Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
It is all too common to see tag teams split apart in storylines for one reason or another. Sometimes, it is too elevate an individual in the team like we saw with Shawn Michaels with the Rockers. Other times, a promoter doesn’t have much choice due to a member of a team being injured or battling personal demons, as was the case of The Road Warriors/LOD. Then there are those times where established tag teams break up and we are left scratching our heads and wondering why? Here are my top five for this subject.
The IIconics
Say whatever you like about the IIconics of Billie Kay and Peyton Royce in WWE, but they were extremely entertaining as a duo. Rumors were that McMahon saw big things for Peyton Royce as a singles competitor, but that never really worked out at all. The two best friends were made to be a tag team and recaptured some of that success back after their release from WWE and reformed as The IInspiration for Impact Wrestling.
American Alpha
This team had it all in the ring. After a tremendous run in NXT, they were brought up to the main roster and won the tag team titles almost instantaneously. American Alpha should have had a long run in WWE as a dominant team, but were inexplicably broken up and both Jason Jordan and Chad Gable never quite achieved the success individually as they did as a tag team.
The Prime Time Players
The Prime Time Players of Darren Young and Titus O’Neil got themselves over with fans with their “Millions of Dollars” dance and overall personalities. They gelled well as a unit and won tag team gold. At the height of their popularity, they were broken up and individually neither Young or O’Neil had the success expected of them.
The Rock N Roll Express
The Rock N Roll Express are arguably one of the greatest tag teams of all time. Believe it or not, WCW split up the team for a brief period of time with Ricky Morton turning heel and attacking his long time partner Robert Gibson. Morton would join the York Foundation and rename himself Richard Morton. This was one of those teams that should have never been split apart for any reason.
The Powers of Pain
Sure, some considered the Powers of Pain to be cheap knock offs of the Road Warriors. In the WWF, they really could have amounted into something bigger than what they were. Vince McMahon had them, Demolition and the Road Warriors at the same time and felt there were too many face painted tag teams in his company, so the Warlord and the Barbarian were the two odd men out and were split up and given new gimmicks as singles wrestlers. The experiment wasn’t too successful.