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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 11:55:32 GMT -5
45. Doom Butch Reed had signed with Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988 after leaving the World Wrestling Federation and feuded shortly with the Junkyard Dog. Simmons had been with JCP for a while teaming with Eddie Gilbert but had not achieved much notoriety. When Rick and Scott Steiner started to team in 1989 a female fan (Robin Green) started following them around, professing her love for the cute & dorky Rick Steiner. Steiner's brother Scott and their manager Missy Hyatt began to have suspicions after the woman suddenly changed to a new vampy look. When the woman tripped Scott in the ring, causing him and Rick to lose to champions The Freebirds, it briefly caused dissension among the brothers. In the end, she turned on the Steiners, adopting the name Woman and vowed that the brothers would meet their "doom" at Halloween Havoc 1989 but never made it clear who or what “Doom” was. At the night of the PPV Woman unveiled the Steiner Brothers' Doom – a couple of brawny, hard hitting masked wrestlers. Doom won their debut match against the Steiners when one of the members of Doom pinned Rick Steiner after a headbutt with an illegal object in his mask. Doom followed up on this success by defeating Eddie Gilbert and Tommy Rich at Clash of the Champions IX, looking very strong in the process. At Clash, Woman's new bodyguard Nitron debuted accompanying Doom to the ring. Unfortunately Doom’s next PPV outing did not come with the same success. Along with the Steiner Brothers, the Road Warriors, and the Samoan Swat Team they were entered in a one night, tag-team round robin tournament but did not score a single point ending dead last in the tournament. Doom’s misfortune continued as Woman soon dropped the team to manage the The Four Horsemen. Then on February 6, 1990 Doom hit rock bottom when they were defeated by Rick & Scott Steiner and as a result of the stipulation were forced to unmask. When Doom unmasked no one was really surprised to see Ron Simmons and Butch Reed underneath the black hoods, they had both been on WCW television shortly before Doom debuted and they were the only two African-American wrestlers in the federation that had the same massive physical appearance. Freed of the masks and now under management of former referee "The Godfather" Teddy Long, Doom began to prosper. Being free to use their full move sets and not trying to hide who they were, Doom earned another shot at the Steiner Brothers. At Capital Combat Doom shocked the world when they beat the Steiner Brothers, a team that at that point in time did not lose very often. Doom won the tag-team titles and quickly set about defending them against the former champions the Steiners as well the rest of WCW’s very talented tag-team division. Doom defeated The Rock 'n' Roll Express at the Great American Bash 1990 and also mauled such teams as Flyin’ Brian & The Z-Man and The Southern Boys. In the fall of 1990 Doom soon got their hands full with The 4 Horsemen after a backstage altercation that saw the arrogant Horsemen insult Doom by not wanting to share a dressing room with them (this of course was a storyline). Doom then turned face and began a feud with The Four Horsemen At Halloween Havoc 1990 "The Soul Brothers" Doom held on to their tag-team titles against Ric Flair and Arn Anderson despite both teams being counted out. A no rules rematch was signed for Starrcade 1990 but on the night Ric Flair was replaced by Barry Windham since Flair was slated to wrestle as The Black Scorpion in the main event. Once again the result was a “No Contest”, this time due to a double pin (Windham pinned Simmons and Reed pinned Anderson at the same time) but despite the non-definitive finish the Doom / Horseman feud ended shortly afterwards. At Clash of the Champions XIV Doom lost a non-title match to Sting and Lex Luger in a match that foreshadowed the trouble that lay ahead for Doom. On February 24, 1991 at WCW’s 1991 WrestleWar PPV Doom took on former tag-team champions The Fabulous Freebirds and lost due to miscommunication between Reed and Simmons. After the Freebirds left the ring Reed turned on Simmons and beat him up, turning Simmons face and supposedly ended the team of Doom forever. A month later, however, Reed and Simmons teamed up one more time at Starrcade '91 at Tokyo Dome, losing to the team of Bam Bam Bigelow and Big Van Vader. After the match, Reed and Simmons got into it, causing NJPW and WCW stars to separate them, indicating Doom was no more. Teddy Long sided with Butch Reed as the former Doom partners engaged in a short but intense feud. The feud culminated at SuperBrawl I where Ron Simmons pinned Butch Reed in a Steel cage match (referred to as a "Thunder-Doom" cage match). After the PPV Reed left the company allowing Ron Simmons to focus on other opponents while Teddy Long started to manage other talent in WCW. Long would appear in Simmons' corner occasionally after Ron became WCW World Heavyweight Champion in August 1992. Doom was brieflly reunited on WWE's SmackDown on a few occasion that involved Teddy Long's wedding. Both Reed and Simmons appeared at Long's bachelor party and both were ushers in the wedding. At both occasions, Doom was mentioned.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 12:01:59 GMT -5
44. America's Most Wanted Before the tag team was formed, James Storm and Chris Harris were occasional rivals on the independent circuit. They wrestled each other in the TNA tryout show, and did so well that that show alone got them jobs at TNA. In the DVD The History of TNA: Year 1, Chris Harris remembers being backstage after the match, and TNA founder Jeff Jarrett winked at him and told him he would be in touch. They were brought together at NWA:TNA PPV on June 26, 2002, when another tag team called The Dupps refused to fight the Rainbow Express (Lenny and Bruce). Storm and Harris won the match, and joined forces from then on. On September 18, NWA:TNA PPV, AMW participated in a 20-man Gauntlet for the Gold match for the vacant NWA World Tag Team Championship. AMW and Disciples of The New Church (Brian Lee and Slash) were the finalists of this Gauntlet and then a tag team match began for the vacant titles. AMW went on to win the match and their first NWA World Tag Team Championship. They began feuding with Lee and Slash and had a dominant reign as they defended the titles against almost all the teams of TNA. On the November 13 PPV, they dropped the titles to Lee and Slash. They regained the titles, however, on the January 8, 2003 PPV, by defeating Disciples of The New Church. Two weeks later, they lost the titles to Triple X (Low Ki and Elix Skipper). On March 26, the problems started between AMW because Harris was doing a singles match. On April 9, it was rumored that Harris might join Sports Entertainment Xtreme (S.E.X.) because Harris was found in the S.E.X. locker room. The tensions continued as Storm walked out on Harris on April 23 during a match against Elix Skipper and Christopher Daniels. The duo faced each other in a singles match on May 7 which Storm won. After the match, Storm teased the breakup and then shook hands with Harris. Harris teamed up with Chris Sabin in the number one contenders' Anarchy Alliance tag team tournament with the winners getting a title shot at the NWA World Tag Team Championship. Harris and Sabin qualified in the first round, but in the second round, Harris' partner James Storm replaced Sabin and the duo won the second round match. After the match, Harris refused to join S.E.X. and reaffirmed his partnership with Storm. On June 11, AMW won the Anarchy Alliance tournament by defeating David Young and Tracy Brookshaw in the finals and getting themselves a title shot at the NWA World Tag Team Championship. On June 25, they finally defeated Triple X in a great steel cage match to win their third NWA World Tag Team Championship. This was a historic match in the history of TNA's tag team division and AMW would become popular. They began feuding with the team of Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger against whom they had two title defenses in a row. On the August 20 PPV, they lost a non-title match Bullrope match to Diamond and Swinger which earned the duo a tag title match. The next week, AMW dropped the titles to Diamond and Swinger. In early 2004, they feuded with Red Shirt Security (Kevin Northcutt and Legend) after AMW defeated New York Connection (Glen Gilberti and David Young). On the January 21 PPV, they lost to Red Shirt Security in a number one contender's tag team match. On June 4 edition of Impact!, AMW defeated Kid Kash and Dallas to win their fourth NWA World Tag Team Championship.[1][4][22] They defended the titles against many teams during their fourth reign before losing the titles to The Naturals (Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas) on July 7 PPV in 12 seconds. Two weeks later, they faced Naturals in a Six Sides of Steel match for the titles but lost the match. They began feuding with Naturals while they also feuded with Triple X. On September 1, Naturals defeated Triple X and AMW in a triple threat tag team match to retain the tag titles. The next week, Storm wasn't cleared to wrestle while Christopher Daniels was injured, so AMW's Harris teamed up with Triple X's Elix Skipper to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship from Naturals. On September 24 edition of Impact!, Storm teamed up with Daniels to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship. They ended up losing the titles to Team Canada (Bobby Roode and Eric Young) on October 15 edition of Impact!. AMW entered a feud with Triple X. They defeated them in an Elimination Last Man Standing match at Victory Road 2004. After that, they agreed to a Six Sides of Steel match at Turning Point 2004 where the losing team would separate. AMW won the grueling match, ending Triple X and winning the feud once and for all. At Final Resolution 2005, they defeated Team Canada to win their fifth NWA World Tag Team Championship. They lost the titles to The Naturals on April 29, 2005 edition of Impact!. At Hard Justice 2005, they lost to the Naturals in a rematch for the titles. At Unbreakable, AMW took part in a fatal four way tag team elimination match challenging The Naturals for the tag team titles, which also involved Team Canada and the team of Johnny Candido and Alex Shelley.[1][34] On September 15, 2005, AMW turned into a villain by siding with Jeff Jarrett and Team Canada, helping Jarrett win back the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Raven in Canada. The team then served as enforcers and backup for Jeff Jarrett and Gail Kim. They had also sparked up a rivalry with Team 3D (Brother Ray and Brother Devon), assaulting them and leaving them bloody in the ring when they debuted and staging a mock funeral for their careers afterwards. At Genesis 2005, Jarrett and AMW lost to Team 3D and Rhino. At Turning Point 2005, they lost to Team 3D in a Tables match. After Team 3D defeated AMW in non-title matches, they got a title shot at Final Resolution 2006, which AMW won and retained the titles. AMW's sixth and final reign as the NWA Tag Team Champions was also the longest reign in the belt's history since its revived inception in 1998. They became the longest-reigning NWA World Tag Team Champions in TNA history on March 29, 2006, surpassing The Naturals reign of 24 weeks. In the summer of 2006, they feuded with A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels. They successfully defended the titles against Styles and Daniels at Sacrifice 2006, before dropping the titles to them at Slammiversary 2006. After losing the belts they once again turned into fan favorites and started feuding with The Latin American Xchange (Homicide and Hernandez) in the fall of the year. At Genesis 2006, they unsuccessfully challenged LAX for the NWA Tag Team Championship. At Turning Point 2006, AMW lost a flag match to LAX. When Storm hit Homicide with a beer bottle, glass flew into the eyes of Harris. Storm blamed the loss on Harris. AMW got a re-match on the December 14, 2006 edition of Impact! in a "Titles vs. Team" match with the stipulation that AMW would have to split up if they lost. They lost after Storm deliberately hit Harris with a beer bottle. Storm and Harris feuded soon afterwards, ending AMW. Afterwards, Gail left and was replaced by Jackie Moore as Storm's manager. Storm officially turned heel and would later begin teaming with former Team Canada member Robert Roode to form "Beer Money, Inc." with Jackie Moore as their manager and winning the TNA World Tag Team Championship together four times. Harris ended up departing TNA and joined rival promotion World Wrestling Entertainment, wrestling on its ECW brand under the name Braden Walker before being released from his WWE contract only two weeks later. Kim went on to headline TNA's Women's Division by becoming the inaugural TNA Knockouts Champion before parting ways with TNA. Since then, Harris has been wrestling on the independent circuit while Gail Kim returned to WWE for a time before rejoining TNA's Women's Division. On May 12, 2011, Harris returned to TNA as a member of the heel group Immortal and tag team partner of Matt Hardy, challenging Beer Money, Inc. for the TNA World Tag Team Championship, but was pinned after receiving AMW's signature move, the Death Sentence. On October 20th, 2011, James Storm defeated Kurt Angle to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 12:04:18 GMT -5
43. Kevin Steen & El Generico On July 29, 2007, at Giant Size Annual #4, Generico and Steen defeated PAC and Roderick Strong to become the PWG World Tag Team Champions for the first time. They successfully defended the belts for almost three months, losing them to the team of Davey Richards and Super Dragon on October 27 in England as part of PWG's European Vacation II tour. The next night, Steen teamed with PAC in an attempt to regain the belts from Dragon and Richards, announcing pre-match that if he lost, he'd leave the company indefinitely. He was unable to win the bout. Generico and Steen won the title for a second time, this time from The Dynasty (Joey Ryan & Scott Lost) on March 21, 2008, after Steen returned to PWG for an impromptu match. They became the first team in PWG history to be a part of the annual Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament to defend the belts in each match they had. In the tournament finals, they lost to Jack Evans and Roderick Strong, thus ending their second reign. After El Generico had agreed to a deal with WWE, he and Steen reunited one more time on January 12, 2013, by entering the 2013 Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament. After wins over the Briscoe Brothers and Future Shock (Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly), they were defeated in the finals of the tournament by The Young Bucks. El Generico & Kevin Steen debuted in Ring of Honor as a team losing to the Briscoe Brothers on February 17, 2007. On April 14, Mark Briscoe returned in the middle of his brother Jay's and Erick Stevens match against Kevin Steen & El Generico; Mark was beaten up by the duo and was pinned by Steen. On May 11, Kevin Steen (as a heel) & El Generico (as a face) defeated Jason Blade & Eddie Edwards. At Respect is Earned in a dark match, Kevin Steen and El Generico defeated Irish Airborne (Jake Crist and Dave Crist), Pelle Primeau and Mitch Franklin, and Jimmy Rave and Adam Pearce with Shane Hagadorn in a Tag Team Scramble match. That same night Kevin Steen and El Generico brawled with the Briscoe Brothers ending with Mark Briscoe suffering a mild concussion from a steel chair shot. At Driven, The Briscoe Brothers defeated Kevin Steen and El Generico to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championship. Steen and Generico then suffered losses to the Briscoes at Caged Rage in a Steel Cage match, Manhattan Mayhem II in a two out of three falls match and Man Up in a ladder match. Their only tag team win over the Briscoes would be at Death Before Dishonor V Night 1 in a non title Boston Street Fight. On June 6, 2008 Steen and Generico participated in the one night tournament to crown new ROH World Tag Team Champions. They defeated Go Shiozaki and ROH World Champion Nigel McGuiness in the first round and Chris Hero and Adam Pearce in the second round before losing to Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black in the finals. On September 19, 2008, Steen and Generico defeated Jacobs and Black to win the ROH World Tag Team Championship. They later lost the Championship to The American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards). On December 19, 2009, at Final Battle 2009, ROH's first live pay-per-view, after a loss to The Young Bucks, Steen turned heel by attacking El Generico.[5] Steen and Generico's feud ended a year later on December 18, 2010, at Final Battle 2010, where Generico defeated Steen in an unsanctioned Fight Without Honor, where he put his mask on the line against Steen's Ring of Honor career. December 16th, 2012, would mark the final battle between Steen and Generico in Ring of Honor. At Final Battle 2012, the 4th Ladder War match took place at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. What ended up being Generico's final match in Ring of Honor, Generico came up short against Steen after Steen hit the Package Piledriver on a ladder contraption built throughout the match by both competitors. Generico later signed to WWE, where he is working in their developmental territory NXT Wrestling as Sami Zayn, while Steen remained signed to ROH.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 12:09:04 GMT -5
42. Rob Van Dam & Sabu Rob Van Dam and Sabu first met in December 1989 and became close friends. The pair started out as enemies in ECW when Van Dam debuted in 1996. Both men were trained by Sabu's uncle, The Original Shiek, and fans wanted to see them face each other since they both utilized high-flying, daredevil techniques. In 1997, they eventually became a tag team as they went for the ECW World Tag Team Championship. At ECW Barely Legal, Bill Alfonso betrayed Taz and joined Sabu and Van Dam. Four months later, Van Dam helped Sabu beat Terry Funk in a barbed wire match to capture the ECW World title. After Sabu lost the belt in a three-way dance with Terry Funk and Shane Douglas at ECW Hardcore Heaven 1997, Sabu and Van Dam joined Jerry "The King" Lawler in his crusade to "kill" ECW. When the crusade ultimately failed, Sabu eventually set his sights on Bam Bam Bigelow's ECW TV title. So Bill Alfonso helped schedule a match between Bigelow and Van Dam, so that the latter could "soften" Bigelow before Sabu would face him at Wrestlepalooza 1998. When Sabu interfered in the match, however, he "accidentally" helped Van Dam win the title, so the two then faced each other at Wrestlepalooza. The match ended in a 30-minute draw, preventing title from changing hands. A month later, the two captured the ECW Tag Team titles when they defeated Chris Candido and Lance Storm. As champions, Sabu and Van Dam took on all challengers including Jinsei Shinzaki and Hayabusa at Heatwave 1998 in Dayton, Ohio. They lost the titles to the Dudley Boyz in October 1998; however, yet they went on to win them back from the Dudleyz in December at ECW/FMW Supershow. After they lost the titles again to the Dudleyz, The Impact Players formed and started to attack Sabu and Van Dam. When Sabu broke his jaw, the Impact Players had him eventually banned because of his injury and because he was too "dangerous" or "violent." Sabu returned, and after his loss to Justin Credible at Anarchy Rulz 1999, Sabu started to attack Van Dam because he was still jealous that Van Dam was the TV Champion; they would face each other at Guilty as Charged 2000. Sabu proclaimed before the match that if he could not win the belt, he would leave ECW. That night, Van Dam defeated Sabu with the Five Star Frog Splash, forcing Sabu leave the company. Several years after ECW folded, Sabu and Rob Van Dam reunited at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) produced ECW One Night Stand in 2005, when Van Dam helped Sabu defeat another former ECW wrestler, Rhyno. When ECW became the third WWE brand (to RAW and SmackDown), Van Dam and Sabu became a major part of the show and teamed on several occasions, including an "Extreme Rules" match against Test and Mike Knox on September 5, 2006. The team also became part of the ECW Originals stable in 2006 which feuded with the The New Breed. On March 31, 2007, Sabu and Van Dam inducted The Original Sheik into the WWE Hall of Fame. The following night, at WrestleMania 23, the ECW Originals defeated the New Breed but continued battling them into spring. In May 2007, Sabu was released from WWE. Van Dam's WWE contract expired in June 2007, and he chose not to renew it. On August 8, 2010, Sabu returned to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) at Hardcore Justice, where he was defeated by Van Dam in the main event of the evening. Sabu and Van Dam both then went on to join EV 2.0, a stable consisting of former ECW wrestlers. On the October 21 edition of TNA Impact! Sabu and Rob Van Dam were defeated in a tag team match by Beer Money, Inc. (James Storm and Robert Roode), after Sabu accidentally hit his own partner with a chair. After the match Van Dam and Sabu began shoving each other, before being broken up by the rest of EV 2.0. In November 2010 Sabu was released from TNA. As was Van Dam in 2013.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 12:16:19 GMT -5
