WHAT MAKES A truly great tag team? From The Kangaroos to The Funks, The Road Warriors to The Hart Foundation, and The Dudley Boyz to The New Day, history’s greatest groups seem to have one thing in common: a collective mentality. Top-tier units dedicate themselves to the pursuit of tag team glory, in many cases postponing—or even forgoing entirely—individual superstardom.
By no means is that mentality exclusive to pro wrestling. Chris Kazama is a producer with D.C.’s F1ght Club Pro (promoters of the Pan-Afrikan World Diaspora Wrestling championship). He’s also an avid participant in esports, or competitive video gaming, who now streams regularly on Twitch with his team, @WeAreCreedGames. In co-op gaming, as in tag matches, he says it’s crucial to check one’s ego at the door.
“It’s natural to want to be the star of the team,” Kazama explains. “But learning how important your specific role is—i.e., healer, sniper, power forward—is the key to creating a successful team. Whether learning how to communicate effectively without putting anyone down or accepting criticism, with esports, it’s all about sacrificing the ‘I’ for the good of the team.”
This year’s #1 team, Jey & Jimmy Uso, exhibited that mentality throughout our evaluation period (November 1, 2021 – October 31, 2022). The identical twins dominated as Smackdown champs all year long, unifying their title with the Raw tag belts back in May (TT100 CRITERIA: Momentum; Wins & Losses). Perhaps equally impressive, The Usos held down the fort on Friday nights while their cousin, WWE Unified champ Roman Reigns, gradually eased his way into a well-earned reduced schedule. They kept The Bloodline strong and on top in his absence (TT100 CRITERIA: “It” Factor).
Doing so required a change of heart for Jey Uso, who, during the ThunderDome Era, clashed with Reigns over the WWE Universal title. Jey eventually realized that it was easier to work with his cousin than against him. Good for him!
“It’s a mental adjustment to accept that we’re all a team moving towards the same goal, rather than one person trying to conquer the world, and some people just aren’t able to make that adjustment,” said Kazama. “I played for an NBA 2K esports league, and we’d hold tryouts often. A good number of those players would show us their single-player stats and how good they were. But, when the tryout started, they would underperform—simply because they would try to play single-player style against us. The team mindset just wasn’t there yet.”
In countless two-on-two bouts and six-man tags, The Usos have shown just how fluid, collaborative, and resourceful they really are (TT100 CRITERIA: Activity; Chemistry; Creativity). And, with the additions of little bro Solo Sikoa and “Honorary Uce” Sami Zayn to The Bloodline, new tensions emerged that somehow made The Usos’ stars shine even brighter.
“I think a big similarity between esports and tag team wrestling is that you have to have that level of trust in your partner that, no matter what happens, you have my back, and you’ll finish the task,” adds Kazama. “You have to know that person will stand at the edge of the earth for you, because they know you’d do the same for them.”
Will Jey & Jimmy Uso continue to show that level of trust in 2023? We’ll see. But, in 2022, they surely earned their spot as PWI’s top-ranked tandem.
This “Tag Team 100” section was compiled by Senior Writer Al Castle and Editor-in-Chief Kevin McElvaney, with additional consultation and feedback from other PWI staffers.
THE USOS
PLAYERS: JEY & JIMMY USO
[Photos by George Napolitano]
#1 HIGH SCORE: (2022) HOME CONSOLE: WWE
HOME CONSOLE: WWE
SPECIAL ATTACK: 1-D
Second-generation stars have long been at or near the top of WWE’s tag team division, but they took their game to a different level by unifying the Raw and Smackdown tag titles in 2022, then ruling over all other duos as the undisputed WWE tag team champions … Beat Randy Orton & Matt Riddle for the Raw tag team championship on the May 20 edition of … Reign as Smackdown champs dates back to July 2021 … At the time of this writing, Jey & Jimmy were mere days away from breaking
