Impact Wrestling's 10 Most Popular Tag Teams: How Were They Formed?
The history of tag team wrestling in Impact Wrestling, formerly TNA featured a hit list of tremendous acts. Every promotion hopes to have enough top-tier teams to make fans care about that part of the card. Impact has seen its fair share of all-time great duos either making their names there or having a stop there to add to their legacies.
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Most teams get compared for the same goals of things like title reigns, legendary matches, and connection with the audience. However, one common difference typically features the story behind teams getting together. Impact’s ten most beloved tag teams of all time will be viewed through the lens of what caused them to form.
10 America's Most Wanted: Chemistry Facing Each Other In Tryout Match
The first few years of TNA featured America’s Most Wanted as the premiere tag team of their tag division. James Storm and Chris Harris were both homegrown talents early in their careers and treated this as their first big break to get over with great matches and underrated feuds.
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However, an interesting twist is that they didn’t really want to be in a long-term tag team. TNA first booked them as opponents in a tryout match, and they had so much chemistry that they were formed into a team. Jeff Jarrett revealed on his podcast that Harris and Storm each wanted to split up multiple times before it finally happened.
9 Demon X Bunny: Saving Each Other From Mutual Enemies
Allie originally played a babyface that was often in peril due to her naivety in Impact Wrestling. Chelsea Green and Allysin Kay played an effective heel duo that had issues with both babyfaces Allie and the more mysterious Rosemary.
The heel duo attacking Allie led to Rosemary being the first to step in and claim “The Hive” in her mind demanded she help Allie. This led to Allie helping Rosemary as well and tapping into a darker side that eventually formed The Bunny gimmick. Demon X Bunny is the name they use for their friendship, and it helped their tag act become quite over in Impact.
8 LAX: Konnan Ending 3 Live Kru
The original version of LAX featured Hernandez and Homicide wreaking havoc in the ring as Konnan led them as a manager. LAX started with Konnan turning heel and ditching his former friends in the 3 Live Kru turned 4 Live Kru with Billy Gunn joining Road Dogg and R-Truth.
Konnan no longer wanted to be in that face group and introduced his newly hired guns of Homicide and Hernandez.
LAX not only became more popular than the Voodoo Kin Mafia’s newly reformed duo, but they became an all-time great tag act thanks partially to Konnan’s managing.
7 LAX 2.0: Became Indie Tag Team After Reading Chris Jericho's Book
Impact Wrestling rehired Konnan and moved forward with him introducing another new tag team LAX 2.0 in the 2010s. Santana and Ortiz formed their tag team a few years before getting noticed by Impact and built their reputations on the New York independent wrestling circuit.
The story of them becoming friends is quite wholesome as they bonded over reading Chris Jericho’s book early in their training and formed a tag team with the same goals. There are rumors of the two no longer being friends or wanting to team, but their Impact body of work will always be appreciated either way.
6 The American Wolves: Were In Mutual Sweet & Sour Inc. Faction
Ring of Honor was the place where Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards started to form chemistry even before they were the American Wolves tag team. The Sweet & Sour Inc. stable was a powerful heel group in ROH led by the extremely underrated Larry Sweeney as their manager.
Richards and Edwards teamed up on some international shows before becoming a full-time tag act for ROH. Their reputations became so credible within the industry that TNA came calling when they were free agents and offered a great deal to jump ship for a top babyface team run.
5 Team 3D: Had Strongest Chemistry Of Dudley Boyz ECW Faction
The oldest tag team to have a legendary stint in TNA was Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley. Both wrestlers were a bit tired of the WWE schedule and politics when they made the move to TNA. The duo helped add some name value to TNA before they signed bigger stars like Christian Cage, Sting, and Kurt Angle. Team 3D was the name used there and the legendary tag team continued to dominate in yet another promotion.
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ECW was the place where Bubba and D-Von realized they had a special tag act together in the 1990s. The entire Dudley Boyz faction featured combinations of Dudley wrestlers teaming up, but Bubba and D-Von was the pairing to have real chemistry to start an iconic run together.
4 Bad Influence: Feuding With AJ Styles After Fortune Ended
TNA witnessed the tag team of Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels many years into both establishing singles identities in the X-Division. The real-life friendship between Daniels and Kazarian inspired them to pitch working together as the Bad Influence tag team after the Fortune faction ended.
AJ Styles was the top star from Fortune, so it only made sense for the heels to feud with him. Bad Influence became arguably the top TNA team over the next few years after a rocky start with the Styles feud. Kazarian and Daniels extended their tag act from TNA to Ring of Honor to even AEW as SCU.
3 The Beautiful People: Similar Mean Girl Characters In Early Knockouts Division
The early stages of the Knockouts division featured Angelina Love and Velvet Sky breaking out together as the Beautiful People heel team. Both ladies were actually in singles roles when TNA hired some standout independent talents to get characters across at the start of the division.
Sky and Love each turned heel playing the mean girl genre of a character and made more sense together. The Beautiful People were the strongest unit in the Knockouts division to become a highly successful act together. Huge rating results made Love and Sky among the most valued talents for quite some time.
2 Beer Money: United After Treading Water As Singles Heels
Many of the best tag teams come from two singles talents needing something new at the same time. TNA found a way to freshen up both James Storm and Bobby Roode after failed heel singles pushes without having to change their characters that much.
Beer Money represented the drinking character of Storm and the money-obsessed wealthy heel Roode while having the same goal. Fans instantly fell in love with Beer Money making them a top act for years. Beer Money thrived so much that both became bigger stars and got over in their future singles roles this time after the eventual breakup.
1 Motor City Machine Guns: Started Teaming During Japan Tour
Most fans would name the Motor City Machine Guns as the most beloved tag team in TNA history for a great reason. Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin had a legendary must-watch tag phase together in their earlier years and currently still feel like the premiere team act for Impact Wrestling today.
The friendship between Sabin and Shelley saw them first experimenting with the tag act during a tour in Japan to strong results. Their mutual background from Detroit sparked the Motor City Machine Guns name when pitching the idea to TNA management. Even though the company wasn’t always behind them, Shelley and Sabin delivered an iconic tag team run.
