In pro wrestling, longevity is not guaranteed, as injuries, backstage drama, and real-life circumstances can curtail even the most promising of careers. Longevity is even less guaranteed for any given tag team thanks to the added variable of there being two people to keep track of, not to mention the fact that tag teams are rarely the main event.
In fact, a number of tag teams who made an impression on fans in the 1980s disappeared from major promotions by the following decade, although some of them enjoyed singles careers after the fact. Let’s take a look at 10 of these tag teams that didn’t really stick around in a big way past 1989 — including several from WWE.
10 The Glamour Girls
In the mid-to-late 1980s, WWE boasted an underrated women’s tag team division which included Judy Martin and Leilani Kai tagging together as The Glamour Girls. They primarily feuded with Japan’s Jumping Bomb Angels, capturing the World Women’s Tag Team Championship twice.
That last title win would be their undoing, however, thanks to underhanded backstage chicanery by Fabulous Moolah — who still had a chokehold on women’s wrestling at the time — resulting in the duo getting fired. Martin and Kai mostly went their separate ways, though they did briefly reunite in the short-lived Ladies Professional Wrestling Association.
9 The Powers Of Pain
The rise of the Road Warriors resulted in a number of powerhouse duos in face paint, including The Warlord and The Barbarian, former rivals who united as The Powers of Pain. Originally introduced in NWA as bad guy foils to Hawk and Animal, The Powers of Pain ended up in WWE, where they feuded with that promotion’s attempt to capitalize on The Road Warriors — Demolition.
Eventually, The Powers of Pain were eventually broken up when Hawk and Animal arrived in WWE, having never captured a tag team championship in the promotion.
8 The Killer Bees
Another memorable tag team that never captured a WWE title together, B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell were The Killer Bees, whose main shtick involved them switching places while wearing masks to confuse their opponents as well as the referee. They were babyfaces, by the way.
The Killer Bees were quietly broken up in 1988 without so much as a post-match argument, and both men were eventually gone from WWE by the end of the decade. They briefly reunited in Herb Abrams’ ill-fated Universal Wrestling Federation under the name Masked Confusion, but that was it.
7 The Russian Assassins
WCW had no shortage of Russian gimmicks in the 1980s, with The Russians being the most famous. But from 1988 to 1989, WCW also boasted a team of masked heels called The Russian Assassin, managed by Paul Jones and made up of fake Russians David Sheldon (a.k.a. Angel of Death) as Russian Assassin #1 and Jack Victory as Russian Assassin #2.
While they weren’t necessarily an important team, they did have two notable matches: defeating Ivan Koloff and Junkyard Dog at Starrcade ‘88 and losing to The Midnight Express a couple of months later at Clash of the Champions 5.
6 The High Flyers
Leave it to Jim Brunzell to have two tag teams on this list. Before he was a Killer Bee, Brunzell was part of the American Wrestling Association tag team The High Flyers alongside Greg Gagne, the son of AWA founder Verne Gagne. The two — who were teammates in college football before entering the squared circle — manage to hold the AWA World Tag Team Championship twice.
The High Flyers wrestled their last match together in June 1985, after which Brunzell left for WWE and Gagne had a disappointing singles run until an injury ended his career in 1989.
5 Los Conquistadores
Over the years, WWE had put a guy or a couple of guys in gold luchador masks and bodysuits (most notably Edge and Christian) as a gag, but Los Conquistadores were an actual tag team that existed in the 1980s. Composed of Jose Estrada Sr. and Jose Luis Rivera — billed as “Uno” and “Dos” — were decidedly jobbers, but the two certainly had their moments during their run under the gold masks.
At Survivor Series 1988, Los Conquistadores ended up being the last team left on their side in a 10-team elimination match, only to be eliminated by The Powers Of Pain.
4 The Fabulous Rougeaus
While only half of The Hart Foundation was actually Canadian, for most fans the team of Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart is the Canadian tag team. While they were killing it in the tag team division, they had rivals in the form of The Fabulous Rougeaus, composed of real-life brothers Jacques and Ray Rougeau.
Eventually, the two teams experience a double-turn with the Harts becoming babyfaces and the Rougeaus becoming heels. But The Fabulous Rougeaus were never able to capture the tag belts, and Ray eventually retired from in-ring competition while Jacques was repackaged as The Mountie.
3 The Jumping Bomb Angels
The rivals of The Glamour Girls in the WWE women’s tag team division of the 1980s, The Jumping Bomb Angels, also disappeared as a duo after the 1980s.
Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki were standouts in All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling and thus proved to be standouts in WWE, with some of their most famous efforts including a women’s Survivor Series match in 1987 and a 2/3 Falls Match with The Glamour Girls at Royal Rumble 1988. However, Tateno and Itsuki stopped tagging together around the same time as The Glamour Girls.
2 The Islanders
In 1986, The Tonga Kid and King Tonga teamed up as The Islanders, renaming them Tama and Haku, respectively. Originally babyfaces, eventually they turned heel and aligned with Bobby Heenan, later gaining a third member in the form of Siva Afi. However, by 1988 the group fell apart by the middle of 1988 with the departures of Tama and Afi.
From there, Tama went on to join The Samoan SWAT Team in WCW while Haku joined a variety of tag teams, building a strong career as a monster heel in both WWE and WCW.
1 The Moondogs
There were a couple of variations of The Moondogs in WWE, the first being Moondog Rex and Moondog King before King was replaced by Moondog Spot after about a year. Regardless of membership, they were hillbilly wildmen who wrestled in ratty jeans and chewed on large animal bones. The Moondogs’ heyday was in the early 1980s, with a 126-day run with the Tag Team Championship.
After the Moondogs split up, Rex became the original Smash in Demolition before Barry Darsow took the role. After leaving WWE, The Moondogs continued in various small regional promotions, but never anything high profile.
