WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Brie Bella and Paige have targets on their backs or, more precisely, around their waists. Former champs The Judgment Day and Nia Jax and Lash Legend are gunning for them. Fatal Influence has put everyone on notice, and Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss are still in the mix.
More than ever, the women’s tag team division is stacked, and its championship feels important.
The same can’t be said for the men, who have two divisions in disarray.
SmackDown has become a ghost town
following the releases of The Wyatt Sicks and Motor City Machine Guns. R-Truth, one-half of the WWE tag champs with Damian Priest, is sidelined. Before that, they soundly defeated the last decent teams in the division, Fraxiom and MFT.
Things are a tad more promising on Raw, where world champs Logan Paul and Austin Theory have their hands full with the Street Profits. After that, though, the teams that could be contending for gold on Mondays are busy doing something else.
The Usos are serving their cousin, Roman Reigns. The Creeds are masquerading as luchadores. The War Raiders are off plundering Mexico. Alpha Academy is busy lighting up Main Event.
With SmackDown fading and teams wandering on Raw, the solution seems clear: unify the men’s tag team titles. For good this time.
From 2022 to 2024, the Raw and SmackDown tag titles were unified, and it was glorious. In 2023, the titles headlined the opening night of WrestleMania 39 and Night of Champions.
For much of that time, The Usos kept busy as champions. Under their successors, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, the titles weren’t as much of a priority for WWE. After they dropped the straps to Finn Bálor and Damian Priest, the titles were defended regularly on TV and at premium events until they were separated at WrestleMania XL and later rechristened.
Since then, the value of each title has hinged on either a hot act, a compelling storyline, or the number of teams chasing glory. That’s produced uneven moments for Raw or SmackDown, where one title thrives while the other sits on ice.
Last year, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, The New Day, seemed destined for a strong title reign on Raw after turning heel. Instead, they sat idle. Over on SmackDown, though, six teams were in hot pursuit of each other, culminating in a TLC match at SummerSlam for the WWE Tag Team Championship.
Meanwhile, having one set of tag titles has worked out nicely for the women. It’s given those outside the world and secondary title pictures, such as Charlotte Flair, something meaningful to do while helping rising stars like Lash Legend develop at a steady pace.
With one division on death’s door, and another full of wandering bodies, WWE would be better off following the women’s model and consolidating the men’s division into one set of tag titles.
