Opinion: The Revival should become the next Raw Tag Team Champions
2018 was not the best year for WWE RAW's tag team division. While Undisputed Era ruled the division in NXT and SmackDown Live had its fair share of bright moments for tag teams, Raw could not live up to the expectations. Despite boasting talented tag teams like The Revival, AOP etc. Raw could not establish any team as dominant for a long period of time.
Although the year started out strong with Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan as champion, an unfortunate neck injury to Jordan forced WWE to make changes to their plans. The Bar edged out Rollins & Jordan at the Royal Rumble PPV to become the new tag champs and they defended the title against multiple teams leading up to Mania.
However, it was the WrestleMania season where everything started to go wrong for the tag division. First, Braun Strowman interrupted a tag team number 1 contender battle royal in between the match. Later, he entered the match and won it single-handedly, eliminating many teams in the process. Lastly, he teamed up with a 10year old boy at Wrestlemania to win the tag belts all by himself against the established team of Cesaro and Sheamus.
It looked as if WWE stopped caring about the tag division on Raw as there were multiple title changes down the line with no team being established as a dominant force. Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy had an interesting union at Andre the Giant Battle Royal and they quickly won the title after it was vacated by Braun and Nicholas. However, even their reign was short lived as the comedy act of Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel won the belts from them.
However, the arrival of Ziggler and McIntyre as a team made it seem like WWE finally were taking the tag division seriously. Their title victory against The B Team was done in a quick way to establish Drew & Dolph as a dominant team. They defeated many teams on Raw and it looked like WWE finally have solved the tag team dilemma on Raw when Drew & Dolph started feuding with Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins.
Both the teams had many fantastic matches before Drew & Dolph dropped the title to the shield brothers but in an interesting turn of events, Dean turned on Seth forcing Seth to defend the title on his own and as a result, Rollins lost the titles to AOP in a handicap match. It was a shocking decision but a great way to start Rollins-Ambrose feud and at the same time handle AOP the top position in tag division and book them as a monster team.
WWE, however, could not stop themselves by reducing AOP as comedy acts. The rivalry was not built around the importance of tag titles, rather it was built around urine jokes as a reference to Dave Maverick pissing his own pants at Survivor Series. WWE could not stop themselves from making another title change as Roode & Gable defeated AOP and became the new champs before the end of 2018.
However, it is 2019 now and WWE has the chance to make the tag division relevant again. As part of next week's Raw, WWE Raw tag team champions Bobby Roode and Chad Gable will defend their title against the team of Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder, known collectively as the Revival. Although the Revival winning the championship will involve another title change but this is a step WWE must take so that fans can take the WWE tag team matches seriously.
The Revival was one of the most decorated tag teams of WWE NXT and were the second longest tag champs in NXT. However, they have not been treated well on the roster and have often been reduced as a comedy act and are forced to compete in meaningless matches.
The Revival should win the title next week and should not lose it for a long time. WWE should let The Revival defend the title against many teams and must book them as clever and dominant champions and should portray them as guys who will go to any lengths to keep their title. WWE should even let the tag team division main event Raw & PPV and should allow the proper amount of time so that they can have good matches on TV.
Tag Team Wrestling is an art and WWE must treat it as important on Raw and The Revival is the perfect team to start the renaissance of tag team division.