdown between the champs and The Shield.
Seth Rollins would eventually lose the titles to AOP. However, the dominant duo hasn't exactly looked as strong as some may like, including the WWE Hall of Famer Animal.
The heart of the matter
In a recent interview with Chair Shots to the Cranium, Road Warrior Animal was asked about the current state of Raw's tag team division. The former tag champion tackled the negative effects of the WWE's 50-50 booking, which has been a longstanding issue with fans and critics of the WWE.
Everyone can't be equal. That's not reality. That's not tag team wrestling. They started off with The Revival being strong and they kill them. The Authors of Pain, yes they just beat one guy, Seth Rollins, to become tag team champions, but what have they done before that? They've gotten beat! You have to establish who's the dominant guys. There's no team that stands out as being the dominant team today. That's the problem.
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
What's next?
The Authors of Pain are scheduled to defend their Raw Tag Team Titles against Bobby Roode & Chad Gable on Monday Night Raw. Roode & Gable earned their opportunity after defeating AOP last week. Hopefully, going forward, we'll see the Raw brand evolve their tag division into what it has the talent to be.
Do you think Animal was right? Is WWE's lack of dominant teams hurting the division? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
