I’ve been a fan of AEW since early 2022, so I missed out on when AEW’s tag team division was at its absolute peak with teams such as The Young Bucks, The Lucha Bros, FTR, “Hangman” Adam Page & Kenny Omega, Best Friends, Proud ‘n’ Powerful, and others. Fast forwarding to today and some things have remained the same, but the tag division is one of AEW’s weakest points after 5 years as a company.
Teams such as The Young Bucks and FTR are still on top of the tag team division, with The Acclaimed emerging as one of the most popular tag teams AEW has to offer in the past couple of years, but there’s a huge drop off in terms of presentation and story for the rest of the tag team division. There are other teams like Best Friends and Proud ‘n’ Powerful that no longer exist, but there are also plenty of teams across AEW and its sister promotion, Ring of Honor (ROH), that should make up for those losses.
More criticism from fans towards the tag team division has come because of the recent promo from FTR on the July 20, 2024 episode of Collision. FTR challenged The Young Bucks to another match at All In following their match last year at the same event, while seemingly challenging The Acclaimed for their current status as the #1 contenders for The Young Bucks’ World Tag Team Championships. The third match between FTR and The Young Bucks happening last year felt big and the game delivered as well, but there’s rightful concern to be had that on AEW’s biggest show and stage, the same match has the potential to happen for a second year.
The Young Bucks and The Acclaimer’s feud has been brewing for a few months now and especially after Team AEW’s win at Blood and Guts, one would think this would be the match at Wembley in August. However, it’s also clear that the direction with FTR is propelling them to challenge for that spot. Maybe we’ll end up seeing a triple threat match at All In instead of involving all three teams, but there’s still a big question everyone has on their minds if that happens. Who’s next?
As I said previously, there’s a clear lack of stories and presentations given to the rest of the tag team division. Many fans have blamed this on the introduction of the Trios Championships and tag teams taking up the trios division instead of competing regularly in the tag team division. Teams such as The Lucha Bros, The Gunns, and Top Flight have especially dealt with this fate of focusing more on trios action rather than tag team action. I love the trio’s division and the abundance of trios, groups, and factions within AEW, especially with how they’re presented on Saturday Night Collision. The 6-man tag main event matches are a staple of Collision’s identity and have helped solidify the World Trios Championship in AEW, but I would also agree with many fans about this being a part of the reason the tag team division has been so downplayed.
Over the past year, we saw the tag titles change hands from The Gunns to FTR to Big Bill & Ricky Starks and finally to Darby Allin & Sting before they were vacated and won by The Young Bucks for the third time. I remember during this time last year when people, myself included, didn’t feel like FTR was doing much with the titles, and then it felt quite random that they dropped the titles to Big Bill & Ricky Starks, but I enjoyed them as a team. They had great chemistry, but unfortunately, they and the tag titles weren’t featured as much as they should’ve been, and again, the tag titles weren’t presented as important as they should’ve been.
Darby Allin & Sting only had them for a month, but it was an incredible moment when they won and it’s great for a legend like Sting to be the lineage of any of AEW’s championships no matter how short the reign was. But still, the latter half of 2023 was a really weird time for the tag titles and we’re witnessing the same for this year. The Young Bucks have not defended their tag titles at all since winning them at Dynasty on April 21. It’s now several months later and the tag division has stagnated more than ever which is quite sad when you see just how many great teams are in AEW and ROH that could use a push.
Private Party, The Gunns, The Lucha Bros, Top Flight, The Kingdom, The Righteous, The Infantry, The Gates of Agony, MxM Collection, Dark Order, The Butcher and The Blade, Iron Savages, The Von Erichs, Aussie Open (when Mark Davis is back from injury) are a lot of the teams in AEW that are below the platform that is occupied by the three main teams: FTR, The Young Bucks, and The Acclaimed. I know some AEW fans were upset about the report about the Motor City Machine Guns likely heading to WWE, but one team, as amazing as they are, isn’t going to solve this whole dilemma. Plus, there are plenty of other talented tag teams that AEW could sign if they wanted to such as the Billington Bulldogs after Tommy Billington’s great showcases on Collision, and the Grizzled Young Vets who absolutely should’ve been signed after their Collision match against The Acclaimed.
The point is, all of these teams mentioned above have what it takes to be right there with the clear top three tag teams presented in AEW, but that’s something Tony Khan and the booking team need to get started on now because as great as the matches would be, fans want to see fresh teams competing at the top of the tag team division and none of them are being elevated in that way at the moment.
Now, I wanted to go back to the topic of the trio’s division. As I said, I do agree with the fact that the trios division did take quite a bit of the wind out of AEW’s tag team division, but it also puzzles me because there are so many great trios and groups within AEW that I don’t think any tag teams are needed for it. In my opinion, the best trios in AEW are the ones that don’t contain any obvious tag team within them. When it’s just a bunch of dudes who are together and that’s it, that’s what makes the best trios in my opinion and they don’t take away from the tag division. I immediately think of the new and current champions, The Patriarchy, where there isn’t an obvious tag team in that group unless you want to count Nick and Mother Wayne. There are many more groups like this such as the Blackpool Combat Club or House of Black.
Every combination of two guys from those groups has teamed together at some point, which is what leads back to my point of there being enough great trios in AEW that the trios division doesn’t need to take away from the tag division. The Learning Tree, the Don Callis Family, the Premier Athletes, the Conglomeration, Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal, & Satnam Singh’s group, and Shane Taylor Promotions are even more examples to show how deep the trio’s division is and I think that sometimes gets forgotten about a lot because so many tag teams are utilized in 2-on-2 scenarios.
I felt like writing all of this to say that I love AEW and would consider myself a diehard fan, so I feel strongly about things like the state of the tag and trios divisions. There are some serious but rightful concerns from fans over the presentation and strength of both divisions. What’s the answer to solving these issues? Well, I already spelled out just how deep both divisions already are with the potential of more teams incoming, so an issue of depth I think is silly.
The issue lies entirely in the competitiveness of these teams and their directions and all of that circles back to Tony Khan and the booking team. Ultimately, Khan has the final say on anything, but there need to be ideas brought to the top to ensure that AEW’s tag team division isn’t constantly stagnant until it’s time to heat one of FTR, The Young Bucks, or The Acclaimed again for another title. There are plenty of great teams waiting for some direction and hopefully, after All In is when things completely turn around and the tag team division will return to the great form it used to be in a few years ago.
