Well, first some backstory.
I was reading Ric Flair’s book “To Be The Man”, and was intrigued by his accounts with the Four Horseman stable, and less than flattering comments about Scott Steiner from the Steiner Brothers. I’ve never really watched The Steiners as a tag team before, I’ve only watch Rick as part of the Varsity Club with Mike Rotunda (later known as Irwin R. Schyster in the WWE) Scott much later as the jacked up chain mail wearing jerk.
Which made me google up “Greatest Tag Teams of All Time” to see what the internet thinks of the subject. Most lists were partial, some were contain a few absurd listings (The Natural Disasters? Road Dogg and Jesse James? Really??)
Which made me want to make my own list. But some qualifications. I’ve been consistently watching WWE / WWF from around 1980, NWA in the late 80’s, a little bit of WCW during the Monday Night Wars period and some TNA. No AWA, no independent ECW, no WCCW (except the one odd episode) and no Ring of Honor. No Japan either. So anything before 1980 wont be in the list (so no Freebirds or the Briscoes).
And secondly, something of personal tastes. I am (fortunately or unfortunately) a purist in terms of pro wrestling – I prefer the old school way of story-telling and realistic wrestling. which means I’d choose Chris Jericho over Mick Foley any day (Although i find Foley a really funny guy). None of the jokey, comedic wrestling moves. Remember the worm by Scottie 2 Hottie?
So anyway, in my opinion, the Greatest Pro Wrestling Tag Teams of All Time.
Edge and Christian
The Attitude era of WWE will be remembered for many things (among them will be Goldust, unfortunately) but one of highlights will be the feud between The Hardys and Edge and Christian. Their high energy and high flying moves really help revitalize WWE from the staid and predictable rut it had become at the time. What is interesting is that both stars went on to have successful solo careers but both were cut short by injuries.
Demolition
Although they were formed as WWF’s answer to The Road Warriors, they thrived in an era when tag teams were very competitive in WWF. There were Demolition, The Hart Foundation, The British Bulldogs, The Killer Bees, etc. And a strong competition means good matches and feuds.
The Rock-‘N-Roll Express
Now here’s a tag team that really got fans excited. What’s not to like when you love both wrestling and rock music? They were (at the time) young, fresh and vibrant, and had some great matches with their heel counterpart, the Midnight Express. Too bad they never got to feud with the Midnight Rockers.
The Brainbusters
Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard were the Ric Flair’s hatchet men in the Horsemen, but in their own right were a fantastic tag team. This was evident when they moved to WWF as the Brainbusters. ive always been partial to heel teams, and the Horsemen were the greatest heel stable of all time. They weren’t the team you cheered for, but they really good.
The Hart Foundation
I’ve always been a Bret Hart mark, and I first watched him as jeered as ‘Greaseball’ and part of the pink and black team of the Hart Foundation, led by the megaphone-using Jimmy Hart. The Hart Foundation were the quintessential tag team in the 80’s, until Vince McMahon starting turning tag team members to solo wrestlers (see Shawn Michaels) and devaluing tag team wrestling.
The Road Warriors / Legion of Doom
with my tastes in wrestling, is it any surprise with this? The Road Warriors have everything going for them – an innovative look and image (at the time) and has been copied by other teams like The Blade Runners and The Powers of Pain. They were enduring, dominant in every promotion they were in, and knew how to wrestle (although most of their matches tend to be squash jobs).