For decades, the NWA was the organizational body of professional wrestling. Its members voted on the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, understanding that whoever wore the belt was a shared commodity that traveled every territory. The same didn’t hold true for the tag team titles. Pretty much every territory crowned its own (world) tag team champions, so the title lineage is quite confusing.
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After the NWA and WCW split for good in 1993, the NWA World Tag Team Titles, much like the NWA itself, survived – although sometimes just barely. The titles were featured on WWE programming in 1998 and, most notably, on TNA from 2002 to 2007. Once TNA and the NWA parted ways, the titles went back into obscurity until the NWA’s rebranding in 2019 under Billy Corgan. Here are the 10 reigns that stand out.
1 Rock ’n' Roll Express (2019)
No team has held the NWA World Tag Team Titles more often than the Rock ’n' Roll Express. Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson first won the titles in Jim Crockett Promotions in the summer of 1985. Thirty-four years later, Ricky and Robert would win the belts for the ninth time on an episode of NWA Power by defeating The Wild Cards, Royce Isaacs and Thomas Latimer, and celebrate their unlikely victory in the ring in a feel-good moment with long-time rival manager Jim Cornette.
It was only a short run that ended at the Hard Times PPV in January 2020, but the fact that Ricky and Robert were able to perform at a high level in their early sixties made this a truly memorable run.
2 Paul Orndorff & Jimmy Snuka (1978)
While Orndorff and Snuka were on opposite sides of the main event at the first Wrestlemania, they made for a pretty good babyface combination in the late seventies. The team was known for their athleticism, some spectacular bumps and high-flying offense.
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Defeating the team of Baron Von Raschke and Greg Valentine, they would go on to hold the title for four months before losing them to the Baron and his new partner, Paul Jones. While it wasn’t the longest run, their style made them stand out at the time.
3 Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle (1982)
Slaughter and Kernodle allegedly defeated Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba in the finals of an international tournament for the vacant tag team titles. For anybody familiar with Japanese wrestling, the claim was nonsensical: Baba and Inoki owned Japanese rival companies AJPW and NJPW, but the claim gave Slaughter and Kernodle instant credibility as a top team. They would go on a six-month run and their loss to Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood in a cage match in March 1983 in Greensboro would set the bar for special events that lead to the creation of Starrcade later that year.
4 Doom (1990)
Doom debuted in late 1989 as masked hitmen for their valet Woman. The duo was soon unmasked and, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, revealed to be Ron Simmons and Butch Reed. After Teddy Long took over the managerial duties, the team began climbing the ranks in a tag team division stacked with the Road Warriors, the Skyscrapers, the Midnight Express, the Rock’n Roll Express, the Freebirds, the Samoan Swat Team, and the Steiner Brothers. In May 1990, they beat the latter at Capital Combat to become the first black tag team to hold the NWA World Tag Team Titles (although Rufus R. Jones had been the first individual black champion in the '70s). Doom would continue to gain popularity and hold the titles until they were rebranded WCW World Tag Team Titles in early 1991. They eventually lost the belts to the Fabulous Freebirds at WrestleWar 1991.
5 America’s Most Wanted (2005-2006)
Chris Harris and James Storm had held the titles on six occasions already when they beat the Naturals (Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens) at an Impact episode in October 2005 to win the belts for a seventh time. While most of their previous title reigns had lasted a month or two (it was Vince Russo's booking, after all) the win would mark the beginning of their longest run.
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Turning heel, they raked in the longest NWA World Tag Team Title run during the NWA’s cooperation with TNA from 2002 to 2007. They eventually would end up losing the belts at Slammiversary 2006 to AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels.
6 Midnight Express (1986)
The Midnight Express, consisting of Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey, under the tutelage of their manager Jim Cornette, had won gold in Mid-South and World Class before coming to Jim Crockett Promotions in 1985. As in Mid-South, their biggest rivals were the Rock 'n' Roll Express duo of Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson. The team of Eaton and Condrey would defeat their rivals on the TV special Superstars on the Superstation in February 1986, only to drop the belts back to the Rock ’n' Roll at a house show in August. More significant than any individual title run between both teams is the standard their matches set for tag team wrestling and the money they drew whenever they faced each other.
7 Ric Flair & Greg Valentine (1976)
The Minnesota Wrecking Crew of Ole and Gene Anderson had been dominating the World Tag Team Title scene in Mid-Atlantic since the title's inception in January 1975. The babyface combination of Flair – the Andersons' kayfabe cousin - and Valentine, often seen as Mid-Atlantic’s “Dream Team”, was the first team to dethrone the Andersons for more than a month or two, clocking in at 133 days, before losing the belts back to the Andersons in May 1977. Despite their short run, the duo remains one of the most famous combinations in Mid-Atlantic history.
8 Hollywood Blondes (1993)
After WCW formed in 1991, the NWA became an independent promotional body once again. In 1992, the (now) two companies began working with each other again and even unified their tag team titles. In early 1993, the new Hollywood Blondes combination of Brian Pillman and Steve Austin won the unified tag team titles from Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas.
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They would not only hold the titles for six months, but also become one of the most entertaining pairings in pro wrestling of the early 1990s, influencing later teams like Edge & Christian, the New Age Outlaws or even the New Day with their goofy antics. The team would lose the titles in August to Arn Anderson and Paul Roma in a match where Lord Steven Regal replaced an injured Pillman and the NWA would split off from WCW again shortly afterwards. Although no longer acknowledged by the NWA, the Blondes' title run was technically an NWA world tag team title run at the time.
9 Minnesota Wrecking Crew (1975-1977)
Technically, Ole and Gene Anderson held the titles on six different occasions between the title's inception in January 1975 and their final loss to Flair and Valentine in October 1977. However, the Andersons' reigns spanned a combined 763 out of 1006 days in that time frame, making them the dominant tag team of their era. The Andersons were synonymous with tag team wrestling and their style would be carried on by Arn Anderson and his many partners into the nineties, and their legacy even extends into today.
10 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (1987-1988)
There are few teams as influential as Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard during their two (comparatively) brief stints as NWA tag team champions from September 1987 to September 1988. To this day, Arn and Tully are considered one of the best heel tag teams of all time, and it was their year as NWA champions that earned them this reputation. Not only were they able to make any babyface team look good and construct a match around their opponent’s strengths, but they also always kept their heel heat. The combination of outstanding in-ring work and presenting themselves as the best tag team while making all their opponents look good, makes their run the best in NWA history.
