I had a theory about why the tag division still isn't really picking up steam despite a popular tag team at the top of the heap...
I asked 5 friends of mine (varying in age and fandom) to name the first 5 tag teams that sprung to their mind, and what they remembered. Here are the basic results:
Demolition - Bad asses/great finisher
Road Warriors - Bad asses/great finisher
Hart Foundation - Great team/great finisher
British Bulldogs - Great team/great finisher
Midnight Express - Best team ever/DOUBLE GOOZLE.
See a common trend? Tag teams with memorable finishers seem to resonate with people. Even Power & Glory, a nothing team with no titles to their credit, is remembered today because of the powerplex.
That being said (and admittedly my focus group was small), I can only think of one tag team with a double team finisher, and that's the Ascension (and they are garnering quite a cult following already). Do you think that if each team had some unique finisher as opposed to being called TEAM (fill in the blank), it might boost the division? Even the last time the division was good, we had the Twist of Fate into the Swanton, the 3D, etc.
Your thoughts...
Hells yeah. I'm all about the awesome tag team finishers, I think everyone knows that about me. That's why Hell No is so frustrating, because the WWE writing guys are still stuck on Act One of the story, where they're the wacky tag team who don't get along, and there hasn't been any progression from there. Once they won the tag belts they should have moved onto coming up with an awesome finisher (like a spike tombstone piledriver!) and gelling as a team. Instead, it's the usual underpants gnomes booking pattern of "funny idea, ???, profit!" where we spend months in a holding pattern because they don't know where to go next.