41. Brian Kendrick & Paul London Prior to teaming together on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s SmackDown! brand, both Paul London and Brian "Spanky" Kendrick along with Daniel Bryan were students at Shawn Michaels' Texas Wrestling Academy, under the tutelage of Rudy Boy Gonzalez. From there they both went on to Ring of Honor, where they occasionally competed against each other. In late 2002, Kendrick was hired by WWE, and in July 2003 London joined the company as well. Once in WWE together, and both on the SmackDown! brand, London and Kendrick began teaming together. They became a mainstay on SmackDown!'s sister show Velocity until Kendrick left the company in February 2004. Kendrick returned in mid-2005, using his real name, and in September 2005 London and Kendrick reformed as a tag team. Upon reuniting the team began competing in matching shorts and vests as well as wearing theatrical masks to the ring. Subsequently, they were quickly elevated into the WWE Tag Team Championship picture, receiving a non-title match against WWE Tag Team Champions MNM (Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury) on the February 10, 2006 episode of SmackDown!, which London and Kendrick lost. On the April 7, 2006 episode of SmackDown! London and Kendrick once again faced MNM, this time picking up a win in a non-title match. London and Kendrick continued their winning streak against the champions, earning singles victories for Kendrick and London over Nitro and Mercury respectively, leading to a title match at Judgment Day, where London and Kendrick won their first WWE Tag Team Championship as a team (London's second WWE Tag Team Title reign and Kendrick's first championship in WWE). Their first main competition for the titles came when K. C. James and Idol Stevens defeated London and Kendrick in a non-title match, in early August, igniting a storyline feud between the two teams. During the rivalry, WWE Diva Ashley Massaro began accompanying London and Kendrick to the ring, acting as a valet to the team while combating the actions of James and Stevens' manager Michelle McCool. On October 14, 2006 they became the longest reigning WWE Tag Team Champions of all time, surpassing MNM's previous record reign of 145 days. The team began a losing streak to the team of William Regal and Dave Taylor, with Regal defeating both London and Kendrick in singles matches and losing a non-title tag team match to the pair on the December 8 episode of SmackDown!. A scheduled title match between the two teams at Armageddon was changed at the event to a four-way ladder match, also involving The Hardys (Matt and Jeff) and MNM. In the match London and Kendrick were able to retrieve the belts to retain their championship. When a regular tag team rematch was signed with Regal and Taylor two weeks later, London and Kendrick were successful in defeating them. On the February 16 episode of SmackDown!, General Manager Theodore Long scheduled another ladder match between the teams of London and Kendrick, Regal and Taylor, MNM, and The Hardys for the WWE Tag Team Championship at February's pay-per-view event No Way Out, but WWE's official website announced the match had changed to pit The Hardys and Chris Benoit against MNM and MVP, while London and Kendrick faced rookie team Deuce 'n Domino (Jimmy "Deuce" Reiher, Jr. and Cliff "Domino" Compton) in a separate match; they were booked to successfully retain the titles against Deuce 'n Domino. Their almost year long reign came to an end when they were defeated by Deuce 'n Domino for the title on the April 20, 2007 episode of SmackDown! in Milan, Italy. London picked up an injury, resulting in Kendrick challenging Deuce 'n Domino in singles matches, losing to Deuce, but defeating Domino. London returned on the May 11 episode of SmackDown!, defeating Domino in a singles match. London and Kendrick then unsuccessfully attempted to regain the Tag Team Championship, losing to Deuce 'n Domino in a triple threat match also involving Regal and Taylor, and in a standard tag team match two weeks later. London and Kendrick were drafted to Raw as the first picks in the WWE Supplemental Draft on June 17, 2007 and were successful on their Raw debut, defeating The World's Greatest Tag Team (Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas) via a Sliced Bread #2 performed on Haas. On the September 3 episode of Raw, London and Kendrick defeated The World's Greatest Tag Team once again to earn a World Tag Team Championship match at Unforgiven against Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, in which they lost. Two days later, they defeated Cade and Murdoch for the title at a house show in South Africa. Three days later, at another house show, Cade and Murdoch regained the title in a rematch. Near the end of 2007, London suffered a foot injury and was unable to compete, and Kendrick was mainly used as a singles wrestler on Raw where he lost to the likes of Umaga and Mr. Kennedy. London made his return on February 4 in a loss to Santino Marella and Carlito. London and Kendrick returned as a tag team on the March 17 episode of Raw in a loss to Umaga when Kendrick walked out on London. The two reunited on Raw on March 31 with commentator Jim Ross explaining the two worked out their differences, and they got a win against the then-World Tag Team Champions, Cody Rhodes and Hardcore Holly. On April 14, they lost a number one contendership match to the team of Carlito and Marella. They competed sporadically on Raw in the following months, defeating Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, before receiving a World Tag Team title shot against Holly and Rhodes on the May 26 episode of Raw. They lost when Holly pinned London following an Alabama slam. The team came to an end in June 2008, when Kendrick was drafted to the SmackDown brand as part of the 2008 Supplemental Draft, while London stayed on Raw. He made his return to the brand on the July 18, 2008 airing of SmackDown! as a heel, with new ring attire defeating Jimmy Wang Yang with the help of his new bodyguard, Ezekiel Jackson. Kendrick was later given the name "The Brian Kendrick". London was utilised sparingly during the next few months, making his only television appearance in a loss to Lance Cade on the July 21 episode of Raw. London was subsequently released from his WWE contract on November 7, 2008. On July 31, 2009, Kendrick was also released. Going into 2010, the team made occasional reunions on the independent circuit. On January 30 the team completed at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's part of the aptly titled WrestleReunion 4 show. They defeated the PWG World Tag Team Champions Generation Me (Jeremy and Max) in a non-title match in their first match back together. On March 27, London and Kendrick made an appearance in Dragon Gate USA, where Kendrick had already appeared in singles competition. However, their run as a tag team in the company was short-lived due to losing a Pinfall Loser Leaves Company match to Jimmy Jacobs and Jack Evans and as a result Kendrick, who tapped out to Jacobs, was forced to leave the company for good. They reuinited once again on October 4, 2012, at the first Family Wrestling Entertainment's PPV, Back 2 Brooklyn. They, along with Jay Lethal, defeated the team of The Young Bucks and Petey Williams. Londrick and The Young Bucks wrestled again on October 6, 2012, at the House of Hardcore's first show, with Londrick winning the match. On June 23, 2013, Londrick were defeated by The Young Buck at House of Hardcore 2. London and Kendrick were defeated at PWG's Ten by Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano.
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AdamAFL was sooooo wrong
Hank Scorpio
note to all: he's a pants-less heathen
I Survived The Impact Spoilers 7/22/15-7/30/15
Posts: 7,095
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Post by AdamAFL was sooooo wrong on May 12, 2014 12:22:37 GMT -5
Damn. I was hoping Steenerico and AMW would be higher. Loving the list so far though, really interesting to see who everyone else voted - even remembering some teams I'd forgotten (although, thankfully, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have changed my list).
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 12:31:21 GMT -5
Countdown so far 75. The Jumping Bomb Angels 74. The Powers of Pain 73. Kane & X-Pac 72. The Usos 71. The Nasty Boys 70. The Second City Saints 69. The Gangstas 68. The Fabulous Rougeaus 67. Rated RKO 66. The Eliminators 65. The Spirit Squad 64. Booker T & Goldust 63. The Von Erichs 62. The Quebecers 61. Candice LeRae & Joey Ryan 60. Owen Hart & British Bulldog 59. The Super Smash Brothers 58. The Foreign Legion 57. The Dancing Fools 56. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood 55. The Briscoe Brothers 54. Stone Cold Steve Austin & Dude Love 53. The Briscos 52. The Fabulous Ones 51. The Age of the Fall 50. Minnesota Wrecking Crew 49. AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels 48. reDRagon 47. Latin American Xchange 46. Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel 45. Doom 44. America's Most Wanted 43. Kevin Steen & El Generico 42. Rob Van Dam & Sabu 41. Brian Kendrick & Paul London
Clues to the next five tag teams
* Bring Your Own Caskets
* Mr. Instant Replay & Slick Nick
* Originally part of Team Wolf
* Stunning & Flyin
* Trashed The Ballots
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 13:12:56 GMT -5
40. Generation Next Generation Next made its debut on May 22, 2004 during Ring of Honor (ROH)'s Generation Next show as a villainous faction. The event was originally going to partly consist of matches between up-and-comers in the ROH roster, and the wrestlers in these matches were to be voted on by those in attendance. The first match on the card was originally going to be a triple threat tag team match between the Christopher Street Connection, The Ring Crew Express and Special K when Alex Shelley, Roderick Strong, Austin Aries, and Jack Evans ran-in and broke the match up, declaring themselves "The Best that Ring of Honor has to offer" and trashing the ballots. Aries, Evans, and Strong then went on to challenge and defeat the aforementioned Special K in a six man tag team match while Shelley defeated another Special K member, Hydro, in a singles match afterwords. Later in the night, all four defeated the Briscoe Brothers, Jimmy Rave, and John Walters in an eight man tag team match. On July 17, 2004, Generation Next attacked Ricky Steamboat while Steamboat was facing CM Punk. CM Punk saved Steamboat from this beating, completing his turn into a fan favorite. This incident led to the feud between Generation Next and Steamboat/Second City Saints. On October 2, 2004, Generation Next defeated "Team Steamboat" (CM Punk, Ace Steel, John Walters and Jimmy Jacobs) in an eight-man elimination match, with Aries and Shelley being the sole survivors. During October 2004, Strong and Evans formed a regular tag team, Shelley was feuding with his longtime foe and former tag team partner Jimmy Jacobs, and Aries was rising in the ranks, eventually challenging then ROH World Champion, Samoa Joe. On December 26, 2004 during ROH's Final Battle 2004 show, Aries wanted Alex Shelley to step down as the leader of Generation Next. Before Shelley could give him his answer, Aries and Strong turned on him, kicking him out of the faction. Later that night, Aries defeated Samoa Joe to become the new ROH World Champion, ending Joe's reign of 21 months. On March 5, 2005, Generation Next participated in the Trios Tournament, but was defeated in the finals by The Rottweilers when Aries was pinned by Homicide. Homicide challenged Aries for the ROH World Championship, but was defeated during ROH's "Best of the American Super Juniors" tournamenton on April 2, 2005. Former Generation Next leader Alex Shelley, now a fan favorite, also challenged for the title during ROH's Manhattan Mayhem show, but also failed to win. On June 4, 2005, Aries and Strong attacked Shelley so brutally that Shelley had to be aided out. On June 18, 2005, Aries lost his title to CM Punk during ROH's Death Before Dishonor III show. On July 23, 2005, Alex Shelley officially became a new member of The Embassy, becoming a villain again. This caused Generation Next to become fan favorites and begin the Generation Next-Embassy feud. Aries and Strong, along with new member Matt Sydal, defeated Shelley, Jimmy Rave and Abyss (representing the Embassy) on August 12, 2005. Aries and Strong scored another victory over Embassy on August 20. After the match, The Embassy attempted to attack Mick Foley, but Generation Next fought them off. On December 3, 2005 Generation Next ended their feud with The Embassy by defeating them in the first ever Steel Cage Warfare match. During ROH's Final Battle 2005 show on December 17, Aries and Strong defeated Sal Rinauro and Tony Mamaluke to win the ROH Tag Team Championship.[1] Generation Next then stated that they planned to elevate the tag team title to the main event scene in ROH. As part of this process, they defended the title in Japan, giving the championship world title status. On June 3, 2006 during ROH's Destiny show, Austin Aries declared that, with Evans and Sydal wrestling in Japan for Dragon Gate, and that they had already established themselves as the top wrestlers in ROH, there was no longer any need for the Generation Next stable. At ROH's Generation Now show in July, the four members that made up Generation Next (Aries, Evans, Strong, and Sydal) teamed for one last time. They faced off against Davey Richards, Jerrelle Clark, Dave Crist and Jake Crist. After losing the match, the group disbanded, and the members went their separate ways. At Battle of the Icons on January 27, 2007, Austin Aries and Roderick Strong teamed up with Jack Evans to defeat SHINGO, Davey Richards, and Delirious. What looked to be a Generation Next reunion of sorts was short-lived. At the first show of the Fifth Year Festival, Aries and Strong challenged Matt Sydal and Christopher Daniels for the ROH World Tag Team Championship. Midway through the match, Aries suffered a knee injury and was barely able to stand. After losing, Strong turned on Aries and began to attack him. Davey Richards came down and announced the two had formed a new tag team called No Remorse Corps. Jack Evans ran down to help Aries, but would not fight Strong, saying they were both his friends. Aries then enlisted Matt Cross, while Rocky Romero joined Strong and Richards in the No Remorse Corps. On June 6, 2008 Strong and Richards participated in ROH's one night tournament to crown new World Tag Team Champions. They were eliminated in the first round by Austin Aries and Bryan Danielson. The next night, after Strong defeated Erick Stevens in a Fight Without Honor, he was courted by Larry Sweeney to join Sweet N'Sour Inc. He refused only to be beaten down by Richards who tore off his No Remorse Corps shirt to reveal he was wearing an S&S Inc one underneath. In January 2006, Aries, Shelley and Strong were reunited in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where they formed a short-lived stable with a similar agenda as Generation Next's. The trio antagonized road agent Jerry Lynn, demanding opportunities to advance in the company. They effectively defeated all the major faces in the X Division in tag team matches, defeating A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels and Chris Sabin in a tag match. At the following pay-per-view, they defeated the team of Sabin, Sonjay Dutt and Matt Bentley. Aries and Strong also competed in a tag team tournament, defeating The Naturals in tag team competition before losing to the team of Dutt and Sabin. The trio was unofficially disbanded in light of Aries and Strong's indefinite suspension from the company due to them showing up late to the Against All Odds pay per view. Strong was never brought back to TNA, and in 2006, Shelley went on to create Paparazzi Productions with Kevin Nash and Johnny Devine. At Bound for Glory, Aries returned as "Austin Starr" and won the "Kevin Nash Open Invitational X Division Gauntlet Battle Royal" and presented a bowling trophy to Starr for winning the match. Starr went on to join Nash and Shelley as part of Paparazzi Productions, much to the dismay of Shelley. Later in the year, Starr was released and soon re-joined ROH, whilst Shelley and Chris Sabin introduced the Motor City Machine Guns to TNA. It could be said the Paparazzis had officially broken up as of April 26, therefore the same date could be said to be the end of Generation Next's association in TNA. On May 27, 2011, Generation Next reunited at Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) event All Star Weekend 8 – Night 1, when Alex Shelley saved Austin Aries and Roderick Strong from an attack by The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson) and challenged them to find a partner for a six man tag team match. The following day Aries and Strong unsuccessfully challenged The Young Bucks for the PWG World Tag Team Championship. On July 23, at PWG's eighth anniversary show, Shelley and Strong defeated El Generico and Ricochet in a tag team match.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 13:19:18 GMT -5
39. Cho-Ten Cho-Ten first began teaming up on February 19, 1995 along with veteran Hiro Saito to defeat Hiroshi Hase, Kensuke Sasaki, & Riki Choshu. After forming their alliance, the three became known as "Team Wolf"; Sabu would join Team Wolf as well. Cho-Ten would see immediate success as they received their first shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship on June 12, 1995 as they took on Shinya Hashimoto and Junji Hirata for the vacant titles. Cho-Ten would emerge victorious and would win their first tag team title. The title reign would not last long as they stripped of the titles on July 7, 1995 when Chono no-showed a title defense, it would later be revealed that Chono missed the show due to his father's death. After being stripped of the titles, Cho-Ten would challenge for the titles 3 times during 1995 but came up short each time. Despite this setback Cho-Ten would bounce back as they won the 1995 Super Grade Tag League marking their second achievement in less than a year. After several months out of the title hunt, Cho-Ten received a title shot against Kazuo Yamazaki and Takashi Iizuka on July 16, 1996. The challengers came out on top winning their second tag title. After the title victory, Cho-Ten would successfully defend the titles against Yamazaki and Iizuka in rematches before eventually dropping the titles to Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura at Wrestling World 1997 on January 4, 1997. After the title loss, Cho-Ten briefly broke up with Chono forming nWo Japan (which Tenzan joined), afterward he would form teams with nWo Sting and Keiji Mutoh, the latter which he won the IWGP Tag Team Title and the 1997 Super Grade Tag League. During 1997, both Chono and Tenzan received shots at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship but both failed to win the title and Tenzan also became the runner up in the 1997 G1 Climax. On May 7, 1998, Chono and Mutoh were stripped of the tag team titles due to Mutoh suffering from a knee injury. Following the vacancy, Cho-Ten reunited and on June 5, 1998 they defeated Genichiro Tenryu and Shiro Koshinaka to win the titles for the third time. The title reign would not last as they lost the titles on July 15, 1998 to Tenryu and Koshinaka in a rematch. After the title loss, Cho-Ten broke up again as Chono began focusing on singles competition while Tenzan formed another highly successful tag team: Tencozy with Satoshi Kojima. In 2002, Keiji Mutoh, Satoshi Kojima, and Kendo Kashin left New Japan for All Japan Pro Wrestling. With Mutoh gone, the IWGP Tag Team Championships became vacated and Kojima departure marked the end of Tencozy for the moment.[23] In March 2002, Cho-Ten reunited to take part in a tournament for the vacant titles, the team would defeat Kensuke Sasaki and Shiro Koshinaka in the first round, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenzo Suzuki in the second round and on March 24, 2002, Cho-Ten took on Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi in the finals for the titles. Despite not having teamed in years, the magic was still there as Cho-Ten won their fourth tag title. The fourth title reign would be Cho-Ten's most successful title reign as they would hold the titles for over 446 Days which has became the longest title reign in the history of the titles, they also made the most successful title defenses as they successfully defended the titles 7 times against the likes of The Steiner Brothers and variations of the Makai Club (Tadao Yasuda and Ryushi Yanagisawa, Yasuda and Kazunari Murakami). During the title reign, Chono won his fourth G1 Climax on August 11, 2002 adding more trophies to the team. Eventually the team would lose the titles on June 13, 2003 to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Yutaka Yoshie. After the title loss, Cho-Ten broke up once again as both decided to focus on their singles careers with Tenzan winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship 4 times between 2003–2005 and the 2003 and 2004 G1 Climax while Chono won the 2005 G1. On October 30, 2005, Cho-Ten reunited once again to challenge Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP Tag Team Championship. History would be made as Cho-Ten won their record setting fifth tag title. It was during this reign that Chono and Tenzan finally adopted the Cho-Ten portmanteau as their official team name.[33] They would hold the titles for nearly a year fending off challenges from Takao Omori and Shiro Koshinaka, Yuji Nagata and Naofumi Yamamoto, and Manabu Nakanishi and Giant Bernard. Unfortunately during the title reign, Chono would suffer an injury and upon his return, the two would begin to show dissension and eventually had a falling out. Due to their refusal to defend the title together, Cho-Ten were stripped of the tag titles on September 24, 2006 and began feuding from there. After breaking up, Chono and Tenzan began feuding with each other with Tenzan defeating Chono on September 24, 2006. Soon after Chono formed Chono-Nakamura gun/BLACK with Shinsuke Nakamura while Tenzan formed GBH (Great Bash Heel) and the feud continued. After Tenzan was eventually kicked out of GBH in February 2008, the two began to make peace as they began teaming up again in tag matches. Despite teaming again, Cho-Ten never officially got back together as Tenzan instead began re-teaming with Kojima as well began suffering numerous injuries. In February 2010, Chono left New Japan to become a Freelancer. Tenzan future was unknown as he had been inactive since August 2009 due to injuries, until returning to New Japan in November 2010. In October 2011, Chono and Tenzan reunited, alongside Hiro Saito, for Tenzan's 20th Anniversary Show, defeating Osamu Nishimura, Shinjiro Otani, and Koji Kanemoto.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 13:23:51 GMT -5
