Editor's Notes: You may have noticed that there are multiple columns up on the website about the rumored return of Degeration-X. If you read a column (ANY column) and decide to send in feedback, PLEASE be sure to indicate which column you are responding to by typing the TITLE of the column in the subject line. Also, DO NOT FORGET to sign your name. Thanks!

Growing up as a kid and being blessed with cable television, I got to enjoy all of the major territories that were around in the mid-1980's. You had WWE on the USA Network. NWA on TBS. And World Class and AWA both on ESPN. More territories meant more tag team combinations. In some cases, a territories Tag-Team Championship meant as much as a singles title. The Road Warriors are a great example of a tag team being as popular as a singles competitor. The WWE and NWA were the hotbeds of great tag team wrestling. In the NWA, you had The Rock and Roll Express, The Midnight Express, Arn Anderson / Tully Blanchard and The Road Warriors all putting on spectacular matches. In the WWE, it was just as hot. The British Bulldogs were doing moves that were at least ten years ahead of their time, and paving the way for guys such as Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Owen Hart and Chris Jericho. The Bulldogs along with The Hart Foundation, The Killer Bees, The Rougeaus, The Rockers and Strike Force were making high flying moves look easy. Good continuity along with fluid movement made tag teams hot commodities in the business.

But now it seems the art of tag team wrestling is lost. A few years ago, the geniuses at WCW decided to put the tag team belts on Buff Bagwell and his mother Judy. While most casual wrestling fans would probably think this move was done primarily for comedic value, I immediately saw that the organization had not seen the lineage of the tag team belts and had not realized how important they were or maybe they just didn't care. It is like the time they decided to throw the World Television Title in the trash and have Hacksaw Duggan wear it to keep up his pants. Total disrespect, and not to mention neglect for titles that meant so much over the course of fifty years.

When the Bagwells won the WCW World Tag Team titles, that confirmed the downward spiral of tag team wrestling. Sure, the WWE was having unbelievable matches with The Hardys, Dudley Boyz, and Edge / Christian, but after that, they too succumbed to the cancer of mediocrity in the tag team ranks. Now, that division is lead by The Hurricane and Rosey. Not to take anything away from Shane Helms. He is a tremendous performer and can put on great matches. But you can tell the live crowd is not into them. The only two teams that I see having a future in that company are MNM and The Heart Throbs. These teams could be what the Hardy Boyz or Edge and Christian were five years ago. They just need some seasoning under their belt, and they will be fine.

When it comes to NWA TNA, they could use some improvement as well, but their tag division is more relevant than WWE's is. They have a lot of guys backstage that could possibly teach the young talent what the definition of tag team really is. There needs to be an emphasis on the Tag Team Champions and the chase of their challengers. If you got that mixed in with interesting characters that the fans can really feel, then there's money to be made.

It's a scary situation where one of the most important ingredients of a good wrestling promotion could be on the verge of extinction. Eric Bischoff didn't see the value of tag teams in WCW. Their business went down the tubes. Vince and his writers in WWE obviously don't either. The live gates and cable ratings for WWE are not what they used to be. See a pattern" Maybe TNA will make tag team wrestling alive again in 2005.

by Jake Hamar ..