Jump to content
TSM Forums
Sign in to follow this  
Guest Overworked

Best underrated tag teams of the 80's/90's

Recommended Posts

Guest Overworked

When we think of tag team greatness, images pop up of the usual suspects. Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs, Roadwarriors, Demolition, Brainbusters, etc etc

 

Now they were good for various reasons, obviously technical ability (referring to Hart Foundation and Bulldogs primarly) Too various character and look persona, Roadwarriors, Demolition. And of course holding the tag team championships.

 

But what about those tag teams that either did or didn't hold the belts but were still overlooked?

 

What tag teams can you remember that were good, but still wasn't able to win the belts or hold the top spots?

 

For me, Killer bees, Islanders, Young Stallions, Strike Force (one time tag champs), High Energy, New Foundation, orient Express and others.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I always thought Harlem Heat was pretty underrated. They had good chemistry, got a fair amount of heat, and could work standard matches or those clusterfuck tag team garbage brawls WCW liked to run in the mid 90's. Unfortunately, their peak as a team hit when the Outsiders came to WCW and proceeded to dominate the tag division.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Coffey

I liked Power & Glory a lot. Hercules was at the twilight of his career and Roma was, well, Roma. Still, I really liked the Powerplex and they were always entertaining.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Body Donnas, are always ignored. It's not their fault they had no one other then New Rockers, Smoking Gunns and Godwins to work with. They were tremendous at heeling and Sunny was just superb in her prime.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was a fan of the Lightning Express in UWF...Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner. Great to watch in the ring.

 

AWA's Badd Company...Pat T-t-t-t-t-tanaka! Paul D-d-d-d-iamond! Managed by Diamond Dallas Page.

 

The original Los Guerreros...Chavo and Hector.

 

The Dirty White Boys...Len Denton and Tony Anthony.

 

The Rock n Roll RPMs...Mike Davis and Tommy Lane

 

The Fabulous Ones...Stan Lane and Steve "pre-Skinner" Keirn

 

The Varsity Club...Mike Rotundo and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams...they could have done more with them.

 

Ditto when Steve Williams teamed with Terry Gordy...it was gold in Japan and Bill Watts fucked it up in WCW.

 

And of course...the Sheepherders. This was pre-Bushwhackers because they sucked ass when Vince got their mitts on them.

 

 

I could go on and on...those were the days. :D

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I always thought the Too Much tandem was tremendous. They were a great pesky heel team from the Attitude Era that unfortunately switched gimmicks from obnoxious fruitcakes to whiggers. IMHO, they did the ambiguously gay duo act far better than Billy and Chuck.

 

And as my avatar would indicate, I was always a Young Stallions mark. Not many teams did the 360 from jobbers to lower-midcard right back to jobbers in a year.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Ditto when Steve Williams teamed with Terry Gordy...it was gold in Japan and Bill Watts fucked it up in WCW.

 

How did he "fuck it up?" They held the NWA and WCW World Tag Team Titles at the same time. Seemed like they were pretty successful to me.

 

Just thought of another team...I liked Marcus Bagwell and the Patriot as "Stars and Stripes" in WCW, for some reason. I guess I was a huge mark for Patriot in GWF.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest hasbeen
I was a fan of the Lightning Express in UWF...Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner. Great to watch in the ring.

 

AWA's Badd Company...Pat T-t-t-t-t-tanaka! Paul D-d-d-d-iamond! Managed by Diamond Dallas Page.

 

The original Los Guerreros...Chavo and Hector.

 

The Dirty White Boys...Len Denton and Tony Anthony.

 

The Rock n Roll RPMs...Mike Davis and Tommy Lane

 

The Fabulous Ones...Stan Lane and Steve "pre-Skinner" Keirn

 

The Varsity Club...Mike Rotundo and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams...they could have done more with them.

 

Ditto when Steve Williams teamed with Terry Gordy...it was gold in Japan and Bill Watts fucked it up in WCW.

 

And of course...the Sheepherders. This was pre-Bushwhackers because they sucked ass when Vince got their mitts on them.

 

 

I could go on and on...those were the days. :D

 

 

Gino Hernandez and Chris Adams. As for the Sheepherders, never understood why they weren't turned back heel after their bushwacker gimmick got stale (which was about 2 minutes for me after seeing them tear up the old territories for years).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was always a mark for 'Vicious and Delicious'. Norton's always been a big guilty pleasure for me, and Buff could work back then. They weren't great, but they always seemed really enthusiastic.

 

Their entrance, with Norton screaming incomprehensible nonsense while Buff would jump on his back (Norton not even flinching), grinning like a giant doof always cracked my shit up.