38. The Hollywood Blonds The most famous version of the Hollywood Blonds (there were two versions before them in other federations and the team with the greatest exposure worldwide was the World Championship Wrestling version of the Blonds consisting of "Stunning" Steve Austin and "Flyin'" Brian Pillman. In late 1992, the recently heel turned Brian Pillman had been teaming with another recently-turned-heel in Barry Windham, but when Windham was groomed for a singles push and a run with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the WCW bookers put Steve Austin together with Brian Pillman since management didn’t have any other immediate plans for Austin. After one last unsuccessful attempt at winning the WCW / NWA World Tag Team Championship from Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas at Starrcade 1992, Austin replaced Windham on a permanent basis. At first, the two were just billed as ”Stunning Steve and Flyin' Brian” but the two (with input from Scotty ”Flamingo” Levy) came up with the idea of ”the Hollywood Blonds” complete with matching trunks and vests. The duo was immediately thrust into a feud with Shane Douglas and Ricky Steamboat over the NWA and WCW World Tag Team titles, which gave the duo a chance to show off their team work and their trademark “mock filming” pose that they invented. After a successful move, one of the Blonds would move his hands like he was turning the handle on an old film camera. After winning a match, Pillman or Austin would arrogantly state that “Your brush with greatness is over” to further annoy the fans. On the March 27, 1993 edition of WCW Power Hour, Austin and Pillman defeated Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas to win their only NWA/WCW World Tag Team Championship. Though Steamboat and Douglas had several rematches, they were unable to recapture the belts. On one night, Austin and Pillman faced an unknown masked team known as "Dos Hombres" (literally ”two guys”) who they assumed were a couple of luchadores from Mexico. The match started out rather inconspicuously, until the two masked men started showing moves more consistent with Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas than two luchadores. Dos Hombres won the match, earning them a shot at the world tag team titles at Slamboree 1993. However, by the time Slamboree came about, Douglas had been fired by WCW and Steamboat was without a partner. Instead of canceling the already announced Steel Cage match, Tom Zenk was made to wear the mask of “Hombre Uno” and work the match without anyone realizing it wasn’t Douglas under the red and green hood. The Blonds won at Slamboree ending the “Dos Hombres” angle. After the feud with Steamboat and Douglas ended, the Blonds were programmed with the recently reformed Four Horsemen, who at the time consisted of Ric Flair, Paul Roma, and Ole and Arn Anderson. Flair had recently returned from a run with the World Wrestling Federation and been given a talk show segment called ”A Flair for the Gold” to give Flair television time before his WWF release allowed him to wrestle for WCW. Playing off their image of believing they’re the best thing in wrestling, Pillman and Austin started to target Flair and Anderson by mocking them through their own segment called “A Flare for the Old”. Austin would stand in the background with a pillow under his shirt for a gut while slowly stroking his chin imitating Arn Anderson. Pillman dressed up in an old bathrobe, put on reading glasses and a grey wig and then cut into Flair for being too old and too scared of the Hollywood Blonds. The impersonation drew Ric Flair back in the ring making his “Big Show” wrestling return at Clash of Champions XXIII where Flair and Anderson challenged the Blonds for the tag team titles. Despite winning the two out of three falls match, they did not win the titles since the Blonds were disqualified after Barry Windham interfered. Windham’s attack shifted Flair’s focus away from the Hollywood Blonds, which in turn meant that Arn Anderson needed a new tag team partner. Not long after the Clash, Paul Roma was introduced as the fourth Horseman and would team with Anderson in the Horseman/Blonds feud. On July 18, at WCW’s Beach Blast 1993, Roma and Anderson were beaten by the Blonds who cheated to retain their titles. Not long after Beach Blast, Pillman injured his ankle and was unable to compete at a scheduled title match at Clash of Champions XXIV. However, due to WCW taping policies, Arn Anderson and Paul Roma had already been taped as the World Tag Team champions so the title change had to happen despite Pillman being injured. Austin teamed with ”Lord” Steven Regal at the Clash where they dropped the gold to Roma and Anderson. As soon as the Blonds dropped the titles, the team was split up. Austin and Pillman both claimed that it was for political reasons. Austin was given a singles push challenging Dustin Rhodes for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. When Pillman finally recovered, Austin (along with his new manager Col. Rob Parker) turned on Pillman, turning Pillman face. This took place on the October 30, 1993 edition of WCW Saturday Night. Parker came to ringside to congratulate Austin (and not Pillman) on winning a tag team match. Pillman took exception to Parker snubbing him. Parker brought up Pillman's bad leg and said if he was a race horse, he'd put him down. Pillman attacked Parker, which in turn led to Austin attacking Pillman. The Austin/Pillman feud was never pushed intensely and at times played more for comedy than emotion, a fact underscored by Pillman being more interested in putting Parker in a chicken suit than getting back at Austin. They would briefly reunite in the World Wrestling Federation in 1996, but not as the Blonds. Austin by then was using his new "Stone Cold" persona, and an injured Pillman was "the Loose Cannon" and acted primarily as his sidekick, until Austin turned on Pillman for showing his admiration for Austin's nemesis, Bret Hart. In 1999, Lenny Lane and Lodi used the name the West Hollywood Blonds as a play off the old name.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 13:45:45 GMT -5
37. Young Bucks/Generation Me The Young Bucks are an American professional wrestling tag team, consisting of real life brothers Matt and Nick Massie (also known by their ring names Matt and Nick Jackson) from Southern California. They are currently working for various American promotions, most notably national promotion Ring of Honor (ROH), and independent promotions Dragon Gate USA (DGUSA) and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG). They are currently in their first reign as ROH World Tag Team Champions, and their record tying third reign as PWG World Tag Team Champions. They are also known for their time in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where they performed under the ring names Max and Jeremy Buck and the tag team name Generation Me (occasionally abbreviated to GenMe). The Young Bucks also work in Japan for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), where they are the current IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions in their first reign. As they hold the ROH World, PWG World, and IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championships, this currently makes them triple champions between the U.S. and Japan. Previous accolades include reigns as Chikara Campeones de Parejas and DGUSA's Open the United Gate Champions, and being the only team to win PWG's annual Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament on three separate occasions (2009, 2011 and 2013). In 2001, the family put a wrestling ring in their backyard and the three brothers taught themselves how to wrestle by impersonating what they saw on television. At the age of 18 or 19 Matt began his professional wrestling training in La Mirada and City of Industry, California at the Revolution Pro Wrestling School called Rudos Dojo, training primarily under Ron Rivera (The American Wild Child), Disco Machine, Scorpio Sky and Super Dragon, among others. Matt attended the school with his good friend Dustin Cutler and the two would teach what they learned to their friends back home. Eventually Nick joined his brother and attended a few sessions at the school. Matt, Nick and Dustin would be involved in their very first professional match at an Alternative Wrestling Show/C4/Revolution Pro joint event that was held on August 8, 2004. Matt worked as Fluffy the Dog, Dustin dressed as a hillbilly and Nick was a high flying referee wearing a Santo mask. Soon after, Matt and Nick would wrestle various times for Revolution Pro and Revolution X (Rev Pro's darker counterpart) in chicken costumes, under the team name "Los Gallineros". In October 2004, with the help of his family, Matt opened up his very own independent wrestling company called High Risk Wrestling. Matt would originally be the head owner of HRW, but would have help from his brothers Nick, Malalchi and good friend Dustin Cutler - these three would eventually take over ownership years later. Brandon Cutler and Sonny Samson would also play a big part in HRWs shows both behind the scenes and in the ring. The company would run shows twice a month and helped Matt and Nick learn their craft. High Risk Wrestling would go on to run several successful shows in Hesperia, Victorville and Upland, California. The most notable High Risk Wrestling event "Highway 2 Hell" took place on August 4, 2007, in Hesperia. In the main event of the show Matt and Nick teamed up with Marty Jannetty ín a six man tag, where they defeated Joey Ryan, Karl Anderson and Diablo. This was the day Matt and Nick originally met Marty Jannetty, who would become a trainer and a good friend of the two. On February 26, 2005 at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA for Full Contact Wrestling, Matt and Nick were called the "Young Bucks" for the very first time. Originally, Matt was wrestling under the name "Mr. Instant Replay", while Nick was called "Slick Nick". Joey Munoz, the booker at the time, did not know the names of the characters that Matt and Nick were using at the time so wrote down a temporary name on the card. That night Mr. Instant Replay and Slick Nick, the Young Bucks were defeated by the Kaos and Mongol, the Santino Brothers. The name "Young Bucks" has been around ever since that day. "Jackson" was simply given to Matt and Nick by the National Wrestling Alliance during the time NWA Showcase appeared on Maverick Television. Matt and Nick have used that last name ever since. With the help of HRW, Matt and Nick would eventually land spots in several popular companies in Southern California. Eventually they also gained experience working in front of a camera doing television tapings for the National Wrestling Alliance starting in 2006. The Young Bucks would film their very first matches for the NWA on Maverick Television on November 7, 2006, when they were defeated by Karl Anderson and Joey Ryan. The NWA would also be responsible for the Young Bucks wrestling debut in such states as Texas, Nevada, Rhode Island and New Jersey. They currently appear regularly on NWA Showcase which can now be seen on Colours TV. The Young Bucks would debut for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla on June 10, 2007, in Burbank, CA at Roger Dorn Night, losing to Arrogance (Chris Bosh and Scott Lost). On August 31, 2007, in Burbank, CA, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla held the first night of the 2007 Battle of Los Angeles tournament, where The Young Bucks picked up their first tag team victory in PWG by defeating Phoenix Star and Zokre, Los Luchas. At the show Matt and Nick would meet Dragon Gate wrestler Cima and Dragon Gate's American talent agent Satoshi Oji for the first time, both of whom were impressed by the brothers' performance. On January 5, 2008, The Young Bucks faced prominent Dragon Gate team Muscle Outlaw'z (Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino) at All Star Weekend 6 - Night 1 in a losing, yet impressive effort. The next night, they would lose to The Dynasty (Scott Lost and Joey Ryan). At the following show, on January 27, the Young Bucks received their first shot at the PWG World Tag Team Championship, but were once again defeated by the Dynasty. During the next two months the Young Bucks participated in the 2008 DDT4 qualifier series, where they lost to T.J. Perkins and Hook Bomberry, defeated Ronin and Scorpio Sky and drew with Los Luchas, before losing a deciding four-way elimination match to Los Luchas, who then advanced to the tournament itself. Soon after, The Young Bucks would go out on their first Dragon Gate tour. Upon their return from Dragon Gate, the Young Bucks were finally able to defeat the Dynasty on July 6, 2008, at Life During Wartime, PWG's fifth anniversary show, in a three-way match, which also included KAZMA and MIYAWAKI. At the following show, All Star Weekend 7 - Night Two on August 31, 2008, Matt and Nick defeated The Age of the Fall of Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black to become to the new PWG World Tag Team Champions. One of The Young Bucks' biggest accomplishments in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla came at the annual DDT4 tag team tournament on May 22, 2009, in Reseda, CA, when they defended the titles three times in one night. They defeated Dustin and Brandon Cutler in the first round, Kenny Omega and Chuck Taylor in the second round and the Hybrid Dolphins (Bryan Danielson and Roderick Strong) in the final round to win the tournament. At that same event their younger brother Malachi made his PWG debut, losing to Phoenix Star. On June 1, 2009, they became the longest reigning PWG World Tag Team Champions in history, breaking the record set by Arrogance. Around that time, after the Young Bucks started touring the World, the PWG crowds started turning on them. On July 31, 2009, at Threemendous II, PWG's sixth anniversary show, the Young Bucks suffered their first loss in the company in sixteen months, losing a non-title match to the re-united 2 Skinny Black Guys (Human Tornado and El Generico). Despite their win and the Young Bucks' wishes, Tornado and Generico never received their rematch for the titles as the following month they lost the number one contendership to The Men of Low Moral Fiber (Kenny Omega and Chuck Taylor), whom the Young Bucks would defeat for the titles on October 4 in a rematch of their DDT4 semifinal match. On November 21 during the second night of the 2009 Battle of Los Angeles The Young Bucks retained their title over Kevin Steen and El Generico and afterwards turned heel by aligning themselves with Brian Kendrick and attacking the new PWG World Champion Kenny Omega. On January 30, 2010, at Kurt Russellmania, the first PWG show since the Bucks had signed contracts with TNA Wrestling, Matt and Nick announced that from now on they would be known by their TNA names, Max and Jeremy of Generation Me. Then they decided that Brian Kendrick didn't fit in with them and turned on him, only for him to be saved by his old tag team partner Paul London. Later in the night, the team of London and Kendrick defeated Generation Me in a non-title match. Despite the announcement made by the Young Bucks, PWG still continues to refer to them under their original team and singles names. On February 27, 2010, at As the Worm Turns, Matt and Nick tied the PWG record set by the team of Super Dragon and Davey Richards by making their twelfth title defense, after successfully defending the titles against the 2 Skinny Black Guys of Low Moral Fiber (Chuck Taylor and El Generico). On April 10 the Young Bucks made PWG history by making their thirteenth successful title defense against the Briscoe Brothers (Jay and Mark). On May 9 the Young Bucks entered the 2010 DDT4 tournament and were for the second year in a row set to defend the Tag Team Championship three times in one night. The Bucks defeated Johnny Goodtime and Jerome Robinson in the first round and the Cutler Brothers in the semifinals of the tournament. However, in the finals of the tournament El Generico and Paul London, the team known collectively as ¡Peligro Abejas!, defeated the Young Bucks to not only win the tournament, but also the PWG World Tag Team Championship, ending the Bucks' reign at 616 days. During the final match Nick was knocked unconscious and suffered a concussion, but was able to finish the match. On July 30, at PWG's seventh anniversary show, the Bucks received a rematch for the World Tag Team titles in the first ever tag team Guerrilla Warfare match, a three–way match, also involving the Cutler Brothers, where ¡Peligro Abejas! ended up retaining the Championship. In the first round of the 2010 Battle of Los Angeles Matt and Nick were paired up against each other, but instead of wrestling the match, they got themselves disqualified by superkicking referee Rick Knox. Afterwards the Cutler Brothers challenged the Young Bucks to a match, in which they finally managed to defeat their nemesis tag team. On March 4, 2011, the Young Bucks entered the 2011 DDT4 tournament, which was this time used to determine new number one contenders to the ¡Peligro Abejas!. In their first round match the Young Bucks defeated Brandon Gatson and Willie Mack. Later in the evening they defeated The American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards) in the semifinals and finally the Nightmare Violence Connection (Akira Tozawa and Kevin Steen) in the finals to win their second DDT4 tournament and earn another shot at El Generico and Paul London. The Young Bucks received their shot on April 9, 2011, when they defeated El Generico and Ricochet, who filled in for Paul London who was unable to appear at the event, to regain the PWG World Tag Team Championship. On May 27, during the first night of All Star Weekend 8, The Young Bucks made the first successful defense of their second title reign, defeating the RockNES Monsters (Johnny Goodtime and Johnny Yuma).[36] The following night, The Young Bucks defeated Austin Aries and Roderick Strong to retain the title.[37] On August 20, The Young Bucks defeated the Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli) in an unadvertised match to retain the PWG World Tag Team Championship. The Young Bucks made their next title defense on September 10, defeating the Dynasty (Joey Ryan and Scorpio Sky). On October 22, The Young Bucks made their fifth successful title defense by defeating Future Shock (Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly), before interfering in the main event and costing Kevin Steen the PWG World Championship in his ladder match with El Generico. After challenging Steen to a handicap Guerrilla Warfare match, Super Dragon made his first appearance in over three years and named himself Steen's partner for the match on December 10. On December 10, The Young Bucks lost the PWG World Tag Team Championship to Appetite for Destruction (Kevin Steen and Super Dragon) in a Guerrilla Warfare match, ending their second reign at 245 days. Following their title loss, The Young Bucks started a rivalry with the Super Smash Bros. (Player Uno and Stupefied); on March 17, the Super Smash Bros. picked up their first PWG win by defeating The Young Bucks in a three-way match, which also included the RockNES Monsters. On April 21, The Young Bucks attempted to win their third DDT4 tournament and earn a rematch with Appetite for Destruction, but suffered another loss against the Super Smash Bros. (Player Uno and Stupefied) in their first round match. On May 25, The Young Bucks and the Super Smash Bros. faced each other in a No Disqualification match to determine the new PWG World Tag Team Champions. In the end, The Young Bucks suffered their third straight loss against their rival team. On July 21 at Threemendous III, PWG's ninth anniversary event, The Young Bucks unsuccessfully challenged the Super Smash Bros. for the PWG World Tag Team Championship in a three-way ladder match, which also included Future Shock, losing following interference from referee Rick Knox, whom they had attacked earlier in the match. On January 12, 2013, The Young Bucks entered the 2013 Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament, defeating the Inner City Machine Guns (Rich Swann and Ricochet) in their opening match. Later that same event, The Young Bucks defeated the Unbreakable F'n Machines (Brian Cage and Michael Elgin) in their semifinal match to capture the PWG World Tag Team Championship for the third time. They then went on to defeat El Generico and Kevin Steen in the finals to win the DDT4 tournament for the third time.