Tag Team Manifesto.

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In the past handful of years, the tag team division in the WWE has gradually declined to the point of irrelevancy. If you take a look at the history of the championship, you see big gaps in between when the division was filled with teams, and when the division was an afterthought or involved in the main singles titles. So now, I've decided to have a little bit of fun with this and dust off the old whiteboard, and imaginarily book the Tag Team Division into relevancy once again. The rules are going to be fairly simple, everything I come up with needs to be realistic(I can't get Sting and The Ultimate Warrior to come to the WWE and reform their tag team, for example). I'm also going to go ahead and start this process after WrestleMania, since I don't want to distract any of the build up for the main titles. At the beginning of the brainstorming period, I thought that I should call an expert and see what I would need to have an interesting tag team division. His answer was:

You got it, JR! This advice is somewhat obvious, since that last great examples of a division in the WWE was in the late 90's when we had The Hardy Boyz, Edge & Christian, and The Dudley Boyz. Another great example is under Paul Heyman's "Smackdown Six" (Los Guerreros, Edge & Mysterio, Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle). So the difficult question is... who in the tag team division today am I going to go with today to be my "main four" teams to start out with, and who will be in the remaining fodder.

• Epico & Primo - I'm going off the assumption that Epico & Primo are champions after WrestleMania this year, and I have no decision in placing them inside of my "Core Four"(I hope you get sick of that term by the end of this post). Rosa gets slight Vicki Guerrero heat by just shaking her ass around and yelling spanish into a microphone. I also find Epico & Primo to be a pretty solid team together. Decision: Core Four
• Air Boom - Over the past half a year, Evan and Kofi has become quite a hell of a team, and it makes sense because they're extremely similar. However, Bourne has single-handedly hurt Air Boom way too many times... So I'm going to "play ball" here and split Air Boom... we'll talk about that in a bit. Decision: Split Air Boom
• The Usos - If I had direct control of The Usos, I would strap a rocket on them and go straight to the top. Their "chant" during their entrance is proof that both these guys have a ton of charisma that's waiting to be unleashed, and they are the most impressive two currently working together in the WWE right now. Decision: Core Four
• Curt Hawkins & Tyler Reks - Poor Curt Hawkins. I feel that Curt is going to be this generation's Stevie Richards for some reason. These two are a good team for each other, but I don't think I'm ever going to take Tyler Reks seriously. Unless if they impress me out of nowhere, I'm making these guys lose to make my Core Four look good. Decision: Jobbers
• Santoshi - Santino & Yoshi Tatsu have had one match together. I think these two should stick together because they could have entertaining segments and it would give Yoshi Tatsu SOMETHING to do, even if it was at a lower level on Smackdown. Decision: Jobbers
• Trent Barreta & Tyson Kidd - This one is easy and involves no explanation. Tyson Kidd is NOT going to go anywhere or do anything until the Cruiserweight Division returns. Decision: Jobbers
• Hunico & Camacho - It might seem racist, but I can't have two heel teams from south of the border in my Core Four. Once again, I feel that Hunico will not go anywhere until there is a Cruiserweight division. Decision: Jobbers

Curt will show you... you'll see!

Between WrestleMania and Extreme Rules

I have four episodes of Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and Superstars in between this period of time. As booker, I'm going to shove a tag team division match in your face on EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. That's right, 16 tag division matches in the period of a month. On the biggest show (Raw), I'm going to feature a match between one of my "Core Four" teams (The Usos or Epico & Primo) and one of my Jobber teams. This is simply to showcase my teams, as well as the moves of each team to WWE's core audience.

At Extreme Rules, we'll have Epico & Primo go over Air Boom. Primo pins Kofi, and Evan becomes obviously frustrated by Kofi not being able to kick out.

Between Extreme Rules and Over The Limit

Now I have three weeks of episodes, and on the first episode of Raw I'm going to through Curt Hawkins a bone and have Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks go over Air Boom, causing Evan to have another pissy fit towards Kofi and gives him a good shove. This leads to Smackdown, where they try for one last match, and loses to another one of my jobber teams... causing Evan to completely turn on Kofi and beating him down. Show a highlight of that on Raw and start promoting Evan Bourne vs. Kofi Kingston at Over The Limit. While this is going on, continue to have Epico & Primo win title defenses on every other episode of Raw, but there will be no Tag Team Championship match at Over The Limit.