 

I also liked High Voltage precisely because they were fucking awful. I don't think I ever saw them win a match, their entrance music was incredibly terrible. 'BZZZT! BZZZT! Danger! Danger! High Voltage!' Kenny Kaos and Robby Rage. That is so awesome. I guess it beats 'generic roided guys # 1 and 2.' They were just awful. And for some reason, I loved them for it.

 

What was the name of the Jericho/Storm tag team? They had a really great match with the Heavenly Bodies, where Jericho worked the entire match with a legit broken arm, and cut a Muta-esque gusher.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What was the name of the Jericho/Storm tag team?

 

The Thrill Seekers if I'm not mistaken.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I liked Power & Glory a lot. Hercules was at the twilight of his career and Roma was, well, Roma. Still, I really liked the Powerplex and they were always entertaining.

 

I totally agree with that one. SummerSlam 1990 was my first PPV and I was a huge Rockers fan going in. I was sold on them by the end of their match. They just beat the shit out of Marty Jannetty for 10 minutes. And the Powerplex was very cool.

 

I heard somewhere that they were in line for a tag title reign, but something happened and they never got a run with the belts.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think they not be neccessarily underrated but I thought The Orient Express got a fair shake. They were a talented team but they rarely ever won a match against a name team not named The Rockers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I think they not be neccessarily underrated but I thought The Orient Express got a fair shake. They were a talented team but they rarely ever won a match against a name team not named The Rockers.

 

They did get the duke over Hercules and Jim McPhearson . . . of course that's only 1/2 a name. But it actually ended up planting the seeds for the birth of Power and Glory.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I also liked High Voltage precisely because they were fucking awful. I don't think I ever saw them win a match, their entrance music was incredibly terrible. 'BZZZT! BZZZT! Danger! Danger! High Voltage!' Kenny Kaos and Robby Rage. That is so awesome. I guess it beats 'generic roided guys # 1 and 2.' They were just awful. And for some reason, I loved them for it.

 

I think they beat Public Enemy once. They're still my favorite jobber tag team ever.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Remember when Kenny Kaos was WCW Tag Team Champions for only a week or so with Rick Steiner? Then Steiner became Tag Team Champions with Judy Bagwell? Poor Kenny Kaos. He got the shaft for freaking JUDY BAGWELL!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

put me down for the Islanders as well...you always got the feeling that even the best team in the WWF was going to have a struggle facing these two guys...they were almost invincible in the Survivor Series 87 tag match. I'm surprised they never got a title run. Solid tag team.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As a Worldwide watching mark, I enjoyed watching the dynamic duo of Jim Powers and "Hardwork" Bobby Walker job to the lower mid card tag teams of WCW. It was a rather short lived team but I'll always remember it! Er...maybe not.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think they not be neccessarily underrated but I thought The Orient Express got a fair shake. They were a talented team but they rarely ever won a match against a name team not named The Rockers.

 

They did get the duke over Hercules and Jim McPhearson . . . of course that's only 1/2 a name. But it actually ended up planting the seeds for the birth of Power and Glory.

I like the Kato(Paul Diamond)/Tanaka version bettre probably cuz they debuted right around the time I started watching the WWF

 

as for my best underrated team: 2 Cold Scorpio and Bagwell were a pretty good team I think

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Ditto when Steve Williams teamed with Terry Gordy...it was gold in Japan and Bill Watts fucked it up in WCW.

 

How did he "fuck it up?" They held the NWA and WCW World Tag Team Titles at the same time. Seemed like they were pretty successful to me.

 

Just thought of another team...I liked Marcus Bagwell and the Patriot as "Stars and Stripes" in WCW, for some reason. I guess I was a huge mark for Patriot in GWF.

yea GWF ruled in the day! speaking of which the Coast To Coast Connection team of Jack Tatum and Rod Price was a vefry good team IIRC They had killer music as well, I remember going crazy marking out when they turned face.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was such a huge Bulldogs mark back in the day, I used to jump out of my seat for the snap suplex, running lariat, diving headbutt and Davey's running powerslam.

 

The Islanders, as I said in another thread, were very underrated. Meng was in his prime and could tear it up. My only problem with the Tonga Kid was that too much was made of him being Snuka's cousin or nephew. He wasn't that great a wrestler, though.

 

Vicious and Delicious was hysterical. Norton was a guilty pleasure for me, too.

 

and anytime I even think about High Voltage, I think of that total squash job by Meng and the Barbarian. The fans absolutely LOVED that match.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gotta go with the Rougeaus here. Great tag team, nice range of double team moves and really fun as heels. They were among the first heel wrestlers I ever liked as a kid, helped mainly by the "All American Boys" ring music. To this day, I still love their draw with the Bulldogs to kick off Summerslam 88

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×