[47] The Young Bucks made their second successful defense of the PWG World Tag Team Championship on March 23 against the DojoBros (Eddie Edwards and Roderick Strong). On August 9 at PWG's tenth anniversary event, The Young Bucks defeated the DojoBros and the Inner City Machine Guns in a three-way ladder match for their third successful title defense. On August 31, The Young Bucks formed a new heel stable with PWG World Champion Adam Cole and Kevin Steen, with the four dubbing themselves "The Mount Rushmore of Wrestling". On October 19, The Young Bucks defeated Candice LeRae and Joey Ryan to make their fourth successful defense of the PWG World Tag Team Championship. On March 28, 2014, The Young Bucks defeated 2014 DDT4 winners Chuck Taylor and Trent? for their fifth successful title defense. The Young Bucks would make their debut for Dragon Gate in Tokyo, Japan at the Korakuen Hall on May 14, 2008, in a match where they were defeated by Susumu Yokosuka and Ryo Saito. Their first tour of the company spanned from May 14 to June 14. Their second tour started on August 9, 2008, and ended on August 28, 2008. On September 5, 2008, the Young Bucks took part in Dragon Gate's first show in the United States, held in Los Angeles, California, where they unsuccessfully challenged Saito and Yokosuka for the Open the Twin Gate Championship. Their third and most recent tour spanned from April 15 to May 5, 2009. On May 3, 2009, in Ishikawa Matt and Nick successfully defended their PWG World Tag Team titles against Shingo Takagi and Akira Tozawa, the first time those titles had been defended in Japan. Their biggest match of the last tour took place on May 5, 2009, in Aichi, Japan at the Aichi Prefectural Gym at the Dead or Alive pay-per-view. The Young Bucks and RYOMA teamed up in a losing effort against Akira Tozawa, Kenshin Chikano and Anthony W. Mori. On February 22, 2008, Matt Jackson appeared as a jobber on World Wrestling Entertainment's weekly television show SmackDown, losing to Chuck Palumbo. He would appear in a similar role on the October 17, 2008, edition of SmackDown, this time losing to the Big Show in an exhibition Last Man Standing match after going through a table. On the October 28 edition of ECW the Young Bucks portrayed Triple H and Shawn Michaels in a segment, where they were laid out by John Morrison and The Miz. On August 15, 2011, the Young Bucks had a tryout for the WWE producers prior to the Raw tapings in San Diego. The Young Bucks made their Chikara debuts on March 27, 2009, teaming up with El Generico to form Team PWG in the annual King of Trios tournament. However, the team was eliminated in the first round by The Osirian Portal of Amasis, Ophidian and Escorpion Egipcio. The following night Matt and Nick Jackson entered the Rey de Voladores tournament, but were both eliminated in the first round four-way matches. On the third night of the tournament they took part in a tag team gauntlet match, which was won by Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw. The Young Bucks would return to Chikara on October 17 at An Optimistic View of a Pessimistic World competing in a four-way elimination tag team match, where they were the last team eliminated by the winners The Osirian Portal of Amasis and Ophidian. The following day at Cibernetico Increible Matt and Nick joined opposing eight-man teams in the annual torneo cibernetico match. Matt scored the first elimination of the match, eliminating Green Ant, but the brothers wound up being the fifth and sixth wrestlers eliminated from the match at the hands of Quackenbush and Player Dos. The Young Bucks returned to Chikara on April 23, 2010, at the 2010 King of Trios, where they teamed up with their brother Malachi as the Jackson 3. They were, however, for the second year in a row, eliminated from the tournament in the first round, this time losing to The Future is Now (Jigsaw, Equinox and Helios). Matt and Nick wrestled the match as heels in Generation Me tights and after the match abandoned Malachi in the ring, when he wanted to shake hands with his opponents. On the third night of the tournament the Bucks were defeated by Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw in a tag team match. The Young Bucks returned to Chikara on August 27, when Nick entered the Young Lions Cup IX tournament, while Matt defeated Johnny Gargano in a singles match. After Nick was eliminated from the tournament by eventual Young Lions Cup Champion Tadasuke, The Young Bucks teamed up to defeat The Batiri (Kodama and Obariyon) in a tag team match later that same day. On September 18, The Young Bucks defeated Tim Donst and Tursas of the Bruderschaft des Kreuzes in a tag team match. On November 13 at Chikara's first ever internet pay-per-view, High Noon, The Young Bucks, managed by Marty Jannetty, were defeated by The Colony (Fire Ant and Soldier Ant) in a Chikara Campeonatos de Parejas number one contender's match. The Young Bucks returned to Chikara in late April 2012, first defeating Arik Cannon and Darin Corbin in a regular tag team match on April 28, and then defeating the Batiri (Kobald and Kodama), Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (Jakob Hammermeier and Tim Donst), and the Spectral Envoy (Hallowicked and UltraMantis Black) in a four-way elimination match on April 29 to earn the right to challenge for the Campeonatos de Parejas. On June 2 at Chikarasaurus Rex: How to Hatch a Dinosaur, The Young Bucks defeated F.I.S.T. (Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano) in a Two Out of Three Falls match to win the Chikara Campeonatos de Parejas. The Young Bucks made their first successful title defense on July 29, defeating The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield and Mark Angelosetti). On September 14, The Young Bucks entered the 2012 King of Trios, teaming with Mike Bennett as Team Ring of Honor and defeating the Faces of Pain (The Barbarian, Meng and The Warlord) in their first round match. The following day, Team ROH advanced to the semifinals with a win over The Extreme Trio (Jerry Lynn, Tommy Dreamer and Too Cold Scorpio). Team ROH opened the third and final day of the tournament by defeating the all-female Team Sendai Girls (Dash Chisako, Meiko Satomura and Sendai Sachiko) in the semifinals. In the finals of the tournament, Team ROH was defeated by the Spectral Envoy (Frightmare, Hallowicked and UltraMantis Black). On November 10, The Young Bucks made their second successful defense of the Campeonatos de Parejas against the Spectral Envoy (Hallowicked and UltraMantis Black). The Young Bucks' third successful defense took place at the Under the Hood internet pay-per-view on December 2, where they defeated 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty. On February 10, 2013, The Young Bucks lost the Campeonatos de Parejas to 3.0 (Scott Parker and Shane Matthews), ending their reign at 253 days and three successful defenses. On May 18, The Young Bucks returned to Chikara to take part in the 2013 Tag World Grand Prix. After wins over The Baltic Siege (Estonian ThunderFrog and Latvian Proud Oak), The Spectral Envoy (Frightmare and Hallowicked) and The Batiri (Kodama and Obariyon), The Young Bucks were defeated in the finals of the tournament by Pieces of Hate (Jigsaw and The Shard). Matt and Nick made their Ring of Honor debut on May 29 and May 30, 2009 at The Arena in Philadelphia, PA where they were successful both nights in regular tag team matches, defeating the teams of Sal Rinauro and Brandon Day and Silas Young and Bobby Fish, respectively, in matches taped for the June 27 and July 18 editions of Ring of Honor Wrestling on HDNet. The Bucks would pick up their thus far biggest ROH victory on September 26, 2009, at Glory by Honor VIII: The Final Countdown, by defeating the, at the time, five-time ROH World Tag Team Champions the Briscoe Brothers. On December 19 at Final Battle 2009, ROH's first live pay-per-view, the Young Bucks picked up another big win, this time over former ROH World Tag Team Champions Kevin Steen and El Generico. After signing contracts with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, The Young Bucks wrestled their last HDNet tapings in January 2010, defeating The American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards) on the 8th and losing to the Briscoes in an ROH World Tag Team Title match on the 9th. On January 29 the Young Bucks wrestled their ROH farewell match, an eight man tag team match, where they teamed up with the Briscoe Brothers in a losing effort against the American Wolves and The Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli). On June 1, 2010, ROH announced that the Young Bucks, now using their TNA name Generation Me, would return to the company to take part in the July 23 and 24 shows. On July 23 Generation Me was defeated in their Ring of Honor return match by the American Wolves. The following day they were defeated by the ROH World Tag Team Champions, Kings of Wrestling, in a non–title match. On June 15, 2011, ROH announced that Generation Me would return to the promotion on June 26, wrestling in a dark match at the tapings of the Best in the World 2011 pay-per-view. They would win the match against Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly, following interference from the Bravado Brothers (Harlem and Lance). After the Young Bucks were granted a release from TNA, Ring of Honor announced on August 24, 2011, that they would return to the promotion on September 17 at Death Before Dishonor IX. At the pay-per-view The Young Bucks defeated Future Shock (Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly) and the Bravado Brothers in a three-way elimination match. On December 23 at Final Battle 2011, The Young Bucks won a four team gauntlet match to earn a shot at the ROH World Tag Team Championship. On February 4, the title match between The Young Bucks and the Briscoe Brothers was made official for the 10th Anniversary Show on March 4. In the match, The Young Bucks were unsuccessful in their title challenge. The Young Bucks would leave ROH later in the year, last competing at a Ring of Honor Wrestling television taping on August 3, where they lost to Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander in the opening round of a tournament to crown new ROH World Tag Team Champions. On July 12, 2013, it was announced The Young Bucks would be returning to ROH at All-Star Extravaganza V on August 3. The Young Bucks were defeated by Adrenaline Rush (ACH and TaDarius Thomas) in their return match; a three-way match, which also included C&C Wrestle Factory (Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander). On August 17 at Manhattan Mayhem V, The Young Bucks were defeated by the Forever Hooligans (Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero) in what was billed as a dream tag team match. On March 8, 2014, the Young Bucks defeated reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) to win the ROH World Tag Team Championship for the first time. On July 25, 2009, the Young Bucks appeared on Dragon Gate USA's first pay-per-view Enter the Dragon in a match, where they defeated the Warriors-5 of CIMA and Susumu Yokosuka. On September 6 at the second PPV titled Untouchable they were defeated in the main event by the Real Hazard of Ryo Saito and Genki Horiguchi. On November 28 at the third PPV Freedom Fight the Young Bucks wrestled in the same 6-way Open the Freedom Gate Championship tournament match, which was won by Gran Akuma. After signing contracts with TNA Wrestling, the Young Bucks made their fourth appearance for Dragon Gate USA on January 23, 2010, at Fearless, where they competed in a three-way elimination tag team match, which was won by the Muscle Outlaw'z (Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino). They were advertised to take part in the March 26 and 27 shows in Phoenix, Arizona, but TNA made the decision to pull them from the events. However, in February TNA and Dragon Gate USA came to an agreement and the Young Bucks will be allowed to make their farewell appearances. In March the Young Bucks made their final appearances for the company, losing to CIMA, GAMMA and Dragon Kid at Open the Ultimate Gate on the 26 in a six man tag team match, where they teamed with Jack Evans and losing to Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw in a tag team match at the tapings of Mercury Rising on the 27. The Young Bucks returned to the promotion on January 27, 2012, defeating Chuck Taylor and Scorpio Sky in a tag team match. The Young Bucks returned to Dragon Gate USA on January 25, 2013, defeating D.U.F. (Arik Cannon and Sami Callihan) in a tag team match. At the following day's iPPV, The Young Bucks picked up another win over the Jimmyz (Jimmy Susumu and Ryo "Jimmy" Saito), before going on to lose against the team of Akira Tozawa and AR Fox during another iPPV on January 27. On April 6 at Open the Ultimate Gate 2013, The Young Bucks defeated AR Fox and Cima to become the new Open the United Gate Champions. They made their first successful title defense on June 2 at an event promoted by Dragon Gate USA's close affiliate, Evolve, defeating Eita and Tomahawk T.T. Their second successful defense took place on July 28 at Enter the Dragon 2013, Dragon Gate USA's fourth anniversary event, where they defeated Rich Swann and Ricochet.[125] They lost the title to the Bravado Brothers on November 16. On December 21, 2009, the Young Bucks reached one of their personal goals as they took part in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's Impact! tapings, wrestling The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) in a tryout dark match, which earned them the praise of TNA management. On December 26, 2009, TNA president Dixie Carter announced on her Twitter account that TNA had signed the Young Bucks to a contract. The contracts signed were one year long. The team, renamed Generation Me, made their debut on the January 14, 2010, edition of Impact!, in which the brothers, renamed Max and Jeremy, defeated the Motor City Machine Guns. On the February 18 edition of Impact! Jeremy and Max were given the last name Buck. At Destination X Generation Me wrestled for the number one contendership to the TNA World Tag Team Championship in an Ultimate X match, but were defeated by the Motor City Machine Guns. Max and Jeremy spent the next months mainly wrestling singles matches. On the July 8 edition of Impact!, Jeremy picked up a major singles victory, defeating X Division Champion Douglas Williams in a non-title ladder match. Generation Me returned to pay-per-view on September 5 at No Surrender, where they replaced London Brawling (Desmond Wolfe and Magnus) and unsuccessfully challenged the Motor City Machine Guns for the TNA World Tag Team Championship. After the match Generation Me turned heel by attacking the champions and giving Alex Shelley a storyline injury with a double rope hung DDT. On the following edition of Impact! Max and Jeremy laid claim to the TNA World Tag Team Championship, claiming that the champions wouldn't be able to defend them for 30 days, due to Shelley's injury, before stealing Sabin's title belt. Shelley would however make his return two weeks later and promised Generation Me a rematch for the World Tag Team Championship at Bound for Glory. At the pay–per–view the Motor City Machine Guns defeated Generation Me to retain the TNA World Tag Team Championship. The following month Generation Me received a new fan in Tara. After Jeremy pinned Sabin in an eight person tag team match, where Generation Me teamed with Robbie E and Cookie and the Motor City Machine Guns with Jay Lethal and Velvet Sky, on the November 18 edition of Impact!, the Motor City Machine Guns challenged Generation Me to an Empty Arena match. The match took place later that same night on Reaction with the Motor City Machine Guns coming out victorious. On December 5 at Final Resolution Generation Me challenged the Motor City Machine Guns for the World Tag Team Championship in a Full Metal Mayhem match, but were once again unsuccessful in dethroning the defending champions. On December 21 Matt announced that he and his brother had agreed to one-year contract extensions with TNA. The following month they signed new two–year contracts. On the January 27 edition of Impact! TNA started a tournament to determine a new number one contender for X Division Champion Kazarian. In the first match of the tournament, Max Buck defeated Amazing Red and Chris Sabin in a three–way match to advance to the finals at Against All Odds. The following week Jeremy defeated Douglas Williams and Jay Lethal in another three–way match to also advance to the finals.[151] However, both Max and Jeremy were forced to miss the finals of the tournament at Against All Odds, after failing to get to Florida due to travel issues. The following month at Victory Road, both Max and Jeremy received their shot at the X Division Championship, held by Kazarian, in an Ultimate X match, which also included Robbie E. Prior to the match, the brothers teased dissension, with Max claiming that their goal was to make him the X Division Champion. At the end of the match Jeremy and Max finally started fighting amongst themselves, but in the end both of them failed in their attempt to win the X Division Championship, as Kazarian emerged victorious to successfully retain the title. At the March 15 tapings of Xplosion, the Bucks faced each other in a singles match for the first time in TNA, with Max picking up the win. Max and Jeremy faced each other in a rematch on the March 31 edition of Impact!, where Max was once again victorious. On the April 7 edition of Impact!, Generation Me teamed with Robbie E in a six man tag team match, where they faced Brian Kendrick, Chris Sabin and Suicide. At the end of the match, Max, thinking Jeremy was trying to steal the spotlight from him, turned on his brother, crotching him at the top tope, before dropping him to the mat with a rope hung DDT. After Kendrick had pinned Jeremy for the win, Max removed his Generation Me armband and threw it at his brother. On April 17 at Lockdown, Max defeated seven other men, including Jeremy, in an Xscape match to become the number one contender to Kazarian's X Division Championship. On the May 5 edition of Impact!, Generation Me, seemingly once again on the same page as faces, came together with Amazing Red and Brian Kendrick to fight for X Division's future, after the legitimate firing of Jay Lethal. On May 15 at Sacrifice, Max failed in his attempt to win the X Division Championship from Kazarian. At the all X Division pay-per-view, Destination X on July 10, Generation Me was defeated by the team of Eric Young and Shark Boy. This would end up being their last match in TNA as the following day Matt announced that he and his brother had requested their release from their contracts with the promotion. Matt and Nick later revealed that the request stemmed from monetary issues, while also venting their frustrations with TNA's booking, noting the storyline with Tara, which went nowhere, and the quickly aborted feud between the brothers. On March 18, 2013, Generation Me returned to TNA to take part in the tapings of the Tag Team Tournament One Night Only pay-per-view. After defeating Petey Williams and Sonjay Dutt in the first round, they were eliminated from the tournament in the second round by Team 3D (Bully Ray and Devon). At the tapings of the following day's Hardcore Justice 2 pay-per-view, Generation Me was defeated in a ladder match by Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Kazarian). On October 15, 2013, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced that The Young Bucks would be making their debuts for the promotion in the 2013 Super Jr. Tag Tournament, which starts October 25. In their debut, The Young Bucks will be representing the heel foreigner stable Bullet Club. In their debut match for the promotion, The Young Bucks defeated fellow Americans Baretta and Brian Kendrick, thanks to a pre-match assault by the rest of Bullet Club, to advance to the semifinals of the Super Jr. Tag Tournament. During the next two weeks, New Japan held seven smaller shows, with The Young Bucks main eventing every one of them, teaming with Bullet Club stablemate Karl Anderson in six-man tag team matches against the IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada and members of his Chaos stable. The Young Bucks suffered their first loss in the promotion on October 30, when they and Anderson were defeated by Gedo, Jado and Okada, who pinned Nick for the win. On November 6, The Young Bucks first defeated Gedo and Jado in the semifinals and then another Chaos team, the Forever Hooligans, in the finals to win the 2013 Super Jr. Tag Tournament. As a result of their win, The Young Bucks received a shot at the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship and on November 9 at Power Struggle, defeated Suzukigun (Taichi and Taka Michinoku) to become the new champions. The Young Bucks returned to New Japan on January 4, 2014, at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in Tokyo Dome, where they made their first successful title defense in a four-way match against the Forever Hooligans, Suzukigun and Time Splitters (Alex Shelley and Kushida). The Young Bucks made their second successful title defense on February 11 at The New Beginning in Osaka against the Time Splitters. Towards the end of the match, Matt legitimately broke his hand. Later that same event, Nick confronted and challenged IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Kota Ibushi. Nick received his title shot on April 3, but was defeated by Ibushi. Three days later at Invasion Attack 2014, The Young Bucks successfully defended the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Ibushi and El Desperado. On May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, The Young Bucks made their fourth successful title defense against the Forever Hooligans. The Young Bucks made their fifth successful defense on May 10 during the NJPW and ROH co-produced Global Wars event in Toronto, defeating Forever Hooligans and Time Splitters in a three-way match. Upon the Massies' departure from TNA, former TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rob Van Dam singled them out as two younger wrestlers he felt had acted disrespectfully towards him, a claim both of the brothers later refuted. After their WWE tryout on August 15, 2011, Van Dam's friend and WWE announcer Booker T made similar accusations towards the brothers.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 13:54:23 GMT -5
