By Jason Powell, Prowrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Dot Net readers were allowed a single vote per day for each of the 2018 awards categories. The following are the results of our poll for Best Tag Team along with our staff comments. Thanks to everyone who took part in the voting.
1. Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong (19 percent)
2. The Young Bucks (16 percent)
3. LAX (13 percent)
4. Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso (9 percent)
5. Tyler Bate and Trent Seven (8 percent)
Others (15 percent)
Will Pruett’s Thoughts: My vote here is a tie. The Young Bucks moved out of their comfort zone and up to heavyweight in NJPW this year and had some standout matches. The Golden Lovers (Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega) reunited and produced some of my favorite moments of the year. Both of these teams performed exceptionally outside of WWE, where tag team wrestling is allowed to thrive.
John Moore’s Thoughts: From being complete unknowns to being the best tag team in the world, my pick is the Latin American XChange. The interesting story behind this tag team is Konnan has pointed out on podcasts is that Santana and Ortiz as LAX wasn’t supposed to be a thing because Jeff Jarrett and his creative regime wanted Konnan to either manage Bobby Lashley or the team of Homicide and Hernandez. Konnan went out and found two completely unknown guys who really took the world by storm and they’ve made Impact must-watch in 2018. If you ever have any doubts going into an Impact show (and I understand and totally don’t recommend paying $40 for a pay-per-view), the one thing you can count on is a great LAX match. We found out recently that these guys are good talkers took, especially Ortiz.
Anish V’s Thoughts: There were a lot of tag teams that made noise in 2018, especially the likes of British Strong Style and Undisputed Era. But outside WWE is where I think tag team wrestling shone. The Young Bucks obviously had a crazy year, but a lot of that has to do with their endeavors outside of the ring as well. My pick for best tag team is SCU. I don’t think anybody could have predicted their skyrocketing popularity this year, and all credit to Scorpio Sky, Frankie Kazarian, and Christopher Daniels, who took the BTE format and used it to make themselves a must watch commodity.
Haydn Gleed’s Thoughts: Oof, this is a hard category to judge. Tag teams in WWE have either been wasted like with the Revival or in feuds which have felt never ending (see Usos, The Bar, New Day). In ROH, the Young Bucks have been great, but have they really improved over anything we’ve seen before and therefore stood out? I would argue not. So we have to look towards NXT who have been showcasing tag teams how I feel should be done. Moustache Mountain had a breakout year on a bigger stage but my vote goes to the team they had their best match with, which is The Undisputed Era, who had a great year.
Jason Powell’s Thoughts: The biggest company in the world may not find much value in tag team wrestling on its main roster television show (particularly on Monday nights), but it was a very good year for tag team wrestling. I am genuinely surprised to see O’Reilly and Strong win the award over the ever popular Young Bucks. It’s not that it isn’t deserving as a strong case could be made for either team, but I thought the popularity of the Bucks would push them into the top spot. Are O’Reilly and Strong better than O’Reilly and Bobby Fish? Tough question. It was risky of Impact Wrestling to attempt to recreate the magic of LAX with a couple of newcomers in 2017. Just think of how many bad combinations there were after the originals with Konnan managing Homicide and Hernandez. But Impact struck gold with Santana and Ortiz and did a fantastic job of booking them in strong feuds that didn’t overstay their welcome, including one against Homicide and Hernandez. I think the voters got the top three order right, but it was very close.
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