Tag team wrestling is a staple of pro wrestling history. This style of match allows promotions to vary a card and open up genuinely different storytelling possibilities among tag team rivalries, including but not limited to teams coming together, breaking up, and reuniting. Moreover, tag teams can offer a keen place for young talents to cultivate experience or for aging talents to lend their credibility on screen and mentorship backstage to up-and-comers while their actual in-ring work tapers off.
A lot of signs suggest a renewed focus on tag teams across major promotions. This dynamic tends to ebb and flow but, at least in the short term, there’s a lot of reason for excitement for tag team wrestling fans.
Major Reunions Have Brought Buzz to Tag Team Wrestling
Image credit: AEW
There’s a lot to be said for the excitement of seeing a beloved tag team reunite, and pro wrestling has delivered on several such angles in recent months. In AEW, the biggest story is Adam Copeland (“Cope”) and Christian Cage finding themselves on the same page again. Longtime fans remember them as one of the very best tag teams in the stacked WWE Attitude Era, where in-ring ability, personality on the mic, and the kind of interpersonal chemistry that can only come with years of real-life friendship made this pair something special.
The team’s time together was deceptively short in WWE. The duo paired for less than three years full-time, as Edge in particular got major singles opportunities interspersed with their proper teaming. From there, Edge became a main eventer, while Christian had a respectable singles run of his own while also bouncing between tag teams and factions.
Extended periods followed with Edge in WWE, Christian going to TNA to get his own main event push, and later heading to AEW years ahead of his best friend. Thatâ€s not to mention both men suffering seemingly career-ending injuries that took each out of action for years. Though the two worked one-off tag matches together and enjoyed a reunion angle shortly before Copelandâ€s first retirement, it makes complete sense that fans are incredibly excited to see the pair teaming up again in 2025 as age dictates both men must be eyeing a more permanent retirement.
On a smaller scale, AEW also staged a Jurassic Express reunion at All Out. While Jack Perry and Luchasaurus donâ€t have the decades-long story of Cope and Cage, this does represent both men returning to their roots as a babyface tag team that fans still have a lot of nostalgia for after heel runs that drew mixed reactions (Perry a polarizing big-name heel, Luchasaurus a viable henchman for Cage, but he never really found another gear beyond big man mid-carder and tag team wrestler). This revisitation of the team invokes AEW nostalgia for a pairing that got over in the earliest days of AEW. Three years apart gave fans time to miss them, but also, the sudden reunion without any meaningful foreshadowing delivered a genuinely pleasing surprise for fans.
Meanwhile, on the WWE side of things, The Usos came back together over the summer with a renewed sense of credibility for Jeyâ€s main event push—including main eventing SummerSlam as a singles star, winning a Royal Rumble, and capturing a world title at WrestleMania—besides Jimmy remaining viable as a mid-card act and factor in main event storylines. The duo had about 13 years as a team for the WWE main roster audience, but after spending most of two years apart (and even feuding against each other), it feels refreshing to see them paired again—even if recent creative has complicated whether theyâ€ll keep teaming or what their face-heel alignment might be for the long haul.
The Tag Team Ranks Are a Great Place for Nostalgia
One clear sign of the success of AEW and WWE tag team reunion angles is that the tag division is a great place for nostalgia, as fans love seeing meaningful alliances revisited.
TNA has been in on the act too, booking The Hardys vs. Team 3D for Bound For Glory. Alongside Edge and Christian, these two teams represented the foundation of perhaps WWEâ€s most successful tag team feud of all time, and arguably the companyâ€s most successful period for tag team wrestling overall.
None of the four men involved in this TNA showdown are young anymore, so TNA is a good spot to highlight a match like this for its smaller stage and its hardcore fanbase that can definitely tap into the nostalgia of an attraction like this.
WWE had its own spin on this kind of matchup recently on its NXT Homecoming special, with DIY facing Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes. Each pair felt representative of a distinctive generation of NXT, each with roots as partners and main event level foes. The tag team format—including The Miz interfering—kept everyone reasonably well protected in the process.
Such is the essence of nostalgia for nostalgiaâ€s sake. The stakes are objectively low, but tag team matches can help cover for aging performers†limitations, keep any single performer from being over-exposed, and allow fans to lose themselves in the rush of a hot tag and reunited pairs “playing the hits.â€
Dream Matches Could Be in the Making
With the recent resurgence of tag teams, there are possibilities around dream match scenarios. Cope and Christian Cage have lots of business left to settle with FTR, but after that dream scenario wraps, a showdown with The Young Bucks is appealing as well—not to mention the complicated history Cage has with Jurassic Express that might invite that tag team feud.
On the WWE side, The Usos represent great foils for just about any pairing, including an array that might emerge from NXT and also acts like The Judgment Day. And though the rivalry may have been overdone in the 2010s, there is something fun about imagining running back a Usos vs. New Day feud in 2025.
A Little Fantasy Booking
Jimmy and Jey ‘The Usos’. Photo: WWE.com
Part of the fun of multiple major wrestling promotions operating at the same time is imagining dream scenarios pairing the best acts from one company against the best of another, in addition to speculation about what other tag teams might take shape.
Dream match scenarios start with stalwart talent whoâ€ve stuck with the same promotion and thus havenâ€t had the opportunity to work with one another. The conversation starts with The Usos and New Day on WWEâ€s side opposite The Young Bucks in AEW; the Bucks working either of these teams would pay off years of lowkey debate around tag team supremacy.
An FTR vs. Street Profits showdown also has to be in the conversation. These teams did work some house shows in NXT and a battle royal together at Survivor Series 2019, but itâ€s a case of FTR being a generation ahead of Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins, who are just starting to come into their own on the WWE main roster after FTR moved on to AEW.
A hard-hitting heavyweight clash pitting Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin against Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed also has a lot of appeal. This is even before considering reigning tag champs like Brodido, The Wyatt Sicks, and The Judgment Day, or other masters of the tag team form like The Motor City Machine Guns or the inevitable Lucha Bros reunion as Pentagon and Rey Fenix team together for the first time under the WWE banner.
Finally, while womenâ€s tag teams have in most cases not had as much time to gel or cultivate nostalgia, the pairing of Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair has the name recognition and experience to be entertaining opponents against just about any pairing. Moreover, AJ Lee and Nikki Bellaâ€s returns to WWE, alongside speculation about a comeback tour for Paige, have fans hungry for a WrestleMania 31 rematch of Lee and Paige versus The Bella Twins.
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