36. The Brothers of Destruction After The Undertaker won the WWF Championship at WrestleMania 13, Paul Bearer attempted to reunite with him the following night on Monday night RAW, the two having been engaged in a long period of mutual hostility ever since Bearer's Summer Slam 96' betrayal of The Undertaker. When the Undertaker rejected the offer, Bearer along with his then-protege and arch-enemy of the Undertaker, Mankind, launched a fireball into the face of The Undertaker. This culminated at April's In Your House 14: Revenge of the 'Taker event when The Undertaker returned the favor, launching a fireball of his own into the face of his former manager, who had unsuccessfully attempted to assist Mankind to victory in their WWF Championship match. On the May 12 episode of Raw, Foley reintroduced Bearer, whose face was heavily bandaged due to the burns The Undertaker had inflicted upon him. Bearer again made efforts to get Undertaker to be his protege, this time around, however, threatening the exposure of a fire-related secret, The Undertaker's "deepest, darkest secret." During the cryptic interview, Bearer likened the fire that had burned his face at "Revenge of the Taker" to a fire that had occurred during The Undertaker's childhood (the secret). The secret in question suggested that Bearer had a traumatic past with The Undertaker, long preceding Brother Love's joining the two as manager and protege in January 1991. The secret was as follows: The Undertaker's mother had an affair with Bearer and as a result, gave birth to a younger half-brother of The Undertaker, named Kane. (It's important to note that while growing up, Undertaker {and presumably his deceased father} lived the vast majority of his life {entirety of the father's life} under the belief that Kane was fully related to him and his family; that is, until Bearer unintentionally {kayfabe} revealed to a RAW audience that he was actually Kane's father, this as a result of an affair Bearer had with their mother and thus making Kane and Undertaker half-brothers). This came to light when Bearer informed Jerry Lawler on Monday night Raw, at a point in which he thought cameras had stopped rolling for a commercial but were still on. Growing up, Undertaker lived in a funeral home with his family. According to the secret, The Undertaker committed arson/murder, burning down the family funeral home, in the process, killing his parents and scarring his half-brother's face. Bearer, who survived the fire, hid Kane in a mental asylum during the rest of Kane's youth into adulthood. In the meantime, Bearer went on to form an alliance with The Undertaker while in the World Wrestling Federation, standing by his side for six years before eventually betraying him at SummerSlam 96'. After suffering mistreatment at the hands of Undertaker, who had long been vindictive and embittered over the SummerSlam 96' betrayal, Bearer opted to exact his own vengeance upon the Undertaker with the ultimatum of revealing his biggest secret. Feeling he had no choice, The Undertaker eventually obliged Bearer. While "managing" Undertaker this time around, Bearer became a tyrant, harassing and nagging at Undertaker constantly. At numerous points in which Undertaker attempted to take attitude, disobey, or even defend himself, Bearer would subjugate him by threatening exposure of the secret. Eventually however, Undertaker lost his patience and refused to allow Bearer to manage him any longer, leading to Bearer's exposure of the secret. At the time, Undertaker denied charges of committing the arson/murder, claiming his younger half-brother, a pyromaniac, was the culprit and due to the incident couldn't possibly even be alive (it's important to note that approximately a year and a half later from this point, during the latter part of 1998, Undertaker exposes himself as dishonest by shamelessly confessing to committing the arson/murder, shortly prior to his 1999 heel shtick as the dark priest of The Ministry of Darkness). Bearer accused The Undertaker of not only being a "murderer", but a "liar" while The Undertaker denied the charges. The Undertaker thought his younger half-brother, Bearer's illegitimate son, had been dead for years, that is, until Bearer introduced Kane at Badd Blood: In Your House on October 5, 1997, costing The Undertaker the victory in the first-ever Hell in a Cell match with Shawn Michaels. In keeping with the notion that Kane had been scarred by the fire—and to conceal Jacobs' identity—the character wore a mask, sported long hair, and wore red and black ring attire that almost covered his entire body. Kane wanted to take out all of his pent-up and vindictive aggression out on his "brother" but Undertaker refused to fight his own "flesh and blood." Kane attacked and embarrassed The Undertaker on several occasions but Undertaker still refused to fight. After Kane surprisingly saved Undertaker from an attack by D-Generation X, the duo had a brief partnership which ended after Kane betrayed Undertaker by costing Undertaker a casket match against WWF Champion Shawn Michaels for the WWF Championship at Royal Rumble 1998. He chokeslammed Undertaker into the casket, which helped in Michaels getting the win. After the match, Kane and Paul Bearer locked Undertaker in the casket and set it ablaze. The two continued to feud. Undertaker returned later on an episode of Raw is War and changed his mind and agreed to fight Kane. This led to a match at WrestleMania XIV, which Undertaker won after hitting him with three tombstone piledrivers. They met each other in the first-ever Inferno match at Unforgiven: In Your House, which again Undertaker won by burning his brother. On June 1, 1998 edition of Raw is War, they wrestled in a number one contender's match for the WWF Championship, which Kane won with help from Mankind. On the June 6 episode of Raw is War, Kane and Mankind attacked WWF Champion Steve Austin. On the following "Raw is War" episode Austin blamed Vince McMahon for setting up the attack. McMahon denied it and blamed the attack on The Undertaker. Undertaker denied setting up the attack and teamed up with Stone Cold to face Kane and Mankind in the first ever tag-team Hell in a Cell match. The match ended in no-contest as the referee failed to restore order in the match. At King of the Ring 1998, Kane and Austin faced each other in a First Blood match for Austin's WWF Championship. The stipulation was that if Kane lost, he would set himself on fire. The referee was knocked out and Undertaker interfered in the match with a steel chair and came to hit Kane with the chair but accidentally nailed Austin with the chair, which helped Kane to win the championship. Undertaker formed a partnership with Kane after he later revealed that he attacked Austin because he didn't want his "brother" to be burned. Undertaker started a rivalry with Stone Cold, who later regained the WWF title from Kane while Kane and Mankind won the WWF Tag Team Championship. At Fully Loaded: In Your House, the duo were forced to team up together and defeat Kane and Mankind to win the titles. They dropped the titles back to Kane and Mankind in a fatal four way tag team elimination match, also involving New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn and Road Dogg) and Nation of Domination (The Rock and Owen Hart) on an edition of Raw in August. This move occurred after they couldn't patch up with each other. This led to a title match at SummerSlam, with Undertaker facing Austin for the WWF title. At that event, he and Kane became a team known as the "Brothers of Destruction" after Kane abandoned Mankind during their Tag Team title defense against New Age Outlaws and instead interfered in the Undertaker versus Austin match when he tried to help his "brother" but Undertaker sent him back. As a result, Austin nailed the Stone Cold Stunner for a victory. At Breakdown: In Your House, Undertaker, Kane and Austin faced each other in a triple threat match for Austin's WWF title. Undertaker and Kane could only pin Austin so they pinned Austin at the same time. Vince McMahon vacated the title since there was no clear winner. At Judgment Day: In Your House, Kane and Undertaker faced each other for the vacant title with Austin as the special referee. Undertaker turned heel during the match as he betrayed Kane for Paul Bearer, thus turning Kane in to a tweener. The match ended in a no-contest as Austin attacked both men and declared himself the winner. Shorty after, Undertaker admitted to setting the fire that scarred Kane's face when they were children. Their feud continued. Undertaker faced Austin at Rock Bottom: In Your House in a Buried Alive Match. During the match Kane interfered and attacked Undertaker and helped Austin get the win. They separated from each other and went on their own. In early 1999, with Kane now a member of The Corporation and Undertaker now the leader of the Ministry of Darkness, they faced each other in their second Inferno match. Undertaker once again got the win. In the summer of 1999, The Undertaker's Ministry of Darkness was beginning to fade away, while Kane was in a tag team with X-Pac whom he won the WWF Tag Team Championship twice with. The Undertaker attempted to reunite the team, but Kane made the ultimate decision to remain in his team with X-Pac, when he found out The Undertaker was only using him. Shortly after that The Undertaker would form a tag team with The Big Show with whom he won the WWF Tag Team Championship twice with, to feud with Kane and X-Pac. The Undertaker eventually was injured in the fall of 1999, with Kane going his own way again. They reunited again in the summer of 2000 (it should be noted that at this time, Undertaker had taken on the "American Badass" biker persona instead of the satanic character he had portrayed previously), and challenged Tag Team Champions Edge and Christian for the tag titles on an edition of Raw is War but they were disqualified, so they didn't win the titles. On August 14 edition of Raw is War, Undertaker faced Chris Benoit in a match, where Kane turned on Undertaker by chokeslamming him through the ring, and the two feuded with each other again. This culminated in a match at SummerSlam 2000, which resulted in a no contest when Undertaker unmasked Kane, causing him to flee the ring. At Royal Rumble 2001, Undertaker and Kane teamed up eliminating most of the field in the Royal Rumble match. Kane entered number 6 and finished second eliminating 11 wrestlers. Undertaker came in at number 25 and came sixth after being eliminated by Rikishi. The two reunited later that same month and on February 1, 2001 edition of SmackDown!, they defeated Rikishi and Haku in a brutal First Blood match. They got a shot at the tag titles at No Way Out 2001, facing the champions Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von) and Edge and Christian in a tables match. The Brothers of Destruction dominated the entire match, and nearly had the match won until Rikishi and Haku interfered. At WrestleMania X-Seven, Kane defeated Raven and Big Show to win the WWF Hardcore Championship and The Undertaker defeated Triple H. The Undertaker and Kane started focusing on then Intercontinental Champion Triple H, who would soon make a surprise alliance with WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin known as Two-Man Power Trip. They were granted an opportunity to face Steve Austin and Triple H at Backlash, if they could defeat Edge and Christian in a no-disqualification match for the titles. On April 19 edition of SmackDown!, the Undertaker and Kane defeated Edge and Christian to win their first WWF Tag Team Championship as a team, despite interference from Austin and Triple H. As a result of winning the titles, Brothers of Destruction earned the right to face Steve Austin and Triple H. At Backlash 2001, all major titles were on the line but despite that, Triple H pinned Kane after using a sledgehammer, thus making him and Austin the new WWF Tag Team Champions as well as the WWF Champion (for Austin) and the WWF Intercontinental Champion (for Triple H). With Kane injured, The Undertaker began targeting Steve Austin and his WWF Championship. On an edition of Raw is War, the Undertaker was told by police officers that his wife Sara had been involved in a car accident. The Undertaker arrived home, only to find out that it was all a set-up by Austin. At Judgment Day 2001, Kane defeated Triple H to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship in a chain match, despite interference from Steve Austin. Later that night, The Undertaker dominated his WWF Championship match with Austin. Triple H interfered once more, however, using his sledgehammer, allowing Austin to pin the Undertaker and retain his championship. Diamond Dallas Page was the next person to get in the Undertaker's way. Page wanted to become a big star, just like the Undertaker, and so he started a feud with him, taking the Undertaker's slogan, "I'll make you famous" quite literally. The basis of this feud involved Page stalking the Undertaker's wife Sara. On the August 9 episode of SmackDown!, they defeated the Natural Born Thrillers (Chuck Palumbo and Sean O'Haire) to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship. At SummerSlam 2001, the Undertaker and Kane defeated Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Kanyon in a steel cage match to win their second WWF Tag Team Championship and retain the WCW World Tag Team Championship, thus briefly unifying the two titles. Brothers of Destruction began a feud with KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark), who were brought to WWF by Stevie Richards. On September 17 edition of Raw is War, Kane and Undertaker lost the WWF tag titles to Dudley Boyz after KroniK interfered. At Unforgiven 2001, they successfully defended their titles against KroniK before losing them to Booker T and Test on the following edition of SmackDown!. They continued on as a team representing the WWF side through onto the end of the Alliance Invasion angle, including their participation at InVasion[36] and Survivor Series 2001 after which the Undertaker immediately turned heel once more and the two did not interact with each other for a long while. The duo first appeared together in 2002's WWE Draft, standing right next to each other when Undertaker was drafted to Raw. The duo next appeared together during the first few moments of No Mercy 2002 as they both had title matches that night. They next teamed up again unofficially at the Royal Rumble 2003, but the Undertaker turned on Kane during the Royal Rumble match and eliminated him. Later that year at the Survivor Series 2003, an unmasked and heel Kane interfered in the Buried Alive match between Undertaker and Vince McMahon, costing Undertaker the match. Kane would go on to say that the Undertaker was buried forever. The two would end the feud with a match at WrestleMania XX in 2004, in which the Undertaker returned to his Deadman character, and defeated his half-brother Kane. The brothers had a short run-in with each other in 2005. At the Royal Rumble 2005, Undertaker was in a scheduled match against then-heel Heidenreich in a Casket Match. Before the match, Gene Snitsky, who was in a feud with the face gimmick Kane, told Heidenreich he would help him that night. Due to the interference, Heidenreich was positioned to win. However, when the casket was asked to be opened, Kane emerged from the casket and battled Snitsky out of the arena, letting Undertaker defeat Heidenreich. Original plans were for this to lead to a tag team match at WrestleMania 21, but the plans were scrapped when The Undertaker instead decided to take on Randy Orton. They did team up during house shows taking on Snitsky and Heidenreich. The last time Kane and the Undertaker would meet in 2005 was during an interpromotional match where neither of the men were involved. While Kane, who was helping his partner Big Show against Rey Mysterio, pretended to leave when Undertaker entered the arena, he would inevitably receive a chokeslam from Undertaker after a failed sneak attack. Notably, both brothers were faces at the time, however Kane was a member of the Raw brand and Undertaker was a member of the SmackDown brand. Because the match was held on SmackDown (and the SmackDown brand was portrayed more favorably in that year's brand warfare storyline), Kane and Big Show were portrayed as tweeners without ever officially turning in that direction. The return of the Brothers of Destruction was announced on October 27, 2006 edition of SmackDown!. Montel Vontavious Porter interfered with Kane's match against Mr. Kennedy, helping Kennedy beat down on him before the lights went out and the Undertaker's music came on. When the lights came back on Kane was gone, nowhere to be found. As a result of the interference, general manager Theodore Long scheduled a tag team match: The Brothers of Destruction vs Kennedy and MVP. The next week on SmackDown!, the Brothers of Destruction reunited for the first time as a tag team in five years and gathered three wins over MVP and Mr Kennedy in that one night. The first win was made by countout when MVP and Mr. Kennedy refused to re-enter the ring, at which point General Manager Theodore Long came out and restarted the match with no countouts. Kennedy then delivered a blatant low blow to Kane in front of the referee, getting disqualified. Long came out again, and restarted the match with no disqualifications or countouts. Finally, the brothers hit simultaneous chokeslams, and Undertaker finished with a Tombstone piledriver to Mr. Kennedy. The brothers continued to feud with their individual opponents before reuniting for a rematch on the last SmackDown! before Armageddon. This time, the match would go to a double disqualification as Kennedy threatened to run over Kane with a hearse parked ringside. The Undertaker, who had run off MVP, emerged in the passenger seat as his gong tolled and the lights went out, thus scaring Kennedy out of the vehicle. At Armageddon, Undertaker defeated Kennedy in a Last Ride match, which was why the hearse had been at ringside for the last two weeks, and Kane defeated MVP in an inferno match. The next week on SmackDown!, the Brothers would reunite once again, defeating King Booker and Finlay, before parting ways as Undertaker successfully pursued the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 23. On October 12, 2007 edition of SmackDown!, the Brothers of Destruction reunited for the first time in 2007, defeating WWE Tag Team Champions MVP and Matt Hardy in a non-title match. The Brothers of Destruction reunited for the first time in 2008 on the February 1, 2008 episode of SmackDown, defeating Big Daddy V and Mark Henry by submission. At WrestleMania XXIV, both brothers became world champions: Kane winning the ECW Championship, and Undertaker winning the World Heavyweight Championship. On the April 4, 2008 edition of SmackDown, Undertaker and Kane faced each other for the first time since WrestleMania XX. The match finished with no decision as "La Familia" (Edge, Chavo Guerrero, and Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder) interfered. In tandem, however, Kane and Undertaker delivered a Chokeslam and Tombstone Piledriver to Chavo and Edge respectively. The Brothers of Destruction also made an appearance when ECW traveled to London, England on April 15, 2008, facing current WWE Tag Team Champions John Morrison and The Miz who also fell victim to tandem chokeslams. On the April 21, 2008 edition of Raw, the Brothers of Destruction teamed with John Cena and Triple H to take on the team of John Bradshaw Layfield, Chavo Guerrero, and the one night only reunion of Rated-RKO (Edge and Randy Orton) in a losing effort, after Edge hit Kane with a Spear. On the November 13, 2009 episode of SmackDown, after his match with Chris Jericho which was ended after interference from Jericho's partner The Big Show, Kane came to the aid of his brother to chase off "Jeri-Show". The Brothers of Destruction would reunite on the November 20th episode to face the tag team of Chris Jericho and The Big Show. The match ended in a No Contest, and Jericho subsequently fled the ring during the match after pilfering the Undertaker's championship belt. On the June 4 edition of SmackDown, SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long announced that the Undertaker was found in a vegetative state by his brother Kane. He vowed to find out the identity of The Undertaker's attacker, and for weeks he accused and interrogated other superstars. At Money in the Bank, Kane won the Money In The Bank ladder match to win a World Heavyweight Championship title shot any time, anywhere. Later that night, Kane chased off one of The Undertaker's potential attackers, Jack Swagger, who was attacking Rey Mysterio. Kane then returned to successfully cash in his Money In The Bank contract to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Kane would then claim that Rey Mysterio was The Undertaker's attacker, although Mysterio denied it. At SummerSlam, Kane defended his championship against Mysterio, during which The Undertaker returned to confront Kane and Rey Mysterio. The Undertaker, however, was tombstoned by Kane, who was revealed to be the Undertaker's attacker all along. This resulted in a feud between the two. Kane and Undertaker met at Night of Champions, which Undertaker lost. With Kane seeming to have grown stronger than his older brother, The Undertaker was boosted by the return of his former manager, and Kane's father, Paul Bearer (who hadn't been seen for many years, since June 2004 when The Undertaker betrayed him by drowning him in a crypt of cement). With Bearer by The Undertaker's side like old times, the two squared off again at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view in a Hell in a Cell match for the World Heavyweight Championship. Paul Bearer, however, betrayed The Undertaker by blinding him with the urn, allowing Kane to chokeslam him for the victory. The feud culminated with a Buried Alive match at Bragging Rights, in which The Undertaker lost again due to interference by The Nexus, allowing Kane to bury the Undertaker alive, possibly evening a longtime score for The Undertaker's initial ablaze of his brother as children. After the event, The Undertaker went just to appear on WWE, but only sporadically. Kane continued to be World Heavyweight Champion, until he lost his title to Edge at TLC. During this feud, he was seemingly making failed attempts at defending his father from Edge; though in April 2012, Bearer returned for a brief stint as a part of Kane's ongoing feud with Randy Orton. Bearer was kidnapped by Orton and then stuck in a storage freezer while strapped to a wheelchair. Kane later came for Bearer, only to betray him by rolling him back into the freezer while stating, "I'm saving you...from me." On July 23, 2012 during Raw 1000, the brothers reunited against Jinder Mahal, Curt Hawkins, Tyler Reks, Hunico, Camacho and Drew McIntyre when they were planning to attack Kane. This led to the return of The Undertaker, who assisted Kane in fighting off the six attackers (hinting that Taker forgave Kane for his betrayal), reuniting The Brothers of Destruction. They cleared the ring before delivering simultaneous chokeslams and Tombstone Piledrivers to Hawkins and Hunico. After that the brothers did their signature pose. Undertaker and Kane were once again reunited on the March 11, 2013 episode of Raw following the real-life death of Paul Bearer. As Undertaker was attempting to pay tribute to Bearer, he was interrupted by his WrestleMania 29 opponent CM Punk. This caused an irate Kane to attack CM Punk, leading to a match between the two later in the night. Kane was victorious in the match thanks to interference from The Undertaker and the two then once again tried to pay tribute to Bearer, however they were again interrupted by Punk who attacked Kane with Bearer's urn and then left the arena with it, at WrestleMania both Undertaker and Kane were victorious, extending The Streak to 21-0 and retaining the Tag Team Championship respectively. The brothers reunited once again the night following WrestleMania 29 on the April 8, 2013, edition of Raw, when Kane and his Team Hell No tag partner Daniel Bryan rushed to the Undertaker's aid as he was about to be attacked by The Shield. The Shield members then exited, performing their signature pose. Two weeks later on the April 22 edition of Raw, there was a six-man tag match: The Brothers Of Destruction/Team Hell No (Undertaker, Kane, and Daniel Bryan) vs. The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns). The Shield emerged victorious in the encounter, able to separate Bryan from his teammates.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 14:02:21 GMT -5
