Suplex Retweet Best of 2016 Awards – Best Tag Team – WWE/NXT
Its been a mixed bag in McMahon land in terms of tag team wrestling this year. Whilst the division in NXT has produced a string of high quality matchups, the main roster scene has struggled, with the record run of the ever popular New Day the only real thing to note. We run down the nominees for best WWE/NXT tag team of the year.
New Day
483 days is a long time in the wrestling world, especially in a division which has seen only five 200+ day reigns in the last decade, which shows how big an achievement The New Day’s title reign was. Some of the trio’s biggest moments of the year included battling in Wyatt territory and battling with The Club. It is difficult to see how WWE will be able to create an equally popular group again any time soon.
Enzo and Cass
Speaking of popularity, its difficult to find a duo how are more over before a match than they are in it. That’s what you get with the realest guys in the room. 2016 threatened to be a bad year for the duo though not long after their main roster call up, as Enzo suffered a horrible looking in ring accident at Payback in April. Since their return though, their popularity has only increased, rubbing shoulders with the likes of John Cena, AJ Styles and Kevin Owens, with Cass even featuring in a Universal title match up. Tag title reigns beckons for the duo in 2017.
American Alpha
WWE hit across a real gem when they decided to pair Chad Gable and Jason Jordan together, creating the most athletic team the company has had since Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. American Alpha’s year peaked very early on when, at the first time of asking, they defeated The Revival at NXT Takeover: Dallas to win the NXT Tag Team Titles. Whilst it could be argued that life on the main roster hasn’t exactly taken off for them so far, many are expecting the team to be involved in something big this coming Wrestlemania.
The Revival
The words ‘2 time champion’ has never been a thing in NXT until Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson came along. The Revival are a hard hitting, brawling style in the mould of Anderson and Blanchard, who were one fall away from both entering and leaving 2016 as NXT tag champions. Whilst many wrestlers would be lucky to have one match of the year candidate in their career, Revival have had three this year alone, producing classics against #DIY and American Alpha.
#DIY
Johnny Wrestling and the Psycho Killer have shown this year that they should have been in WWE years ago. Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, better known as #DIY (Do It Yourself) have been so competitive this year, that they managed to have a world class match AGAINST EACH OTHER in the Crusierweight classic. Two top class athletes with a superb chemistry as real life best friends, produced the moment of their career, in the match of their life, defeating The Revival for the NXT tag titles in Toronto.
Voting in the Suplex Retweet Best of 2016 awards opens next week.
The founding father and ‘higher power’ of the ESSR army, Steven oversees the operation of the Suplex Retweet podcast series and is the show’s primary host. With a broad knowledge of the industry, Steven leads discussions on a wide range of subjects from stables to WCW.
Email: steven@eatsleepsuplexretweet.com
For some reason, he thinks John Cena’s real name is Allen Jones and is madly in love with Becky Lynch.
