The Hardy Boyz, the Dudley Boyz and other lame tag team breakups

Scott Keith

The Hardy Boyz, the Dudley Boyz and other lame tag team breakups image

It’s not a big secret that I’m a huge fan of tag team wrestling, because when it’s done right it’s some of the best you’re going to get out of wrestling. It’s also a very easy way to get heat for a feud between former partners, because who can’t relate to having their partner (or sometimes actual brother) betray them? 

Really, the conversation for the best tag team breakup starts and ends with the Rockers, specifically Shawn Michaels throwing Marty Jannetty through the Barbershop Window in 1992 and kicking off his singles career.

Although it kind of destroyed Jannetty's career and made him into a permanent punchline (“The Marty of the team” has become something of a wrestling shorthand term), it launched Michaels into the stratosphere and was worth sacrificing Jannetty to pull off. 

MORE: Wrestling couples that should have stayed together

And then…there’s these guys.

As great as the Rockers splitting up was, there’s many more examples where legendary teams have been split up for (almost) literally no reason, leaving both guys worse off and leading to nothing of value. So here’s a few of them:

No. 1: The Dudley Boyz (2003)

To say the initial brand extension for WWE in 2002 had some kinks to iron out would be an understatement. People were traded back and forth with no explanation, Triple H was apparently worth 17 guys by himself, and it took a while to figure out what to do with the WWE Championship.

However, one of the most egregious examples of their ideas going wrong was what happened with the Dudley Boyz. Granted, as legendary of a team that the Dudleyz were, they were approaching the end of the line for their usefulness and were in need of freshening up. So in order to split them up, WWE had them both drafted to different shows, with Bubba Ray ending up on “RAW” and D'Von going to “SmackDown."

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, a D'Von Dudley singles push, that sounds like a terrific idea!” Actually, no, because literally no one was thinking that. Also, their idea for making D-Von into a singles star was to turn him into an evil preacher of some kind, Reverend D'Von, because he liked to say “Testify!” during his promos, and thus in WWE-land that makes you ordained. This of course went nowhere fast, as D'Von was not exactly a charismatic wrestler on his own, and he was equally tied down by having his lackey, Deacon Batista, clearly be the guy who was going to be the bigger star.

Meanwhile, on “RAW," Bubba Dudley got something of a singles run of his own, working as a babyface in the “common man” style of Dusty Rhodes. It was a reasonably effective character turn for him and he started to get some wins, but then Triple H randomly beat him on an episode of “RAW” and he was done. The turn had accomplished nothing for either guy, and the idea was so badly received that the plug was pulled after only a few months, with the team hastily reuniting at “Survivor Series 2002" and the whole thing never being mentioned again. 

No. 2: The Rock 'n' Roll Express (1991)

The '80s was a banner decade for “pretty boy” tag teams, spearheaded by Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, the Rock 'n' Roll Express. In fact, you could barely throw a stick in the street without hitting an “Express” team or a “Rock N Roll” team. Sometimes both.

It was a pretty easy formula for greatness, as Ricky would take a beating for 10 minutes while the girls shrieked in horror, leading to Robert getting the hot tag and then coming back for the win over the heels. It was perfect and timeless, so of course WCW had to mess with it.

By 1990, the Rock 'n' Roll Express were passing their prime, but breaking them up certainly wasn’t the solution. Gibson had suffered a pretty serious knee injury, so WCW thought that it might be worth exploring the idea of Morton as a singles star. This wasn’t actually the first time that this possibility had been looked at, and in fact Morton had a good run in a singles feud with Ric Flair back in 1986, and had some great matches as well. That was four years and a lot less wrinkles ago, and 1990 wasn’t exactly WCW’s greatest period for creativity.

When Gibson returned from his injury in mid-1991, WCW immediately broke up one of their most famous teams, turning Morton heel as a part of the “York Foundation." Now, making rock 'n' roll rebel Morton into a bad guy isn’t the worst idea in the world, I suppose, but the problem was that they made no effort to actually change the character or presentation. Morton still wore his tag team gear and had the same long blond hair, despite being part of what was ostensibly a computerized business operation. They had a laptop and everything!

MORE: PPV names that were as bad as "Great Balls of Fire"

Morton defeated Gibson at the legendarily awful “Great American Bash” in a pretty terrible match that no one wanted to see, and then floated through the rest of the year as a midcard heel who was too small to draw any kind of heat. By 1992, the whole heel turn concept was dropped completely and Morton was fired from WCW to cut costs, allowing him to reunite with Gibson on the independent scene. They’ve pretty much remained a team ever since, because that’s what makes sense.

No. 3: The Hardy Boyz (2010)

Matt and Jeff have actually split up more than a few times because there’s this weird belief from multiple promotions that people actually want to pay money to see them fight each other, and it never pans out. Their split in 2010 was particularly confusing, as it was during the height of Jeff’s career following his WWE title win.