Countdown so far 75. The Jumping Bomb Angels 74. The Powers of Pain 73. Kane & X-Pac 72. The Usos 71. The Nasty Boys 70. The Second City Saints 69. The Gangstas 68. The Fabulous Rougeaus 67. Rated RKO 66. The Eliminators 65. The Spirit Squad 64. Booker T & Goldust 63. The Von Erichs 62. The Quebecers 61. Candice LeRae & Joey Ryan 60. Owen Hart & British Bulldog 59. The Super Smash Brothers 58. The Foreign Legion 57. The Dancing Fools 56. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood 55. The Briscoe Brothers 54. Stone Cold Steve Austin & Dude Love 53. The Briscos 52. The Fabulous Ones 51. The Age of the Fall 50. Minnesota Wrecking Crew 49. AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels 48. reDRagon 47. Latin American Xchange 46. Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel 45. Doom 44. America's Most Wanted 43. Kevin Steen & El Generico 42. Rob Van Dam & Sabu 41. Brian Kendrick & Paul London 40. Generation Next 39. Cho-Ten 38. The Hollywood Blonds 37. The Young Bucks/Generation Me 36. The Brothers of Destruction
Clues to the next five tag teams
* Don't turn your back on the Wolfpac
* Everyone has a price and always pay your taxes
* New Zealand's Most Well-Known Tag Team
* They Exploded At WrestleMania V
* We Have Got The Crown
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 16:40:40 GMT -5
35. The Outsiders The Outsiders were formed in 1996 when Scott Hall and Kevin Nash returned to World Championship Wrestling after leaving the World Wrestling Federation. In the storyline, Hall, better known to fans at the time as Razor Ramon, led an invasion, appearing on WCW programming and insinuating that he was doing so under orders from his WWF employers and warning that he would soon be joined by others. He was joined by former WWF Champion Nash, then best known as Diesel, a week later. A lawsuit from the WWF caused Eric Bischoff to point blank ask The Outsiders if they worked for the WWF, which both emphatically denied. Their angle was the precursor to the heel turn of Hulk Hogan and the formation of the New World Order (nWo), a major wrestling storyline that dominated WCW programming for several years afterwards. The Outsiders captured the WCW World Tag Team Championship six times, first winning them from Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) at Halloween Havoc in October 1996. They dropped the title to The Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott Steiner) at the 1997 Souled Out event, only to have WCW President Eric Bischoff reverse the decision on the next night's edition of WCW Monday Nitro. A near repeat of these events occurred the next month when Hall and Nash lost to the team of Lex Luger and The Giant at SuperBrawl VII, with Bischoff again abusing his power and quickly returning the titles to The Outsiders. The Outsiders became the cornerstones of the nWo and were popular with the fans despite being heels and feuding with babyfaces such as the Steiners and Lex Luger and the Giant. During promos, Hall would occasionally refer to the Outsiders as "The People's Choice" in recognition of their popularity. In October 1997, fellow nWo and ex-Kliq member Syxx began substituting for a legitimately injured Nash, teaming with Hall to defend the titles on numerous occasions. The Outsiders and Syxx claimed they were doing this under "Wolfpac Rules", also referring to themselves as the Wolfpac. Hall and Syxx eventually lost the title to the Steiner Brothers on October 13, 1997. The Outsiders and Steiners traded the title back and forth at both televised and non-televised events until Scott Steiner turned on his brother, joining the nWo and giving the title to Hall and Nash. In May 1998 at Slamboree, the Outsiders were scheduled to defend the tag team titles against Sting and The Giant during a storyline in which the nWo was splitting in two warring factions. Hall turned on Nash during this match, costing them the titles as well as dissolving the team, having chosen to join nWo Hollywood as opposed to the splinter faction Nash formed under the Wolfpac name. Hall's personal problems began to affect him and while Nash was his enemy, he still showed obvious care and concern for his estranged friend. The split team faced each other once later in the year where Nash repeatedly powerbombed the inebriated Hall into unconsciousness before leaving the ring to take a countout loss. They reunited in early 1999, and stayed a team even after the nWo once again fell apart. After an aimless couple of months (Nash lost a retirement match), of just wandering around being pests to the other talent, they won the WCW World Tag Team Championship one last time in December 1999. It did not last, however, as Hall legitimately no-showed an event, the title was stripped from them, and the team was dissolved. In 2002, with the World Wrestling Federation owning WCW and its trademarks, The Outsiders and Hogan reformed as the nWo in a WWF ring. The reunion was short lived as Hogan turned face at WrestleMania X8, Nash was injured, and Hall was released from WWE shortly after their arrival. In late 2004 and early 2005, Hall and Nash teamed again, this time in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling as part of the Kings of Wrestling trio with fellow nWo 2000 alum Jeff Jarrett, but they were not allowed to use the name New World Order or The Outsiders, as its copyright is now owned by the WWE. In October 2004, vignettes began airing, where Nash and Hall appeared to be on different sides in the upcoming NWA World Heavyweight Championship match between Jeff Jarrett and Jeff Hardy at Victory Road. Hall and Nash debuted on November 7 at Victory Road interfering in the ladder match for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and in the end revealed they were on the same side by both attacking Hardy with guitars. After the match, Nash cut a promo on how they were better than the entire TNA locker room and challenged anyone to oppose them. A.J. Styles accepted, but was beaten down by the new stable. Randy Savage then made his debut in TNA, entering the Impact Zone to face off with the villains. On TNA Impact! the following week, Nash proclaimed the trio of himself, Hall, and Jarrett to be called "The Kings of Wrestling". Hall, Nash and Jarrett began wearing goofy Elvis-style jumpsuits and sunglasses, and wreaked havoc on multiple episodes of Impact! before being challenged and defeated by Savage, Styles and Hardy in a six-man tag team match at Turning Point. After the six man tag match, Savage was next in line for a title shot (having pinned the champ, Jarrett, in the match), but in light of him leaving the company, Director of Authority Dusty Rhodes appointed a three way match at Final Resolution to achieve a number one contender to the NWA Title. The first two competitors announced were Diamond Dallas Page and Monty Brown. The third was Kevin Nash, Jarrett's ally in the KoW. The group hit a period of friction, as Nash openly competed for the title shot at Final Resolution (losing when Page dumped him over the top rope), before earning a shot at Jarrett's NWA title at Against All Odds. After the pay-per-view, where Nash was unsuccessful in his attempt at the title, the KoW parted ways. Hall resurfaced on the Impact! show prior to Genesis in 2007, teasing as Sting's partner for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship tag team match. At Turning Point, Hall and Nash were supposed to have their first tag team match together in a TNA ring since 2004, also teaming with Samoa Joe to take on the Angle Alliance but Hall was replaced in the match by Eric Young, who eventually won the match with his team. Hall told TNA Management he did not show at the event because of health problems. On the January 4, 2010, live, three hour, Monday night edition of TNA Impact! Hall and Sean Waltman returned to TNA and quickly reformed their alliance with Kevin Nash. This incarnation would soon be officially known as The Band. Nash and Hall were advertised to make their return as a tag team on January 17 at Genesis, but at the event Hall was replaced by Waltman, who, teaming up with Nash went on to lose a tag team match against Beer Money, Inc. (Robert Roode and James Storm). The reunion didn't last long, as on the February 4 edition of Impact! Hall and Waltman turned on Nash. However, this betrayal was a ruse, as at Destination X, Nash turned on his new partner Eric Young and re-joined Hall and Syxx-Pac, who, with their victory, now had contracts with the company. Upon winning these new contracts the trio began using an instrumental version of the nWo Wolfpac theme, as well as occasionally calling themselves the Wolfpac once again, though their official name remained the Band. At Lockdown Nash and Hall made their return to tag team action in a steel cage match, where they were defeated by Team 3D. On May 4, at the tapings of the May 13 edition of Impact!, after TNA World Tag Team Champion Matt Morgan had been attacked by Samoa Joe, Nash cashed in his "Feast or Fired" contract, teaming with Hall, and pinned him to win the TNA World Tag Team Championship. The Band's newest member, Eric Young, was also given a share of the Championship and the three defended the titles under the Freebird rule. At the June 14 tapings of Impact! The Band was stripped of the Tag Team Championship due to Hall's legal problems. Hall and Nash main evented Dream Stage Entertainment's May 8, 2004 Hustle 3 pay-per-view, losing to the team of Shinya Hashimoto and Naoya Ogawa. On August 10, 2008 Nash and Hall teamed up again as The Outsiders at Bloodymania II to defeat The Thomaselli Brothers (Brandon and Vito Thomaselli). Nash also positioned himself as a member of the Juggalo World Order, which Hall was already a part of. On the March 21, 2009, The Outsiders teamed for Great Lakes Championship Wrestling against The New Age Outlaws in what was the first nWo vs DX match. Kevin Nash, walked out on Scott Hall, and the two were set to face off later in June.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 16:46:32 GMT -5
34. Money Inc. Both Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster had gimmicks that focused on money. Schyster, whose initials spelled I.R.S., portrayed an evil tax accountant. DiBiase had used the gimmick of an arrogant millionaire in the WWF since 1987. He called himself the "Million Dollar Man" and created his own championship belt, the Million Dollar Championship. He was involved in angles that included purchasing the WWF Championship and paying wrestlers and fans to perform demeaning tasks. DiBiase and Schyster formed the tag team of Money Inc. in February 1992 when Jimmy Hart put their names in place of The Natural Disasters (Earthquake and Typhoon) on a contract for a WWF Tag Team Championship match against Legion of Doom (LOD). DiBiase and Schyster, managed by Hart, defeated LOD at a house show on February 7, 1992 in Denver, CO, to win the title. This title win was unusual for professional wrestling, as Money Inc. had not yet debuted as a team on WWF television programming. In addition, the decision to give the championship belts to Money Inc. was made in a hurry, as LOD's Hawk had failed a drug test. The wrestlers were unaware until that night that the title would change hands, and Money Inc.'s win was not immediately acknowledged on television, as WWF programming was taped in advance. The Natural Disasters, upset by Hart's assistance to a rival tag team, fired Hart as their manager and turned face, beginning a feud with Money Inc. over the WWF Tag Team Championship. Money Inc. defended their title against The Natural Disasters at WrestleMania VIII and lost the match by countout. Because titles can only change hands via pinfall or submission, Money Inc. retained the belts. This result repeated itself on television and at house shows. After Hawk's suspension ended, the Legion of Doom got a rematch against Money Inc. at SummerSlam 1992. However, when SummerSlam arrived, Money Inc. had already lost the titles to the Natural Disasters via pinfall on July 20, 1992. At SummerSlam, the Legion of Doom won the match when Animal pinned DiBiase. At the October 13, 1992 Wrestling Challenge taping, Money Inc. faced The Natural Disasters in a rematch for the WWF Tag Team Championship. The match was originally scheduled pitting the Disasters against the Nasty Boys, who were also managed by Hart, but at the last minute, Hart had replaced them with Money Inc. Because of this, the Nasty Boys split with Hart and attacked Money Inc. before the match. Later on, the Headshrinkers interfered on behalf of Money Inc. and helped DiBiase to make Earthquake submit to the Million Dollar Dream, thereby winning Money Inc. the Championship. After the match, the Nasty Boys again attacked Jimmy Hart. At the 1992 Survivor Series, an 8-man elimination tag team match pitting Money Inc. and the Beverly Brothers against the Natural Disasters and the Nasty Boys was won by the Nasty Boys. This was the only major victory The Nasty Boys got over Money Inc., as they failed to win the tag team title in several shots on television and at house shows in late 1992 into early 1993. On the February 15, 1993 airing of Monday Night Raw, Ted DiBiase wrestled a match against Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. Beefcake had sustained a real-life injury to his face in 1990. While Beefcake was wrestling his first match in over three years, DiBiase and Schyster attacked him. DiBiase held Beefcake for Schyster to hit him in the face with the briefcase, but Jimmy Hart repeatedly got in the way before Schyster shoved him out of the ring. I.R.S. then hit Beefcake in the face with the briefcase. Hart justified his face turn by claiming that he felt the need to "step up and do the right thing" and that he "had a change of heart." Shortly thereafter, Hulk Hogan made his return to WWF television, and he teamed with Beefcake to form The Mega-Maniacs with Hart as their manager. Hogan and Beefcake challenged Money Inc. for the WWF Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania IX. During the match, the referee sustained a kayfabe injury and was knocked unconscious. Hart jumped into the ring, turned his jacket inside-out to reveal black and white stripes similar to a referee's shirt, and made the three-count to give the match to The Mega-Maniacs. Hogan, Beefcake, and Hart celebrated by opening Schyster's briefcase and throwing his money into the crowd. Ultimately, a second referee appeared and the Mega-Maniacs were disqualified because Hogan used Beefcake's steel face protector as a weapon. Money Inc. feuded with The Steiner Brothers in the spring of 1993. At the 1993 King of the Ring, The Steiner Brothers and The Smokin' Gunns defeated Money Inc. and The Headshrinkers in an 8-man tag team match. The following day, June 14, 1993, the Steiners defeated Money Inc. for the WWF Tag Team Championship. Two days later, Money Inc. regained the titles, only to drop them back to the Steiners three days later. Although Money Inc. received several rematches, they were unable to win the belts back from the Steiners. After failing to regain the WWF Tag Team Championship, Money Inc. went into a feud with Razor Ramon. DiBiase had been making fun of Ramon over his upset loss to the 1-2-3 Kid, and even offered Ramon a job as his servant. Ramon was furious with DiBiase and turned face during their feud. Soon after, Ramon distracted DiBiase in a match against the 1-2-3 Kid, causing the Million Dollar Man an embarrassing loss of his own. At SummerSlam 1993, Razor Ramon defeated Ted DiBiase in what would be DiBiase's last WWF match. Later in the event, I.R.S. defeated the 1-2-3 Kid. DiBiase went on a leave of absence for several months, and Schyster returned to singles competition, feuding with Ramon. Mike Rotunda, who portrayed Schyster, and Ted DiBiase continue to be close friends in real life,[31] and they have reunited on several occasions following the disbanding of Money Inc. In 1994, DiBiase formed the Million Dollar Corporation, a stable of heel wrestlers. Schyster was one of the first wrestlers to join the group and remained in the stable until leaving the WWF in 1995. In 1996, DiBiase and Rotunda (the latter as V.K. Wallstreet) were briefly together again in World Championship Wrestling as members of the New World Order. Money Inc. made a surprise one-night return at Raw Family Reunion on October 9, 2006. Ric Flair had a match against Mitch of the Spirit Squad. All five members of the Spirit Squad were present, so Flair brought out Rowdy Roddy Piper, Money Inc., and Arn Anderson as his backup. Flair's allies kept the Squad in check, enabling Flair to win the match. At the 15th Anniversary special edition of Monday Night Raw on December 10, 2007, Money Inc. had a brief reunion during a 15-man over-the-top-rope battle royal. After I.R.S. was the last man standing out of the 14 wrestlers that made it to the ring, DiBiase came out as the 15th entrant and paid I.R.S. to eliminate himself. As a result, DiBiase was named the winner of the match. They were also reunited on an episode of RAW in 2010 where they fought with fellow legends after a match between DiBiase's son Ted DiBiase and Christian.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 17:02:43 GMT -5
33. The Sheepherders/Bushwhackers Luke Williams and Butch Miller started wrestling as The Kiwi Sheepherders for NWA New Zealand (later known as All-Star Pro Wrestling) in 1964, where they achieved a great deal of regional success. The duo was brought to America in 1965 by fellow New Zealander Steve Rickard, who was also the booker for "NWA Hawaii". Williams and Miller initially worked in Canada for various promotions, most notably Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling, billed as The Kiwis (Miller was known as "Nick Carter" and Williams was known as "Sweet Williams"). The Kiwis began their first recorded title reign by defeating Bob Pringle and Bill Cody for the Stampede International Tag Team Championship on 6 January 1974. The Kiwis lost the title to Tokyo Joe and the Great Saki, only to regain it a short time later. The Kiwis lost the title for good to Stan Kowalski and Duke Savage, and were unsuccessful in subsequent rematches. The Sheepherders then worked for the World Wrestling Council as Los Pastores. A short time into their run with WWC, they defeated Puerto Rican legends Carlos Colon and Invader I for the WWC North American Tag Team Championship, defending it for a month and a half until being defeated by "Los Medicos". Los Pastores regained the belts on 22 May, and held them until coming up short against Jack and Jerry Brisco on 8 August 1981. After the team left WWC, Miller decided he wanted to move closer to home and went to Australia to wrestle. Williams remained in the United States, determined to keep The Sheepherders name on everyone’s lips by reforming the team with "Lord" Jonathan Boyd (Formerly of the Royal Kangaroos). The duo of Williams and Boyd quickly gained a reputation as one of the most violent, hard hitting teams in the business. One of the first people to feel the wrath of the new Sheepherders was Robert Fuller in South Eastern Championship Wrestling. In late 1981, Robert Fuller and Jos LeDuc had split up after LeDuc turned on Fuller during a match. LeDuc brought in the Sheepherders to be a part of his "Commonwealth Connection" stable to fight against Robert Fuller and the entire Fuller family. In December 1981, the Sheepherders won the NWA Southeast Tag Team Championship, which had been vacated when Fuller and LeDuc split, and defended the title against Robert Fuller and various partners, including his brother Ron Fuller, and his cousin Jimmy Golden (later known as Bunkhouse Buck). The Sheepherders became the most despised heels in SECW after the duo attacked and injured (storyline) Jimmy's father, Billy Golden. The Sheepherders kept the upper hand in this feud for months, as Robert Fuller recruited partner after partner in futile attempts to defeat them. On 11 September 1982, the Sheepherders finally lost to Fuller and Golden, ending the feud on a high note for the faces, as the Sheepherders were "run out" of the territory. Boyd and Williams next appeared in the Memphis, TN based promotion Continental Wrestling Association run by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler. Making their debut in October 1982, the team quickly became involved in a heated feud with Jacques Rougeau (who wrestled in Memphis as Jerry Roberts at that point) and Terry Taylor, clashing weekly with them at the Mid-South Coliseum, with the Sheepherders brawling their way to victory time and again. Taylor and Rougeau redeemed themselves in the end by defeating the Sheepherders in a brutal "Coal Miner's Glove" match. The resilient Sheepherders returned to the ring later that same night and defeated the territory's main stars Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee. The next feud of Boyd and Williams' was arguably their most memorable and certainly their most bloody and brutal; a long-running series of heated encounters with The Fabulous Ones (Stan Lane and Steve Keirn). The contrast between the “pretty boy”-styled, technically polished Fabulous Ones and the ugly, brawling savage Sheepherders made them effective opponents and repeatedly drew big crowds wherever they fought. The series of matches started out fairly evenly, with the Fabulous Ones and the Sheepherders splitting the wins, but soon turned brutal, and bouts often ended without a definite winner. In late 1982, the Sheepherders won the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship from The Fabulous Ones, which seemingly turned the intensity of the matches up a notch. Between late December 1982 and mid-February 1983, the title switched hands between the teams 4 times, with The Fabulous Ones ending up champions in the end. On 28 March 1983, the Sheepherders wrestled their last match in the Mid-South Coliseum