May is Tag Team Appreciation Month throughout Wrestling Merchandise and Memories - with nearly 100 unique articles about tag team wrestling, tons of Top 50 lists and a daily Tag Team Spotlight. All Elite Wrestling has become the patron saint of Tag Team Appreciation Month. Here's why:
Tag Team Wrestling is in its DNA
Thanks to Matt and Nick Jackson being EVPs and one of the founders of AEW, there's an automatic premium put on the art of tag team wrestling. The Young Bucks appreciate the art form for what it is, and they figured out very quickly that in order to have a distinct difference in its programming, tag teams would need to be a prominent part of the equation.
Massive tag team roster
Take a look at the teams in the graphic at the top of this column. If you add to that other duos and trios, you have a collection that includes:
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The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens and Max Caster)
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Best Friends (Chuck Taylor, Trent and Orange Cassidy)
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The Butcher and The Blade
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The Chaos Project (Serpentico and Luther)
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The Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson / Alex Reynolds and John Silver)
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Death Triangle (Pac, Rey Fenix and Penta El Zero M)
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FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood)
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The Gunn Club (Austin, Colten and Billy Gunn)
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The Hybrid2 (Angelico and Jack Evans)
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Jurassic Express (Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy and Marco Stunt)
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Private Party (Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen)
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Proud and Powerful (Santana and Ortiz)
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SCU (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky)
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The Sydal Brothers (Matt and Mike Sydal)
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Top Flight (Dante and Darius Martin)
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The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson)
That's not including Impact Wrestling's The Good Brothers and tons of other makeshift teams from various factions within the promotion. This is a tag team roster that surpasses the mid-1980s WWF and NWA combined - which is astonishing when you think about it.
Tag Teams are given actual storylines
This is not a knock on WWE, but think about the last time there was an actual running storyline focused on the tag team championship. Perhaps when The Street Profits challenged The Viking Raiders to a series of (not-so-funny) sports vignettes?
Not so in AEW. Tag team matches can take up a show's main event, and are often given enough room to percolate backstage so what you're watching feels like it's a big deal. And of course, when you see them perform in the ring... tag teams end up delivering more often than not. Things of the above-mentioned Page and Omega vs. The Young Bucks... my personal choice for 2020 Match Of The Year.
They literally had a Tag Team Appreciation Night!
Not to call gimmick infringement here.... but AEW's Tag Team Appreciation Night on TNT came years after we began promoting our own Tag Team Appreciation Month (given, their August timing was a bit off from our May declaration).
But that small nitpick aside... the fact that they even promoted such an event shows that AEW knows where their priorities are at.