On the week before Over The Limit, I'm booking Bourne in a singles match on Raw... and I'm going to hand Evan Bourne a microphone (stay with me here, folks). It will be a quick backstage segment between whoever the Raw GM at the time is and Evan Bourne, and I want Bourne to ask for the match to include mystery partners.

So... let me take a break here, and announce my two new teams in the division:

• Air Boom 2.0 - Kofi Kingston & Justin Gabriel. I think most people could agree that Justin Gabriel is inter-changeable with Evan Bourne, and I think Kofi & Justin can put on the same caliber performance as Kofi & Evan
• Evan Bourne & Drew Mcintyre - Hold your applause, people. Both of these guys are on their last strike as of right now, and I would be clear in making it known that if there is one more offense between both of them, then it's time to pack your bags. Evan is a great performer, and so is Drew... and finally I'll have a wrestler in my tag division who I'm comfortable to have a microphone in his hands. Kayfabe wise, Drew should be fired by Teddy Long from Smackdown at this point, but right before the match, make Laurinitus or whoever come out and announce that he's been picked up from Raw and is now Evan Bourne's tag team partner.

So who wins the match at the PPV? It'll be the new team between Evan Bourne & Drew Mcintyre, and those two will be in my Core Four. This leaves Air Boom 2.0 to be on the sidelines for a bit, and have Kofi back in the upper midcard.

beats losing to Santino every week.

Between Over The Limit and ???

The next PPV still hasn't been announced, so I'll just call it PPV. The Uso's has kind of been on the back burner, so I'll go ahead and finally put them up in a feud against the team of Evan Bourne & Drew Mcintyre.

Now I get to have a little bit of fun. During the first Raw after Over The Limit, Epico & Primo win in another jobber match, and The Road Dogg's music plays. He's one of the best talkers ever, so I have no problem with just giving him a mic and letting him let loose on whatever he feels like. Basically, he just talks about how lackluster the tag division has been and now he wants to give it "one more shot" after the reception that he got at the Royal Rumble. Primo & Epico accepts only if the stipulation of "If The New Age Outlaws lose, then they must retire from wrestling forever". Road Dogg accepts and we have a match at the next PPV that would put a few butts in the seats. I think Billy Gunn would be up for it if you guarantee them that The New Age Outlaws would be inducted in the Hall of Fame the next year (you must remember that they had the third highest merchandise sales of the Attitude Era). Have The New Age Outlaws return for a few matches on Raw before the PPV just to have people tuning in.

The PPV is here, and I've got The Usos winning a match against Evan & Drew, and I've got Epico & Primo winning against The New Age Outlaws.

We can all pretend that Billy & Chuck never even happened!

Between PPV and TLC

So, here is what I've been building towards for the last couple of months. We are now heading towards TLC, a match made famous by tag teams. After giving Epico & Primo a generous run of six months with the championships, it's time to hand it off. The GM will announce the match on the week after the last PPV, and will book a TLC match that includes Epico & Primo, The Usos, and Evan Bourne & Drew Mcintyre. I think that if The Usos has been booked well enough between WrestleMania and now, then they should get a good pop when they win the title belts at TLC in what should be an awesome match up.

Yes, I've been building up this "Core Four" forever now... AND I ONLY HAVE THREE TEAMS. If WWE has enough faith, then they should call up Chris Hero and Antonio Cesaro, a team that's reputation is well known at this point. Also, in the background of this whole tag team revival thing, William Regal is giving it one last run towards a major title reign (consider Regal the Mark Henry of this year) and in between PPV and TLC, he's beginning to hype up a team that has wrestled at as many locations around the world that Regal has wrestled. Regal forms a new stable with these two new wrestlers, and they are The Kings of Wrestling (*spine tingles*)

... and now there's a reason to give a shit about the division.

Overview

We now have our SOLID "Core Four" in Epico & Primo, The Usos, Evan & Drew, and Chris Hero & Antonio Cesaro. I think the first team that drops from the Core will be Epico & Primo for one of the Jobber teams as soon as The Usos beat them in a rematch. Then the remaining three can swap feuds for a while until a new fourth team emerges, and you build from there. I think you could possibly last a year off of these four teams, and eventually you'll get main eventers from Hero, Cesaro, and Drew Mcintyre. Possibly WWE could steal a tag team away from TNA (MCMG or Beer Money), but I don't think that it's all that's necessary.

At least it would give the tag team division fucking SOMETHING to look at over than what it is now.

Please send me any and all response for my manifesto! Is anything too outlandish for you, or did I do a decent enough job... maybe you've got a better idea! Who Knows!