before leaving the CWA. Boyd and Williams resurfaced in Southwest Championship Wrestling only weeks later, continuing their brutal and destructive ways. Their first targets were the reigning Southwest Tag Team Champions “The Grapplers” (Len Denton and Tony Anthony). In May 1983, the Sheepherders captured the title through nefarious means; before the match Williams and Boyd had bribed the Grapplers’ manager Don Carson, and he promised they would become tag team champions. Carson turned on the Grapplers mid-match to ensure the Sheepherders’ victory. The Sheepherders' run with the gold was short lived; in June, Jonathan Boyd legitimately broke his leg in a car accident, causing SWCW to name Bobby Jaggers as his replacement. After Williams and Jaggers lost a non-title match to Bob Sweetan and Sweet Brown Sugar, Williams turned on Jaggers and the title was vacated. While Boyd was out with the broken leg, Williams was reunited with his old tag-team partner Butch Miller, straight in from Australia. Williams and Miller stayed with SWCW through the rest of 1983, and into 1984, when the team came head to head with the Fabulous Ones once again; this time the prize they fought over was the SWCW World Tag Team Championship. The Fabulous Ones had supposedly won the title in Australia, though it is generally believed the tournament they won to be crowned was actually a fabrication made up by SWCW. The Sheepherders dethroned The Fabulous Ones on 4 March, and would hold the title until the it was retired by SWCW in September 1984. The next major stop for Miller and Williams was a return to Puerto Rico and the WWC, this time competing as “The Sheepherders” instead of “Los Pastores”. On 6 January 1985 they defeated Invader I and Invader III for the WWC North American Tag Team Championship in Bayamon, PR. They would lose and then regain the titles from Invaders I & III in March, and then hold on to the gold until August, when the Invaders won it back. While the Sheepherders were enjoying the weather and the action in Puerto Rico, another Sheepherders team was spreading destruction all over the CWA in Memphis. For the first time, a Sheepherder team existed without Luke Williams as a member, as Jonathan Boyd teamed up with Rip Morgan (former flag bearer for the Sheepherders) to continue the legacy of violence under the name “The Kiwi Sheepherders”. Boyd and Morgan quickly made a mark on Memphis by beating their recurring nemeses, the Fabulous Ones, for the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship on 17 June 1985. The team was soon stripped of the titles due to their excessive cheating, but had the titles returned to them when they threatened to sue CWA management. Instead of taking the belts from the Kiwi Sheepherders by bureaucratically stripping them away, the Fabulous Ones took them from them the old fashioned way – beating them 4 times in a row between 5 September and 12 October. After the series of violent matches with the Fabulous Ones came to an end, The Kiwi Sheepherders began feuding with another team that would eventually turn out to be a constant thorn in their side: the Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers). In the winter of 1985, the Kiwi Sheepherders and the Fantastics traded wins back and forth with no side gaining a clear advantage in the feud. In January 1986, the Kiwi Sheepherders defeated the team of Koko Ware and Rick Casey as well as team of Tojo Yamamoto and Dirty Rhodes to reach the finals of a tournament to crown new Southern Tag Team Champions, but they fell in the finals to the Fantastics. This loss only intensified the Sheepherders’ anger, bringing the feud to its high point as the two teams clashed in a “No DQ Loser Leaves Town” match on 20 January 1986. The Kiwi Sheepherders lost and left Memphis, while the Fantastics rode a new wave of popularity gained from the feud. When Williams and Miller returned to mainland USA and Bill Watts' UWF, they quickly reminded everyone who the original Sheepherders were by beating Ted DiBiase and Steve Williams for the UWF Tag Team Championship on 16 March 1986, but fell to their namesakes' enemies The Fantastics on 30 March in Tulsa, OK. The Sheepherders continued for the UWF on and off over the next couple of years, taking time out to participate in the first ever Jim Crockett Memorial Tag Team Cup, in which they beat Hector and Chavo Guerrero in the first round, then downed The Rock 'n' Roll Express in the second round. In the third round, they clashed with the Fantastics in an out of control brawl that ended in a double DQ. The winners of this match would have gone on to face eventual tournament winners the Road Warriors in the next round. Back in the UWF for its big “Mid South Superdome Show”, The Sheepherders clashed with The Fantastics once more; this time Williams and Miller lost in a “New Zealand Boot camp” match to the UWF Tag champions. After being unable to beat the Fantastics in several rematches, The Sheepherders traveled back to Puerto Rico during the summer of 1986 and beat the Rock’N’Roll RPMs (Mike Davis and Tommy Lane) for the WWC World Tag Team Championship on 3 August. They defended the titles for about 6 weeks before losing them back to the RPMs on 21 September. When this short run with the WWC ended, Williams and Miller sought new challenges and traveled to Florida where they worked for Championship Wrestling from Florida. There, The Sheepherders came across their old archenemies, the Fabulous Ones, instantly rekindling their violent feud. On 7 October, The Sheepherders ended The Fabulous Ones’ first reign with the NWA Florida United States Tag Team Championship, and would keep them away in rematches until Lane and Keirn finally got the better of them on 30 November, and regained the belts. In late November 1986, the Kiwi Sheepherders returned to the CWA. Bob Hallow joins and is billed as "Bigfoot", and Boyd cut through the competition and won their fourth Southern Tag Team Championship when they beat Jeff Jarrett and Billy Joe Travis in the finals of a tournament. Their run with the titles was brief, as Jarrett and Travis won the titles one week later, and then ran The Kiwi Sheepherders out of the CWA in a “Loser Leaves Town” match the following week. The Kiwi Sheepherders had hardly left the Memphis area before Williams and Miller, the original Sheepherders, entered the territory. On 10 January, they beat the up-and-coming team of Badd Company (Pat Tanaka and Paul Diamond) for the CWA/AWA International Tag Team Championship but lost it back to Badd Company as fast as they had won it. After the quick feud with Badd Company, The Sheepherders once again became entangled in a feud with the Fabulous Ones. In what would turn out to the last series between the Sheepherders and the Fabulous Ones, Keirn and Lane dominated the matches and once again “ran off” the Sheepherders. After leaving Memphis, The Sheepherders were invited to participate in New Japan Pro Wrestling’s “IWGP Tag Team Title League 1987”. The round-robin tournament took place from 23 February to 20 March, with The Sheepherders finishing in the bottom three of the standings. They only had a brief stay with New Japan, opting to return to Puerto Rico and the WWC. Here they started a bloody feud with Chris and Mark Youngblood, that drew large crowds. The feud saw Williams and Miller win the WWC World Tag Team Championship on 4 April, and then defend it until the Youngbloods regained the titles on 10 May in a steel cage match. After their spring run with the WWC, The Sheepherders returned to Florida and instantly became challengers for Mike Graham and Steve Keirn’s NWA Florida Tag Team Championship. On 26 June 1987, they added that title to their resume by brawling and cheating. A month later, The Sheepherders defended their Florida Tag Team title at the Great American Bash from the Miami Orange Bowl, brawling to a double disqualification with Jimmy and Ron Garvin. Their run with the title came to an end on 29 August at the hands of Graham and Keirn. After losing the Florida titles, Williams and Miller returned to the UWF and began a second run as the UWF World Tag Team Championship after defeating the Lightning Express (Brad Armstrong and Tim Horner) on 16 October. The Sheepherders held the belts until the UWF was purchased by Jim Crockett and merged into Jim Crockett Promotions(JCP), to form the forerunner of WCW. After this merger, The Sheepherders worked for JCP, participating in the third Jim Crockett, Sr. Memorial Tag Team Tournament Cup. In the tournament, they beat the The Cruel Connection (#1(Gary Royal) and #2(George South)) in the first round, then defeated Tim Horner and Brad Armstrong in the second round. The Sheepherders then faced and lost to The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane), also in the second round to fill the empty 23rd spot in the bracket. At Clash of the Champions II, they faced off against the NWA United States Tag Team Champions, The Fantastics, in a losing effort. At Clash of the Champions III, they lost to Steve Williams and Nikita Koloff, despite the interference of Rip Morgan on their behalf. Just as it looked like the Sheepherders were about to face the Fantastics in the finals of a tournament to crown new United States Tag Team champions, Luke Williams and Butch Miller signed with Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation. Williams and Miller debuted with the WWF in the midst of its aggressive national expansion, giving them greater exposure than they had ever had before. The team's name was changed to The Bushwhackers, and they changed their violent style to a comedic style which was an instant hit with WWF fans. The comedy act involved licking (each other as well as their opponents), exaggerated arm movements, and more. The Bushwhackers made their WWF in-ring debut on 3 January 1989 at a WWF Superstars of Wrestling taping. Only a few days into their run with the WWF, the Bushwhackers had their first match with a team they would encounter repeatedly over the next year and a half, The Bolsheviks (Boris Zhukov & Nikolai Volkoff). In February the Bushwhackers began a feud with The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, the first feud to really feature the Bushwhackers on WWF television. The two teams would take their conflict to WrestleMania V which saw the Bushwhackers victorious in their WWF Pay Per View debut as a team. The WrestleMania match was not the end of the Bushwhackers/Rougeau feud as the teams clashed again on the 14 October edition of Saturday Night's Main Event (taped 21 September), once again the Bushwhackers were victorious. The Bushwhackers and the Rougeaus would clash twice more, first at the 1989 Survivor Series and again at the 1990 Royal Rumble both times with the Bushwhackers getting the best of the Rougeau brothers. During this time the Bushwhackers began to feature in a long series of comedic vignettes, usually subjecting ”Mean” Gene Okerlund to their wild and wacky ways (and sardine eating antics). These vignettes were often featured on Coliseum Home Video releases where they served as the “link” between matches. The Bushwhackers quickly became one of the most popular duos among the viewers, chiefly due to the wildly comedic nature of their antics (including their trademark "Bushwhacker Walk"), their catchy faux-Australian musical theme, and the high level of their friendly interaction with the audience. By 1990 the Bushwhackers were established as a solid mid-card comedy act feuding with the newly establish heel team known as Rhythm and Blues (The Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine). The Bushwhackers’ WrestleMania VI appearance came at the expense of Rhythm and Blues as they showed up during a segment, attacked Honky Tonk Man and Valentine and then broke R & B’s guitars to the delight of the crowd. Later on the team would be used to help establish newcomers The Orient Express (Pat Tanaka and Akio Sato). The feud with the Orient Express culminated at Survivor Series 1990 where Williams and Miller teamed up with Nikolai Volkoff and Tito Santana to form “The Alliance” and take on Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov and the Orient Express team dubbed “The Mercenaries”. The Bushwhackers eliminated the Orient Express but were eliminated themselves as well. At the 1991 Royal Rumble, Williams set a rather unfortunate record as he lasted a total of 4 seconds. Using the trademark arm-swing walk, he climbed into the ring, was immediately grabbed by Earthquake, dragged across the ring in a straight line and thrown over the top rope, and proceeded to leave the arena—without missing a beat—using the trademark arm-swing walk. The Bushwhackers received a shot at the WWF World Tag Team Title on the 27 April edition of Saturday Night's Main Event against The Nasty Boys, but on that night Williams and Miller were not able to add the gold to their impressive collection as the Nasty Boys retained their titles through underhanded tactics. In a televised 6 man tag-team match the Bushwhackers teamed with Tugboat against Earthquake and the Nasty Boys, Tugboat turned on his partners after a few minutes of action and joined Earthquake in laying the two New Zealanders out cold. After the heel turn Tugboat changed his name to Typhoon and together they became known as “The Natural Disasters”, one of the heaviest tag-teams in the world. The Bushwhackers demanded a chance to get even with the big team but were easily defeated at the 1991 SummerSlam PPV. After destroying the Bushwhackers the Disasters targeted André the Giant who was at ringside on crutches due to an earlier attack from Earthquake. The assault was stopped by the Legion of Doom who ran off the Natural Disasters After the Natural Disasters began feuding with the Legion of Doom the Bushwhackers came across a team that was the total opposite of what they were. Williams and Miller the fun loving, “working class” guys started a feud with the rich, snobby bratty Beverly Brothers (Blake and Beau). The two teams first clashed at the 1991 Survivor Series where they were on opposite sides in a 4 on 4 elimination match. On the night the Beverly Brothers got the upper hand and eliminated both Williams and Miller. The Beverly Brothers’ manager The Genius kept interfering in the matches so the Bushwhackers brought in a manager of their own, the nerdy Jamison. Despite the addition of Jamison, the Beverly Brothers defeated the Bushwhackers at Royal Rumble 1992. The Bushwhackers did gain some small measure of revenge on the Beverly Brothers when they defeated the team in a “dark match” at WrestleMania VIII. The Bushwhackers’ next PPV was at Summer Slam 1992 where they teamed up with Jim Duggan to defeat “The Mountie” Jacques Rougeau and the Nasty Boys in a dark match. In 1993, the Bushwhackers were used to “put over” the newly signed team the Headshrinkers (Fatu and Samu) and made a few appearances in comedy matches alongside midget “Tiger” Jackson (later “Dink The Clown”) against the Beverly Brothers and “Little” Louie. In August, the Bushwhackers made a quick trip to Puerto Rico to appear at the WWC 20th Anniversary show on 8 August where they defeated the monstrous team of Mr. Hughes and The Warlord. When the team returned to US soil Williams and Miller helped Doink the Clown in the clown’s feud with Bam Bam Bigelow. Williams and Miller, as well as Mo and Mabel, all appeared at Survivor Series 1993 wearing the trademark green wig and face paint associated with Doink the Clown. The Bushwhackers and Men on a Mission defeated Bigelow, Bastion Booger and the Headshrinkers in a match that played more for laughs than serious wrestling. In 1994, the Bushwhackers started feuding with The Heavenly Bodies (Tom Prichard and Jimmy Del Ray), losing to the team in a dark match at WrestleMania X The team also faced another recently signed team: Steven Dunn and Timothy Well also known as Well Dunn. By 1995, the Bushwhackers are used almost exclusively to put over teams such as The Blu Twins. In March 1996, the Bushwhackers returned to the WWF after a 6 month hiatus to participate in a tournament to crown new tag team champions. The Bushwhackers were beaten in the first round by eventual winners The Bodydonnas (Skip and Zip). When the Bushwhackers returned in 1996 it was a slightly revamped version that ignored the fact that both members were from New Zealand as they displayed traditional Australian Stereotypes, including being accompanied to the ring by a giant kangaroo mascot. On 14 September, the Bushwhackers made their last appearance while under contract with the WWF. After leaving the WWF, the team made special appearances in the independent circuit, including a return to WWC for its 24th Anniversary show, where they were billed as the Sheepherders and took on old rivals, Invaders I & II. They also appeared at a special event in Amarillo to celebrate “50 years of Funk” where they lost to old rivals Mark and Chris Youngblood. In 1998, they made a couple of appearances in ECW under the names Luke and Butch Dudley as allies to The Dudley Boys and were billed from the Down Under Section of Dudleyville. In 1999, the Bushwhackers participated in a “wrestling nostalgia” PPV called Heroes of Wrestling, Williams and Miller took on and defeated former WWF Tag Team Champions, the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff. The Bushwhackers toured the UK in 2000. Williams and Miller made one of their last appearances as active wrestlers on 1 April 2001 when they participated in the WrestleMania X-Seven ”Gimmick Battle Royal”. On 15 June the team returned to Memphis one last time, fighting The Moondogs to a double disqualification on a special ”Mid-South Clash of the Legends” show In June 2008, WWE's SmackDown and ECW brands returned to New Zealand (Auckland and Christchurch). WWE Superstar MVP guested Butch Miller from the Bushwhackers and Tony Garea on his international edition of the VIP Lounge. Both Williams and Miller have retired from professional wrestling but work behind the scenes in Puerto Rico and New Zealand respectively. Williams is attempting a comeback and wrestled in a barbed-wire steel cage match. The Bushwhackers appeared as themselves in a 1994 episode of the sitcom Family Matters, wrestling against Carl Winslow and Steve Urkel, who are forced to fill in for and wrestle as "The Psycho Twins." They also appeared in The 1998 How Many Times music video for The Insane Clown Posse.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 17:07:46 GMT -5
32. The Kings of Wrestling The team came about on February 20, 2005, in the finals of Chikara's Tag World Grand Prix 2005, when Chris Hero turned on his Super Friends partner Mike Quackenbush and joined Claudio Castagnoli and Arik Cannon. Cannon left the group in December of that same year. Hero and Castagnoli continued teaming together, and in 2006, became the first Chikara Campeones de Parejas by winning the 2006 Tag World Grand Prix tournament, defeating Milano Collection A.T. and Skayde in the final round. Hero and Castagnoli are also known for teaming in Combat Zone Wrestling. On September 10, 2005, they won the CZW World Tag Team Championship from The Tough Crazy Bastards, Necro Butcher and Toby Klein.[4] In 2005, Chris Hero became involved in a feud with Eddie Kingston. This feud involved Hero's partner Castagnoli as well as Kingston's stablemates from BLKOUT. At Cage of Death 7, Hero and Castagnoli defended the tag titles against Kingston and Sabian, and at An Afternoon of Main Events, they teamed with Super Dragon, with whom they formed an alliance, to face Kingston, Sabian, and Ruckus. In February 2006, the Kings of Wrestling lost the titles to Eddie Kingston and Joker. In late 2005, Chris Hero began a war with Ring of Honor. Castagnoli, who was a member of the ROH roster at the time, said he would be loyal to ROH despite his relationship with Hero. However, at the 100th Show during a CZW vs. ROH six man tag team match, Castagnoli came to the ring and turned on ROH, helping CZW win the match, and uniting with Hero for the first time in ROH. They went on to team together as the Kings of Wrestling to face and defeat B.J. Whitmer and Adam Pearce at How We Roll. On July 15, 2006, at Death Before Dishonor 4 Team ROH (Samoa Joe, B.J. Whitmer, Adam Pearce, Ace Steel, and Bryan Danielson (later replaced by Homicide) defeated Team CZW (Hero, Castagnoli, Necro Butcher, Nate Webb and Eddie Kingston) in a Cage of Death match to end the feud. In August 2006, the Ring of Honor tag title belts were stolen and later returned from champions Austin Aries and Roderick Strong. Hero revealed on his LiveJournal that he and Castagnoli were the culprits and would be challenging for the titles. On September 16, at Globy by Honor V Night 2 they defeated Aries and Strong for the championship with their new KRS ONE finisher, but only after illegally smashing Aries in his bruised ribs with Castagnoli's aluminum Zero Halliburton attache case. On October 14, 2006, the Kings of Wrestling defeated three other teams in a one night tournament at the CZW show Last Team Standing to become two-time CZW Tag Team Champions. They defeated Team Masturbation (Beef Wellington and Excalibur) in the first round, the BLKOUT (Ruckus and Human Tornado) in the second round, and the makeshift team of Justice Pain and Human Tornado (subbing for Pain's partner in the H8 Club, Nick Gage, who left the building before the match) in the third round. This has made the Kings of Wrestling the only Independent Triple Crown Tag Champions ever. On October 21, 2006, at Horror Business they also attempted to win the Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World Tag Team Championship to hold four different sets of Tag Team titles simultaneously, but were unable to dethrone the champions Super Dragon and Davey Richards. Around this time, it was announced that Castagnoli would be going to World Wrestling Entertainment. At Night of Infamy 5, the Kings lost the CZW tag championship to Sabian and Robbie Mireno after Eddie Kingston eliminated Hero from the match and the BLKOUT outnumbered Castagnoli for the win. On November 17, they lost the Campeonatos de Parejas to F.I.S.T. (Gran Akuma and Icarus) Afterwards, Hero turned on Castagnoli and kicked him out of the stable. They lost the ROH Tag Team Championship to Matt Sydal and Christopher Daniels on November 25 at Dethroned. On December 22, 2006, Larry Sweeney debuted in ROH to help the Kings of Wrestling defeat the Briscoe Brothers. The following night at Final Battle 2006, Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli lost a rematch to the Briscoes. After the match, Castagnoli announced that he would not be going to WWE, but Sweeney said he was only representing Chris Hero, for whom they had big plans, and the two walked out on Castagnoli. In February 2007, Chikara held the first annual King of Trios tournament. Originally, the Kings of Wrestling team was made up of Hero and F.I.S.T., but Hero was replaced with Chuck Taylor. They lost in the semifinals of the tournament. On April 22, Hero defeated Clastagnoli in a match where if Hero won, then Claudio would have to rejoin him. On May 25 at Chikara's Aniversario? event, Hero and Sweeney aligned themselves with Mitch Ryder, while Team F.I.S.T. recruited Young Lions Cup Champion Max Boyer, just as Hero was about to recruit him himself. The following day at the Aniversario! event the two factions within the Kings of Wrestling, Icarus, Akuma and Taylor, accompanied by Boyer, and Hero, Castagnoli and Sweeney, accompanied by Ryder, faced each other. F.I.S.T. were victorious, but after the match all eight men joined forces, after a pep talk by Ryder. Boyer would leave the promotion two months later and his spot in the group would be filled by Shayne Hawke. On September 22, 2007, at Cibernetico & Robin the Kings of Wrestling faced Team Mega Mucha Lucha in the annual torneo cibernetico match. The Kings won the match with Hero, Castagnoli and Mitch Ryder as the survivors, but since the match could only have one winner, they were forced to face each other. Castagnoli forced Hero to tap out and then pinned Ryder to win not only the match, but also his freedom from the Kings of Wrestling. On December 9, 2007, Castagnoli defeated Hero to win their feud. Afterwards, Hero left the company, disbanding the Kings of Wrestling, with Team F.I.S.T. continuing as its own faction. On December 19, 2009, at Final Battle 2009, Ring of Honor's first live pay-per-view, the Kings of Wrestling reunited as Hero and Castagnoli attacked the new ROH World Tag Team Champions, the Briscoe Brothers.