#dts would probably turn it into a WWE match

[vroom--vrooming]

Okay but childhood friends turned enemies turned teammates Pierre and Esteban sharing podium in F1. This is something they probably dreamed of as kids but forgot about it after they stopped being friends. And now racing through the rain, racing equal machinery for the same team and both getting the podium. Imagine how they must be feeling. Imagine how everyone who knew them personally their entire lives are feeling. This is pure cinema

[buttdawg]

Think I'm caught up on the World Tag League now. Some observations:

It doesn't look like Dangerous Tekkers is doing so hot in this thing. I forget how many matches they have to wrestle, but I think they're 2-3 so far, which doesn't sound great. I think Juice and David Finlay are in the lead with 8 points. DT only has four.

Then again, the lesson I learned watching the G1 was that these round robins are almost impossible to call this early in. I thought Jon Moxley was in good shape to win B-block because he got five straight wins to start off, while big stars like Jay White and Naito were having really lackluster runs. But White managed to build a winning streak of his own, and Mox couldn't score that much-needed sixth victory. So it's likely that Juice/Finlay are only winning big now because they're due to hit a rough patch later.

I think that's the formula with these tournaments. A few entrants flame out early on, so by the halfway point, you already know they're mathematically eliminated. The you have guys who sort of win every other match. Some of them manage to stay in contention to the end, and they're kind of the dark horses in the tournament. Ibushi was a dark horse, at least to my way of thinking. He lost to KENTA and EVIL pretty early on, so I was convinced he couldn't pull this off, since Okada was on such a roll. Maybe everyone else knew Ibushi would win the G1, but I was somewhat surprised to see him win A Block.

Anyway, it feels like Juice/Finlay are in the Okada or Moxley role right now, building an early lead before the others start to catch up. The Tekkers can still win this thing, especially since they hold a win over Juice/Finlay. But I feel like they're just sort of there to be there. Zach Sabre Junior seems confident about winning, but I don't see it yet.

G.O.D. looks more solid on points. I think they're 3-1 so far, but that could just be designed to make them look strong in the tournament. They're the champions, so they ought to beat most of the other teams. I guess there's not much point to having them win the tournament, since the whole point is to establish a #1 contender, but they should probably be one of the top scoring teams.

Mostly, these matches I've watched have been pretty low-key affairs. Both teams had really standout performances against Suzuki & Archer, and against each other, but the other matches have just been pretty good. I like the relaxed feel to it, honestly, where these guys are mostly just mixing it up in a small venue with no commentary and minimal camera work. But I'm not expecting bigger and better matches against some of the upcoming teams. Honma and Makabe, Goto and Fredericks, these seem like ad hoc teams set up to fill out the tournament. The matches should he enjoyable, but I saw a lot of these dudes in tag matches on G1 Climax undercards, so I don't expect much more than that.

I guess the big team to look forward to is SANADA and EVIL, since they won this tourney in 2017 and 2018. I get the sense that they're the only "proper" team in this thing besides the G.O.D. Maybe I'm wrong, but the rest look like a bunch of singles wrestlers who paired off. I think Dangerous Tekkers might become a full-on thing, but it doesn't have to. Ishii and YOSHI-HASHI have chased the tag titles before, so maybe this tournament is about getting some of these guys to bond into a more permanent unit. I hope so. We need more of that in wrestling.

I've been thinking about tag team wrestling a lot, since AEW has really been pushing to make it important again. WWE has tried to revitalize their tag division several times over the years, but it never sticks, and I think I've finally figured out why. Every time I watch a tag match in AEW or New Japan, I keep instinctively expecting teammates to turn on each other. Heel team loses a match? One of them should blame the other and attack them. Face team loses a match? One guy should attack the other and turn heel to set up a singles fued. Scorpio Sky gets a title shot against Jericho? The other two guys in SCU should betray him out of jealousy.

And it never happens, which is a good thing, because if they did it every time I expected it, then they'd run out of tag teams. The problem WWE has always had is that they pull that trick way too often, which is why I've been conditioned to expect it. It's like they don't know any other way to book a tag team except to split them up. And usually, neither guy gets over. Yeah, Shawn Michaels turned into a big deal when he turned on Marty Janetty, but Enzo and Big Cass tanked hard. Their teamwork may have been the best thing those two had, and they destroyed it on a whim.

What I like about the World Tag League is how the Dangerous Tekkers support each other, win or lose. They seem to really enjoy working together, and they don't point fingers when they lose. When they beat Suzuki and Archer, there was a moment where it looked like the whole Suzuki-gun stable might collapse, but instead they all did fist bumps and congratulated Zach for the win. I've been watching backstage comments where it's clear that Goto and Fredericks aren't doing well, and Fredericks blames himself because he's a rookie, but Goto's chill about it, and seems to take this whole tournament as a way to mentor Karl Fredericks. He's not going to turn on Karl because this story is about camraderie and teamwork. They'll probably win matches late in the tournament once Karl gets more acclimated to it.

Same thing with SCU in AEW. SCU is a three-man unit, but Scorpion Sky and Frankie Kazarian won the tag title tournament, and Christopher Daniels made it clear that those two are the champions, and he's content to be the third guy in the group who currently doesn't have a title. I dig that a lot. the Freebird Rule is fine and all, but it's already being done elsewhere, and it's refreshing to see a team willing to set aside egos for the sake of the group. Sky and Kaz give Daniels a ton of credit, and Daniels supports them as the champions. In another era, it might sound hokey or commonplace, but after years of watching WWE's constant backstabbing angles, it's really comforting and reassuring.

I've always believed that conflict is the essence of drama, so I can understand the WWE philosophy of everyone being at each other's throats, but if you play that to the hilt, 24-7, never relenting, then how can you expect any tag team to matter in the long term? And without proper tag teams, how can you expect anyone to care about the division?