WWE Tag Team Championship
| WWE Tag Team Championship | |||||||||||||||||||
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| File:WWE Tag Team Championship belt 2014.jpg
The current WWE Tag Team Championship belt.
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| Current champion(s) | The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date won | August 23, 2015 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date established | October 20, 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | WWE | ||||||||||||||||||
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The WWE Tag Team Championship is a professional wrestling world tag team championship in WWE. It was established as a second title for tag teams in WWE in 2002 to complement the original World Tag Team Championship. Both titles were unified in 2009 and were collectively referred to as the "Unified WWE Tag Team Championship" while officially remaining independently active until the World Tag Team Championship was formally decommissioned in 2010.
History
A part of the SmackDown! brand after the company's initial brand extension in the spring of 2002, the original World Tag Team Championship was reassigned that following summer to appear and be defended exclusively on the Raw brand, leaving the SmackDown! brand without a tag team title. As a result, SmackDown general manager Stephanie McMahon introduced the new WWE Tag Team Championship and commissioned it to be the tag team title for the SmackDown! brand. She stated that the inaugural champions would be determined from an eight-team tournament. On October 20, 2002, the team of Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit defeated Rey Mysterio and Edge at No Mercy 2002 in the tournament final to become the first ever WWE Tag Team Champions.
On October 17, 2007, SmackDown! and ECW announced a talent sharing agreement that enabled talent from either brand's roster to compete on both brands. As a result, the title became eligible to be contended and defended on both brands. In late 2008 through early 2009, WWE Tag Team Champions The Colóns (Carlito and Primo) engaged in rivalry with the World Tag Team Champions John Morrison and The Miz, which resulted in the announcement on the March 17 edition of ECW that at WrestleMania XXV both teams would defend their titles against each other and the winning team would hold both titles.[1] The Colons defeated Morrison and Miz, and thus unified the titles into what became known as the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship, the umbrella term for what officially remained two active championships that were now collectively defended.[2]
As the Unified WWE Tag Team Champions, the champions could appear on and defend the titles on any WWE brand.[3] On August 16, 2010, the World Tag Team Championship was decommissioned in favor of continuing the lineage of the WWE Tag Team Championship following the presentation of new championship belts to then-champions David Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd of The Hart Dynasty. On August 18, 2014, the WWE Tag Team Championships' designs (along with the rest of the championships in WWE) were updated with the new logo.[4]
Reigns
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The inaugural champions were Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit. John Cena and The Miz's 10-minute reign is the shortest in the title's history, while The New Day hold the record for the longest reign at 332+ Days.
The current champions are The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) who are in their second reign as a team. Individually, this is the second reign each for Big E and Woods, and the record tying fourth for Kingston. Big E and Kingston won the titles on August 23, 2015 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York at SummerSlam in a Fatal-Four Way match over previous champions The Prime Time Players (Titus O'Neil and Darren Young), Los Matadores (Fernando & Diego), and the Lucha Dragons (Sin Cara & Kalisto). Woods is also recognized as a champion under the Freebird Rule.
See also
- List of current WWE tag teams and stables
- List of current champions in WWE
- NXT Tag Team Championship
- World Tag Team Championship (WWE)
- Freebird Rule
- Tag team
References
- General
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- Specific
