AEW has two of the best tag teams of the past 10 years on its roster. Neither are currently contending for the company’s tag titles, and haven’t been for a while.
The Jurassic Express will never be confused with the great Express teams of the past – the Midnight Express, the Rock ‘n Roll Express – but the pairing of “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry and Luchasaurus, former “Big Brother” reality show contestant Austin Matelson – are the tag champs, and their #1 contenders are the Gunn Club, Austin and Colten Gunn, who rose to the top contender spot by virtue of a long string of squash wins on the YouTube shows.
Meanwhile, FTR – Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood – are jobbing on “Dynamite,” when they actually get to do more than stand in the background of Maxwell Jacob Friedman cutting a promo on CM Punk.
And the Bucks – Matt and Nick Jackson – are floating aimlessly around the periphery, apparently by their own design.
The Jacksons, as EVPS, reportedly have a big say in, if not oversight of, the AEW tag division, so the push given greenhorns like the Jurassic Express and the Gunns at the expense of veteran, money-drawing teams like FTR and Santana & Ortiz, who have been similarly buried, pretty much for the duration of their AEW run, is on them.
And you have to wonder if the Jacksons are also behind whatever delay we seem to be seeing with the courtship that the Briscoe Brothers, Jay and Mark, have been trying to gem up with AEW that has frustratingly been stalled.
Fans of tag team wrestling can, for now, only dream about a chase for the tag belts involving the likes of FTR, the Bucks, Santana & Ortiz, the Briscoes, the Lucha Brothers, once Ray Fenix is able to return from injury.
In the here and now, we’re stuck with the Jurassic Express, whose matches have Jungle Boy working the Ricky Morton role because the Luchasaurus guy is a stiff, the Gunns, who are green as the beer at your local pub on St. Patrick’s Day, The Acclaimed, whose matches are almost starting to live up to Max Caster’s pre-match promo raps, and Kings of the Black Throne, Malachi Black and Brody King, who are somehow the #4 contenders on the strength of a grand total of two matches ever as a team.
If AEW was a publicly-traded company, the way this tag division is being booked would be grounds for charges of financial malfeasance on the part of whoever is in charge of things here.
As it is, somebody needs to get to booker and company president Tony Khan to let him know that he’s not getting the bang for the buck for whatever it is he’s paying for.
Us fans, in the meantime, will have to continue to slog through knowing that it could be a lot better.
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