Although they had one lame breakup earlier in the decade that didn’t work, it at least gave us Matt Hardy Version 1, so that was OK. However, 2008 saw Jeff Hardy having the best year of his career, winning his first World title while struggling with personal issues. In fact, Jeff’s life literally turned into a country song by the end of the year, as drug and alcohol issues were followed by his trailer burning down, taking the life of his dog along with it.  His win over Triple H at “Armageddon 2008” redeemed things for him quite a lot, but this was clearly a short-term title reign for someone who wasn’t particularly dependable at that point in his life.

MORE: DIY was a pleasantly shocking tag team break up

Jeff defended his title against Edge at “Royal Rumble 2009," but the booking direction was obvious: Someone was going to cost Jeff the belt and Edge would be victorious. The logical candidate was Edge’s former cohort Christian, but that information leaked out ahead of the match and WWE decided to be sneaky and instead had Jeff’s brother Matt “shockingly” turn on him and cost him the title, supposedly out of jealousy.

Now, this was silly enough as it is, and the match they had at “WrestleMania” to settle things was entertaining enough, but part of the story was that in fact Matt was the person who had set the fire that burned down Jeff’s home and killed his pet, and that’s just not cool. Sure, Jeff is a bit of a screw-up in real life, but some ideas just go too far in turning a real situation into a silly wrestling story, and was this definitely one of them. Not to mention that the real life brothers had shockingly little chemistry together in the ring.

Sadly, TNA didn’t learn the lesson of this one, and even tried their own Hardy break-up and make-up stories, with just as little success. Although that "Broken Universe" thing worked out pretty well, I suppose.   

No. 4: The Smoking Gunns (1996)

On the opposite end of the spectrum, this was an attempt to create a “real life” situation out of a silly wrestling story, and it failed miserably on all counts.

By 1996, Billy and Bart Gunn had basically run through the incredibly weak tag team division multiple times and it was clear that it was time to do something different with them. It was no secret that Vince favored Billy Gunn as a future singles star, but he was injured for much of 1996 and thus we had Bart Gunn working as a TV-job guy for part of the year. This led to Billy finally returning, but his heart was full of jealousy over his brother (not real brother, thankfully) and he had a new evil haircut and beige jeans for his ring outfit, the sign of all bad people. I mean, what kind of rodeo cowboy wears beige jeans?  None that I want to associate with, by gum!

In the fall of 1996, they lost the tag team titles to Owen Hart & British Bulldog, and then continued having problems as a team, culminating in getting fired by manager Sunny.

Later in the year, Billy walked out on Bart during a tag match, and the Smoking Gunns were no more. The insinuation was that Billy was in love with former manager Sunny in a blatant ripoff of the “Sensational Sherri has an affair with Shawn Michaels” angle of years before, but never went anywhere. The Gunns had a match on “RAW” to settle their differences, which didn’t actually have an ending, as Bart hit Billy with a stungun maneuver and the match was suddenly stopped due to Billy apparently being paralyzed.

We actually got the ridiculous visual of Bart’s “wife” and Billy’s “wife” running into the ring in horror (even though Billy was supposedly cavorting with Sunny) to really sell the reality of one brother injuring the other in a match. Of course, Billy and Bart are not related in real life, and neither man was married to either of the actresses playing the wives, and Billy wasn’t actually injured.  By the next week, the whole thing was literally dropped and forgotten, with Billy disappearing for weeks before returning as Rockabilly while Bart got turned into half of the New Midnight Express with Bob Holly. Not good for either guy.

5. The Road Warriors (1998)

I might have mentioned the various lame returns of the LOD in a previous list, but now let’s talk about their eventual breakup!

As noted previously, by 1998 the legendary Road Warriors were on their last legs as a team. They had been repackaged into LOD 2000 for a new generation, but Michael “Hawk” Hegstrand was falling apart from a personal standpoint, stuck in a bad cycle of drugs and alcohol while Vince McMahon tried to gently ease Darren “Puke” Drozdov into the team with the subtlety of a crowbar.

MORE: Undertaker, Kevin Nash and wrestling returns that blew

Puke had begun substituting for Hawk in house shows and TV while Hawk dealt with his demons, but finally on an episode of "Sunday Night Heat" in November of 1998, Hawk was kicked out of the team. Unfortunately, by then no one cared, and it was a show that no one watched.

There was never any real resolution to the story, as Hawk left the promotion and drifted in and out of the business, and Animal left soon after so that Droz could pursue a singles career.  Unfortunately, that didn’t work out great for him. Animal and Hawk reunited for a one-shot tryout match on “RAW” in 2003 against RVD & Kane, which they lost. Hawk died soon after.

Be sure to follow @sn_wrestling for the latest wrestling news, notes and ridiculousness.

Scott Keith

Scott Keith Photo

Scott Keith is the overlord of Scott's Blog of Doom at www.blogofdoom.com, and has authored 5 books on pro wrestling, now available on Amazon and in discount bins near you! He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with his wife and ridiculously cute daughter.