The New Day sets all-time tag team title record on 'Raw'

Scott Keith

The New Day sets all-time tag team title record on 'Raw' image

On Monday night's edition of "Raw," The New Day (Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods) became the longest-reigning tag team champions in WWE history, retaining the tag team belts through a pair of three-way matches that bookended the show.

The New Day opened "Raw" by retaining in a three-way match over the teams of Gallows and Anderson and Sheamus and Cesaro, and then were put into another title defense to end the night, this time retaining over the teams of Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho and Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. The show ended with The New Day celebrating the new longevity record as tag team champions.

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Well, sort of. Technically the record is 478 days, and The New Day is at 476. But with no major show until this Sunday's "Roadblock" pay-per-view, there's no real opportunity to lose the belts. So WWE is just calling them the longest-reigning champions.

For the detail-oriented among us, there's a lot of caveats here. The original reign being counted is that of Demolition (Ax and Smash), who held the WWF World tag team titles for 478 days, from March 1988 until June 1989. Thanks to the promotion splitting brands and then changing names altogether in 2002, the two tag team titles being compared are not actually the same thing.

The championship held by Demolition was retired in 2010 and unified with the "Smackdown" brand tag team title. The titles currently held by The New Day originated as those "Smackdown" branded tag titles in 2002, and ironically are now exclusive to "Raw" due to the strange nature of pro wrestling. There was a point when The New Day was being celebrated as the longest-reigning "WWE tag team champions" with no mention of Demolition's reign, because WWE generally tries to forget Demolition existed.

When the length of The New Day's title reign threatened to unseat the famous record held by Demolition, it was regarded as only a matter of time before they were allowed to get the record due to the tumultuous relationship that Bill Eadie (aka Ax of Demolition) has with Vince McMahon and WWE, including a series of lawsuits filed against the promotion spanning decades. Although the title reign is impressive on its own, it's also an effective way to erase Eadie from the record books once and for all. 

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.