Tag team - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Professional wrestling

Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...

is a variation in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. A tag team may comprise two wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of established teams who wrestle regularly as a unit and have a team name and identity.

In most team matches, only one competitor per team is allowed in the ring at a time. This status as the active or legal wrestler may be transferred by physical contact, most commonly a palm-to-palm "tag" which resembles a high five

High five

The high five is a celebratory hand gesture that occurs when two people simultaneously raise one hand, about head high, and push, slide or slap the flat of their palm and hand against the palm and flat hand of their partner...

.

The team-based match has been a mainstay of professional wrestling since the mid twentieth century, and most promotions have sanctioned a championship division for tag teams.

The term "tag team" has since become used in common parlance to describe two or more people who alternate or cooperate in participation in an activity, and "tag-teaming" to describe the act of alternating with an ally, e.g. a couple tag-teaming in an argument with another person.

History

In 1901 the first tag team match was held in the United States, in San Francisco. San Francisco promoters introduced tag team wrestling as a way of improving the sport’s entertainment value. While tag team wrestling is now almost traditional in American professional wrestling, the innovation didn't become especially popular outside San Francisco until the 1930s. The first "World" tag team championship was also crowned in San Francisco in the early 1950s.

Tag team match rules

The basic tag team match has two teams of two wrestlers facing off against each other. Only one wrestler from each team, called the "legal man" is allowed in the ring at a time, although heels

Heel (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a heel is a villain character. In non-wrestling jargon, heels are the "bad guys" in professional wrestling; the term heel coming from the term take to you heels, which means to run away which heel champions tend to do to avoid losing their titles.storylines...

will often break this rule and gang up on a single opponent. The other(s) wait on the apron outside the ropes in a specified corner adjacent to the other team.

Once a tag is made, the partners have until a five count to switch places or rather the man in the ring which has just been tagged now has until a referee's five count to leave the ring. If a five count is reached by the referee, the referee would then have due course to disqualify the violating team. Therefore it is rather commonplace to see both members of teams, especially heel

Heel (professional wrestling)

teams, are in the ring simultaneously with only one member of an ostensibly rule-abiding face team

Face (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a babyface or face or in simple words, a fan favorite is a character who is portrayed as a heroic relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains...

. A "bookend" tag team is a (usually derogatory) term for a tag team where the members look and/or dress alike (e.g., The Killer Bees, the British Bulldogs

British Bulldogs

The British Bulldogs were the team of cousins Davey Boy Smith and Tom Billington , professional wrestlers who competed through most of the 1980s in both North America, England, and Japan and is by many considered one of the top tag-teams in history.-Early years :In the 1970s, Dynamite Kid and Davey...

, the Hart Foundation, etc.). Bookends are common in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

and Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, but not at all in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

since promotion of wrestlers to singles championships is based (in a large part) on tag team results, as no secondary singles championships exist.

Offensive cooperation from a team member can happen as long as they are within the referee's count of five and after an official tag. In a "Tornado" tag match there is no time limit for how long your partner can stay in the ring often making these matches a 2 on 2 battle.

A tag team match involving more than two wrestlers per team is often referred to by the total number of people involved (e.g. a six-man tag team match involves two teams of three), while a tag team match involving more than two teams is referred to by normal qualifiers (e.g. a triple threat tag team match involves three teams of two).

A wrestler must do the following in order to make a legal tag:

Both feet of the wrestler on the outside must be flat on the apron.
The wrestler outside the ring must hold on to the tag rope tied in the corner.
Tags are legal as long as the two team members touch.
The referee has to actually see the contact between the two wrestlers in order to make the tag legal.

A referee can be allowed to overlook any of these tag rules at his discretion. All standard match rules apply but the legal man must make a pin or submission on another legal man to win. Only legal men can be counted out but either team can be disqualified regardless if a team member is legal or not.

In lucha libre

Lucha libre

Lucha libre is a term used in Mexico, and other Spanish-speaking countries, for a form of professional wrestling that has developed within those countries...

, the basic tag team match is referred to as Lucha de Parejas (Doubles Fight), a six-man match as a Lucha de Trios, and an eight-man match as a Lucha Atómica (Atomic Fight).

A frequent storyline is former tag team partners turning on each other, which will invariably ignite a feud

Feud (professional wrestling)

A professional wrestling feud is a staged rivalry between multiple wrestlers or alliances of wrestlers. They are integrated into ongoing storylines, particularly in events which are televised...

. This can be used when one member is being called on to develop a new gimmick.

Types of tags

In independent discussion and analysis of matches, certain terms are used to describe specific scenarios involving tag team matches. These are planned and timed to inject drama into a match.

One spot that occurs in practically every tag team match is the hot tag. One member of the face team is in the ring, too weakened to move or otherwise impaired, while his partner watches helplessly, struggling to reach him for a tag. The tension builds as the legal man is unable to tag out until something happens (a second wind, miscommunication between the heel wrestlers, or another stroke of luck) that allows the faces to tag and reverse the momentum of the match in their favor. When done well, this results in a large audience reaction, and was the typical climax of tag matches for decades.

A common variation on the hot tag sees both wrestlers from the heel team attacking a face, while his partner protests to the referee about this bending of the rules (and therefore, unintentionally "distracting" the referee away from the heels). Eventually the weakened face wrestler does make the tag to his partner, who comes in as the fresh man and is able to take on both opponents quite easily. Ricky Morton

Ricky Morton

Richard Wendell "Ricky" Morton is an American professional wrestler who has worked for such wrestling organizations as Jim Crockett Promotions, the American Wrestling Association, Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and Total Nonstop Action...

, of the tag team Rock 'N Roll Express, would often play the "face in peril", who got beaten up in the ring while his partner Robert Gibson, looked on helplessly. Thus, the tag partner in the ring being beaten is often said to "play Ricky Morton".

A blind tag is a legal tag made without the legal opponent's knowledge, usually while his back is turned. This allows the team who uses it an opportunity to confuse the legal opponent, who turns to face what he assumes to be his opponent only to be attacked by the TRUE legal man, often from behind.

A phantom tag is when a legal wrestler is replaced by his partner without making a legal tag, also without the referee's knowledge. Sometimes one wrestler will clap his hands in order to mimmick the sound of the tag to aid the deception. These will, however, be allowed, thus giving this cheating team an advantage.

History

Tag team match rules

Types of tags

See also