[20] Afterwards, The Kings of Wrestling once again became a stable with the additions of Sara Del Rey, whom Hero and Castagnoli dubbed the "Queen of Wrestling", and their manager Shane Hagadorn.[21] Hero and Castagnoli attacked the Brisces once more at ROH's 8th Anniversary Show, also brawling with the Dark City Fight Club.[21] In January 2010 Hero and Castagnoli entered Pro Wrestling Noah's Global Tag League, but ended up losing all three of their matches. On April 3, 2010, at The Big Bang! Hero and Castagnoli defeated the Briscoes to win the ROH World Tag Team Championship for the second time. On August 15, 2010, Hero and Castagnoli defeated the Thomaselli Brothers, Briscoe Brothers, and Ring Rydas at Juggalo Championship Wrestling's Bloodymania IV to become the new JCW Tag Team Champions. Hero and Castagnoli were stripped of the titles on February 7, 2011. In July Ring of Honor announced the return of Tag Wars, where twelve tag teams would compete in three blocks to determine, which three would get to challenge the Kings of Wrestling in the final Ultimate Endurance match. On August 28 the Kings of Wrestling defeated The Dark City Fight Club (Jon Davis and Kory Chavis), The All Night Express (Kenny King and Rhett Titus) and the Briscoes in the Ultimate Endurance match to win the 2010 Tag Wars and retain the ROH World Tag Team Championship. Hero and Castagnoli returned to Noah on November 19, 2010, for a three week long tour. The team went undefeated in tag team matches, before being defeated on December 5, the final day of the tour, by Takuma Sano and Yoshihiro Takayama in a match for the GHC Tag Team Championship. On December 11, 2010, the Kings of Wrestling returned to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, unsuccessfully challenging ¡Peligro Abejas! (El Generico and Paul London) for the PWG World Tag Team Championship. On January 4, 2011, Hero and Castagnoli became the longest reigning ROH World Tag Team Champions by breaking the previous record of 275 days, set by the Briscoe Brothers. On April 1 at Honor Takes Center Stage, the Kings of Wrestling lost the ROH World Tag Team Championship to Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin), ending their reign at 363 days. The Kings' last appearance in Ring of Honor was on the first episode of Ring of Honor Wrestling after it moved to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. They tried to reclaim their championship from Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team but were unsuccessful. On the August 23, 2012 Hero and Castagnoli (under the new names of Kassius Ohno and Antonio Cesaro, respectively) reunited in an untelevised match to face the team of WWE Champion CM Punk & NXT Champion Seth Rollins at an NXT Wrestling taping; they lost.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 17:14:03 GMT -5
31. The Mega Powers The alliance between Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage began at the October 3, 1987 taping of Saturday Night's Main Event. Savage was in the middle of a fan favorite turn when he sought to win the Intercontinental Championship from The Honky Tonk Man. When Savage hit his diving elbow drop finisher on Honky Tonk for the pin, The Hart Foundation (who at the time were villains, all three managed by Jimmy Hart) came in and attacked Savage, getting Honky Tonk disqualified. When Honky Tonk shoved Miss Elizabeth, who was trying to stop them, she ran away to the backstage area; meanwhile, Honky completed his attempt to break his guitar over Savage's head. Shortly afterward, Elizabeth returned with Savage's former rival Hulk Hogan, at the time WWF Champion, who came and saved Savage from the assault. Afterwards, Savage extended his hand in friendship to Hogan, who accepted and the three paraded around the ring with their hands adjoined. Their alliance solidified Savage's change into a fan favorite, which had been brewing for weeks as fan support grew for him. Later that night, Hogan stated that the combination of "Hulkamania" and "Macho Madness" may become the most powerful force in WWF history. Hogan and Savage teamed for one match -- a handicap match at a non-televised house show, pitting them against Honky and the Hart Foundation. Hogan and Savage won, and nothing more was made of their alliance for several months. The Mega Powers officially formed as a tag team at WrestleMania IV, after Hogan helped Savage win the WWF Championship in a 14-man tournament. The tournament was made after Hogan lost the belt to André the Giant at The Main Event on February 5, 1988. Andre promptly sold the belt to "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, causing WWF President Jack Tunney to strip André of the belt. Hogan and André were both given byes in the first round of the tournament, fought to a double-disqualification in the quarterfinals. This had the side effect of giving Ted DiBiase a bye in the semifinals. Ultimately, Savage and DiBiase met in the final match of the tournament. The "Million Dollar Man" did all that he could to take out Savage (including the constant interference of André, who was acting as DiBiase's second for this match) but he couldn't keep him down. Savage eventually went to Elizabeth, whispering something to her. She ran backstage, as the fans were trying to figure out what was going on. A few minutes later, Elizabeth reemerged with Hogan. André and DiBiase seemed shocked by the turn of events. Hogan got revenge on DiBiase by hitting him in the back with a steel chair while André had distracted the referee by preventing Savage from getting to the ropes while locked in DiBiase's Million Dollar Dream. Savage was able to hit his diving elbow drop finisher and got the three count. After the match, they celebrated as a group. A few months later, with Hogan on leave of absence from the WWF and Savage feuding with DiBiase over the title. DiBiase and André attacked Savage during an interview segment, prompting Savage to challenge the two to a tag team match versus him and the partner of his choosing, which was accepted. Savage then revealed that his partner would be the returning Hogan. They let all wrestling fans know that they have become The Mega Powers and that they would meet André and DiBiase at SummerSlam. Their debut match as a tag team was at SummerSlam in 1988. They went against André the Giant and "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase in a match billed as "The Mega Powers versus the Mega Bucks". Jesse "The Body" Ventura, a longtime supporter of Savage's but a longtime adversary of Hogan's, served as referee for this match. The match didn't go as planned for the Mega Bucks. Elizabeth exposed her assets in skimpy panties after stripping off her skirt to the heels, resulting in the Mega Powers coming back to win the match. Ventura counted but stopped at two because he hesitated, so Savage forced the three-count. After SummerSlam, The Mega Powers were on top of the wrestling world. However, the two had an uneasy relationship, particularly when it became obvious Hogan would act friendly and/or protective toward Elizabeth. On two occasions on Saturday Night's Main Event, Hogan was insistent on Elizabeth appearing at ringside for his matches versus King Haku and Akeem. In the latter instance, Elizabeth's was endangered by Akeem and his allies, Slick and The Big Boss Man when Big Boss Man grabbed Elizabeth and placed her in handcuffs; before Big Boss Man could use his nightstick to strike Elizabeth, Savage ran out and made the save. While Savage showed concern for Elizabeth, he disregarded Hogan, who was still reeling from being attacked by The Big Boss Man and Akeem. At the 1988 Survivor Series, Hogan and Savage captained a team that faced a five-member squad headed by Big Boss Man and Akeem (whom by now were being billed as the Twin Towers). Hogan and Savage eventually won the match (last eliminating Haku; Big Boss Man and Akeem had been counted out and disqualified, respectively); during the post-match posing, Hogan again began acting friendly toward Elizabeth, visibly annoying Savage. In a post-match interview, pro-heel commentator Jesse Ventura interviewed Savage, playing up Savage's growing anger regarding Hogan's behavior toward Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth was not the only reason Hogan and Savage had issues with each other during their stint as a team. At the 1989 Royal Rumble, Hogan accidentally eliminated Savage in the Royal Rumble match when he went to put out Bad News Brown (with whom Savage was having a concurrent feud). The two appeared to make amends at the behest of their manager, but Savage was clearly upset after the event (which was ultimately won by Big John Studd). Things came to a full boil on NBC's prime-time special, The Main Event on February 2, 1989, when the two wrestled The Twin Towers. During the match, Akeem threw Savage out of the ring. Savage was thrown onto Elizabeth, knocking her unconscious. Hogan saw what happened and carried Elizabeth from the ring to the medical area. When Elizabeth was revived, she implored a distraught Hogan to return to the ring to help Savage, who had been left to fight the two gargantuans on his own for several minutes. Hogan eventually called for the tag, but Savage, who was furious with being abandoned during the match, slapped Hogan in the face. After some choice words to a confused Hogan, he took his World Title belt, and stormed back to the locker room. Hulk Hogan defeated The Twin Towers by himself. After the match, Hogan went to check on Elizabeth. Macho Man was back there too, who was caught in mid-tirade yelling to Elizabeth that as world champion he was tired of taking a backseat to both Hogan and Elizabeth in the Mega Powers pecking order. Upon Hogan's arrival, Savage turned his frustration to him, accused Hogan of trying to steal Elizabeth from him, and manipulate the belt away from him. Hogan implored Elizabeth to try and talk some sense into him before Savage attacked him by hitting him in the face with the title belt, sealing the end to their partnership and beginning their feud. Hogan's first response to Savage's actions was to challenge him at WrestleMania for the WWF Championship, which Savage eventually accepted. Most of the leadup to the match involved two things: the first being Savage showing (heavily edited and out of context) footage to prove that Hogan "lusted after" Elizabeth, after which Hogan would respond by showing the footage in its proper context and with explanation; and the question of whose corner would Elizabeth be in. Elizabeth ultimately announced she would be in a neutral corner.[1] On April 2, 1989, Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage, decided to settle the score at WrestleMania V for the WWF Championship. Although Elizabeth was stationed in her "neutral corner" for the match, she was eventually ejected from ringside after too many complications were caused by her attempting to assist both men at different points in the match. After an even match between both, Hogan eventually prevailed after kicking out of a Savage's diving elbow drop before "hulking up" and executing the leg drop to become WWF Champion for the second time. The two would continue their feud in the months following WrestleMania. Savage eventually replaced Elizabeth as his manager with Sensational Sherri and aligned himself with Hogan's co-star from the movie No Holds Barred, Tiny Lister (who appeared in character as Zeus, his role in the film). This extension of the angle would culminate at SummerSlam when Hogan and Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake (with a return appearance by Elizabeth) would defeat Savage and Zeus in the main event, and a December 1989 cage match between the two teams during a pay-per-view event entitled No Holds Barred: The Match, The Movie. Savage and Hogan would meet one last time for a WrestleMania V rematch on the February 23, 1990 edition The Main Event with Heavyweight Boxing Champion James "Buster" Douglas as the guest referee. Hogan would come out victorious yet again with Savage knocked out by Douglas post-match. By this time Savage had become the "Macho King", with Sherri as his Queen, after having defeated Hacksaw Jim Duggan for his King of the Ring crown. After his feud with Hogan came to a final conclusion Savage began a rivalry with The Ultimate Warrior, costing him his WWF Championship against Sgt. Slaughter at the Royal Rumble in January 1991. Savage and Warrior would face off in a retirement match at WrestleMania VII, which Savage lost. After the match Queen Sherri turned on him, which caused Miss Elizabeth to come from the crowd and save Savage. The actions turned Savage into a hero again, and he left the ring with Elizabeth to a loud ovation from the crowd. After that Savage became a commentator and while he generally supported the faces, he would make subtle potshots at Hogan. Later that year, Hogan was a guest on Paul Bearer's Funeral Parlor interview segment. When Hogan was attacked by The Undertaker and Ric Flair, Savage and Roddy Piper saved Hogan from the beating. While this did not officially reunite the Mega Powers, they had (in storyline) become amicable (if not friends) again. Savage returned to wrestling in 1992 and he and Hogan both competed in the 1992 Royal Rumble, but in terms of storyline the two more or less did not cross paths for the rest of either wrestler's tenure with the company; Hogan left the WWF in the summer of 1993, while Savage departed toward the end of 1994. Hogan and Savage's real-life friendship unraveled in 1992 when Elizabeth filed for divorce against Savage. In an interview with Radio WWF in 1993, Savage discussed the divorce, openly blaming Hogan and his wife for turning Elizabeth against him.[3] Rumor has it that Savage gave Hogan a black eye with a punch, a few days before Wrestlemania IX. Hogan in his autobiography, however, stated the black eye came from a jet ski accident incurred days before the event. This was later confirmed in an interview with Mike Schiavello. After Hogan and Savage patched up their real life differences, Hogan talked WCW president Eric Bischoff into signing Savage, who was increasingly unhappy with his diminishing role in the WWF. In his initial appearance on WCW Saturday Night, Savage made reference on air to his love/hate relationship with Hogan and was ambiguous as to where his allegiance was. He aided Hogan at Starrcade 1994 and shook his hand, signalling their alliance. Initially called "The Monster Maniacs" (presumably for legal reasons), Hogan and Savage teamed on January 25, 1995 at Clash of the Champions to battle Kevin Sullivan and The Butcher. On March 24, 1996 at Uncensored, The Mega Powers reunited to take on eight opponents in a Doomsday Cage Match. The opponents were "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Kevin Sullivan, "The Total Package" Lex Luger, The Faces of Fear (The Barbarian and Meng), Z-Gangsta, and The Ultimate Solution. They were known as the Alliance to End Hulkamania. At Clash of the Champions on January 23, 1996 from Las Vegas, Nevada, the duo lost to Ric Flair and The Giant. The team broke up again at Bash at the Beach on July 7, 1996. This time, it was Hogan who turned heel. Hogan came out seemingly to save Savage and Sting during their match with The Outsiders (Scott Hall and Kevin Nash) Hogan double-crossed Savage and Sting, dropping the leg on Savage three times, then forming the New World Order. WCW decided to work Hogan's and Savage's old real life feud into the storyline, going as far as having Hogan state that if Savage is going to accuse him of his divorce from Elizabeth, then he "doesn't need someone as ungrateful as 'The Macho Man' as a friend." Later that year, the former friends faced off at Halloween Havoc for the World Heavyweight Championship. Savage almost had Hogan beat, but thanks to Ted DiBiase and the Giant, Hogan retained the title and the nWo brutally beat Savage. Savage's ex-wife, Elizabeth, who was aligned with the Four Horsemen at the time, begged Hogan to stop hurting Savage, who she still cared deeply about. She covered his unconscious body to prevent anymore beatings and was spraypainted along with Savage. After losing to Hogan at Halloween Havoc, Savage went on hiatus. He returned to WCW in January 1997, joining Sting in the rafters, showing no alliance to either WCW or the nWo for a while. At SuperBrawl, Savage appeared ringside for the match between Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Savage became a villain by slipping Hogan a pair of brass knuckles when the referee's back was turned. Hogan used the weapon en route to his very first pinfall victory over Piper, and after the match, Hogan and Savage brutalized Piper together. The pair would team often, sometimes with the Outsiders, in tag matches with Savage now wearing similar wrestling attire to Hogan. However, in late 1997, after Hogan lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Sting, friction popped up between Savage and Hogan again, this time over who the leader of the nWo was. A brief feud between Savage and fellow nWo member Kevin Nash ended when they forged an alliance when they realized Hogan was playing them against each other to keep them away from chasing the WCW Championship. The feud came to a fever pitch when Savage took the title from Sting, only to have Hogan take it from him the next night. After that, the nWo split into two factions, with Hogan spearheading nWo Hollywood and Savage co-founding the nWo Wolfpac with Nash. The Outsiders split shortly after when Hall turned on Nash and joined up with nWo Hollywood. Their rivalry resumed for a brief period in 1999 when Savage lost the WCW Championship to Hogan in July, but the two never wrestled again after that. In 2000, Hogan and other legends formed the WCW faction known as the Millionaire's Club. During one memorable brawl at the end of a television taping between the Club and their opponents, Savage suddenly ran out and lent the Club his aid, turning the tide and effectively becoming a member after tapping fists with Hogan once the fighting ended. Hogan and Savage had reverted to fan favorite status by this time. This ended quickly, however, as Hogan left WCW in July 2000 and Savage was not seen again before WCW folded in spring 2001.
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on May 12, 2014 17:22:20 GMT -5
Countdown so far 75. The Jumping Bomb Angels 74. The Powers of Pain 73. Kane & X-Pac 72. The Usos 71. The Nasty Boys 70. The Second City Saints 69. The Gangstas 68. The Fabulous Rougeaus 67. Rated RKO 66. The Eliminators 65. The Spirit Squad 64. Booker T & Goldust 63. The Von Erichs 62. The Quebecers 61. Candice LeRae & Joey Ryan 60. Owen Hart & British Bulldog 59. The Super Smash Brothers 58. The Foreign Legion 57. The Dancing Fools 56. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood 55. The Briscoe Brothers 54. Stone Cold Steve Austin & Dude Love 53. The Briscos 52. The Fabulous Ones 51. The Age of the Fall 50. Minnesota Wrecking Crew 49. AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels 48. reDRagon 47. Latin American Xchange 46. Heath Slater & Justin Gabriel 45. Doom 44. America's Most Wanted 43. Kevin Steen & El Generico 42. Rob Van Dam & Sabu 41. Brian Kendrick & Paul London 40. Generation Next 39. Cho-Ten 38. The Hollywood Blonds 37. The Young Bucks/Generation Me 36. The Brothers of Destruction 35. The Outsiders 34. Money Inc. 33. The Sheepherders/Bushwhackers 32. The Kings of Wrestling 31. The Mega Powers
Clues to the next five tag teams
* A mattador & a model afterwards
* Crank the walls down
* Roll out the red carpet
* They needed visor wipers for when they are talking to Sgt. Slaughter
* They lie, they cheat, they steal
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Post by RI Richmark on May 12, 2014 18:07:58 GMT -5
Three more teams down including my #1:
1. The Mega-Powers (31)
2.
3. The Brothers of Destruction (36)
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12. Money Inc. (34)
13.
14. Steve Austin & Dude Love (54)
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21. Rated RKO (67)
22. Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith (60)
23. The Usos (72)
24. The Jumping Bomb Angels (75)
25.
And I think three more teams will be next.
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