What Wrestling Needs Now is the Rock N’ Roll Express!
Growing up in the eighties there were two things I loved: Heavy Metal music and wrestling. Of course I listened to Metallica, Guns N’ Roses (of which I was one of the rare people to actually own their debut tape Live Like A Suicide), Motley Crüe, Def Lepperd, Anthrax, L.A. Guns, Tesla, and Skid Row. If you listened to Metal, you knew all these names and probably covered your walls with the pin-ups from Circus and Hit Parader. It was what we did. But not only did I listen to those premier, headlining bands, but I also listened to some bands you may not have heard of like Every Mother’s Nightmare, Vain, Law and Order, Lillian Axe and Salty Dog. All of which had great albums that went unnoticed. They were great bands in a time when there were too many great bands. When the 90’s began, people got tired of Metal as it had become stagnant and needed a change. Nirvana arrived on a wave of Seattle Grunge rock that drowned all that stood in its way. It was an end of an era. Metal was annihilated and assimilated. Metal became Grunge and years later Grunge became Rap-Rock. Now, there is a new revival in rock but whether it reaches the heights it attained in the 80’s is yet to be seen. But during all the upheaval in society, wrestling still was on T.V. Just like rock music, wrestling went through changes too. The baby face became on equal terms with the heel in terms of popularity. Hell, at times the Heel was the most cheered in the squared circle. Stone Cold was cheered for cheating while Bret Hart was booed for playing by the rules. As the wrestling fans tastes soured the art of wrestling changed as well. The once popular tag team was first on the hit list. The art of tag team wrestling became blurred, then it faded away. Don’t believe me?
In the WWE over the last couple of years the tag team titles have become as important as the European Championship. And most Europeans didn’t care about the phoniest championship ever created. The Hardy Boyz, the A.P.A, Edge & Christian, the Dudleys, and the New Age Outlaws were replaced by no one. The tag team titles became the titles to appease superstars not participating in the main event. Kane and The Hurricane, Kane and The Big Show, Edge & Hulk Hogan, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio and Batista, Batista and Ric Flair…it seemed that the WWE felt that if you put two superstars together you would have a bona fide tag team. This certainly wasn’t true. The tag team titles had no value anymore. Nobody was watching the matches for the titles; they were watching the individuals and seeing how the tag team match affected their individual storylines.
It got worse and it stayed worse. The WWE tag team titles have fallen into the hands of the developing talent. La Resistance, Murdoch and Cade, the Spirit Squad, Kendrick and London, even Animal and Heindreich. The only truly developed tag team was MNM and they are done. The competition for the titles was even weaker; The Heartthrobs, The Highlanders, Venis and Viscera! Two of these tag teams are gimmicks that came and went in the 80’s! The tag team title match became the bathroom break time. This went for both Raw and SmackDown! The ECW doesn’t even have a tag team title, the whole show is one bathroom break!
I remember when the tag team title match would outshine and out-interest the singles event. Remember the Rock N’ Roll Express, The Road Warriors, The Fabulous Ones, The Midnight Express, The Fabulous Freebirds, The Hart Foundation, The British Bulldogs, The Bushwhackers, The Rockers, The Samoans, the Can-Am Connection/ Strike Force, and many more than I could even begin to mention. The 80’s and 90’s were the peak of the tag team movement. The only time you really saw high flying, innovative moves outside of a Jimmy Snuka match was in the tag team arena. There was something artistic about watching two warriors go back and worth working together to destroy an opponent. Remember the excitement when Ricky Morton dove to tag Robert Gibson after he had been beaten and bloodied by the Russians or members of the Four Horsemen. The crowd would jump to their feet and the sound was deafening! I would watch in awe as the Road Warriors would dismantle their opponents in minutes. It was always amazing to me to watch Hawk fly off the top rope and lariat his victim off Animal’s shoulders. These were big men. These were accomplished and highly decorated wrestlers. These weren’t dark matches. This was the real deal. And in the WWE, it’s as extinct as their originality.
A few years ago, Rolling Stone magazine stated what rock needed now was Guns N’ Roses. I strongly agree. What wrestling needs now is the Rock N’ Roll Express! It needs to see what tag team wrestling was about. It isn’t two superstars holding the titles; its two stars forming one superstar team.
Finally tag-teams are coming back strong and it’s in the TNA. The LAX, Styles and Daniels, The James Gang, The Naturals, America’s Most Wanted, The Dudley Boyz, Diamonds in the Rough, Sabin and Dutt, Kazarian and Bentley, and for awhile the now defunct Team Canada. Any of the mentioned tag teams could go over to the WWE and take the titles with no difficulties. These are my Heavy Metal bands that didn’t make the main stage. For every Motley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and Poison there was an Every Mother’s Nightmare, Law and Order, Vain, and Salty Dog waiting to be heard. Rock is on a comeback and so is the art of the tag team. You’ve just got to know where to look!
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