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| Air Boom would be hella cool in a tag league scenario Photo Credit: WWE.com |
The tag ranks are exactly where Bourne belongs, at least right now, and they're certainly where Kingston belongs for as long as he believes that he does babyface offense correctly as situated. For years, that same swirling whirlwind of rumors has given fans hungry for a return to tag scenes like the Smackdown Six, the TLC triad, or the late '80s/early '90s WWF lineup a tantalizing tease for a buffet. WWE has both delivered better on those promises and still left those of us desiring a healthy tag team left wanting more.
They certainly have the roster to pull a tag scene off, but do they have the direction? I feel like some weeks, they really get it, but they struggle to put together any kind of continuity past the titles. One could argue that they have a similar problem with the midcard in general, which doesn't excuse WWE Creative for the lack of direction in any event. I know the argument against changing the way WWE does their show now rests squarely on Spike TV and TNA's breakneck, no attention span way of laying out Impact. However, WWE has six hours of first-run television, seven if you count Superstars, each week. They can stand to develop the midcard a little bit more than they do.
A simple way of fleshing out said midcard while building a tag scene would be to utilize the round robin tournament. I dig the concept in general, and promotions like Chikara with the 12 Large Summit and New Japan Pro Wrestling with their annual G-1 Climax tournament make or have made it work with singles wrestlers. However, I feel like the concept works a lot better with tag teams. The tournament set up includes a lot more wrestlers compacted into the same amount of time, adds the extra urgency of classic tag team tropes such as making saves into a meaningful scenario, and enhances storyline potential.
A "tag league" taking place over the autumn would help prevent some of the post-SummerSlam doldrums that the company seems to fall into some years. My idea would be to place eight teams in a round robin tournament, four teams in each division. The winners of each division would face off for the tournament Championship, which would net the winner a shot at the Tag Team Championships at Survivor Series. As an added bonus, the teams that don't make hay in the finals would then provide some heat to a theoretical "Tag League Revenge" traditional Survivor Series elimination match.
Getting eight teams outside of the Tag Champions wouldn't be difficult at all, either. Assuming the Shield continues to hold the Tag Team Titles through the tournament's end, Group A could contain the following: The Prime Time Players, Air Boom (Bourne/Kingston), 3MB (Drew McIntyre/Jinder Mahal), and the team of Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd. Group B could then have these teams: the Usos, Erick Rowan and Luke Harper, Primo and Epico, and, for old time's sake, Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder. All sixteen wrestlers at least work well in tag matches, and I would bet that of the thirteen matches in said tournament, at least seven of them would be worthy of honorable mention on a Match of the Year list. The heat is built-in because tournaments generate their own interest.
The above scenario might be fantasy booking to the extreme since a round-robin tourney seems a bit too "sport" for WWE's overall vibe. However, I think the idea of a Tag League should at feel like a better way to send out random matches on shows than just doing the same match week in, week out for "reasons." WWE has shown a willingness to have a lot of wrestling on its free TV shows. The time has never been better for something like this to come along and not only chew up that wrestling time meaningfully, but reestablish a tag division in earnest along the way.