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The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams
The dynamic duos worthy of a spot in the pro wrestling hall of fame
When you put four pro wrestlers in a ring, you double the athleticism, mischief, and entertainment. That’s the equation behind The Pro Wrestling Hall of The Tag Teams.
Through hundreds of extensive interviews with well-known wrestlers, promoters, and managers — a who’s who of wrestling since the ’50s — Tag Teams regales us with tales of pain, measly payoffs, and a trade that was practiced as much for love as for money. Detailed insider information guides the authors’ explanation of how tag team matches actually work — and why, sometimes, they do not. Fans will get to see how their favorites stack up on the list of the top teams of all time. With its impressive collection of rare, historic photos, and fascinating profiles chock-full of little-known facts, as well as humorous anecdotes, this comprehensive and historical look at wrestling’s tag team phenomenon will stand out as a reference source and talking point for years to come.
When you put four pro wrestlers in a ring, you double the athleticism, mischief, and entertainment. That’s the equation behind The Pro Wrestling Hall of The Tag Teams.
Through hundreds of extensive interviews with well-known wrestlers, promoters, and managers — a who’s who of wrestling since the ’50s — Tag Teams regales us with tales of pain, measly payoffs, and a trade that was practiced as much for love as for money. Detailed insider information guides the authors’ explanation of how tag team matches actually work — and why, sometimes, they do not. Fans will get to see how their favorites stack up on the list of the top teams of all time. With its impressive collection of rare, historic photos, and fascinating profiles chock-full of little-known facts, as well as humorous anecdotes, this comprehensive and historical look at wrestling’s tag team phenomenon will stand out as a reference source and talking point for years to come.
- GenresNonfictionSports
312 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Greg Oliver
26 books20 followersA writer, editor, and stay-at-home dad, Greg Oliver has written extensively about hockey and professional wrestling. He's done two children's books, and, in December 2020, self-published the biography of Canadian comic genius Billy Van, titled Who's The Man? Billy Van!
He was co-awarded the 2008 James Melby Memorial Award for wrestling journalist from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and the Cauliflower Alley Club awarded him its Melby Award for historical work in pro wrestling in 2021.
In the spring of 2023, the memoirs of former Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons (Gibby: Tales of a Baseball Lifer), and pro wrestler turned monster truck driver Madusa Miceli / Alundra Blayze (The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story) hit shelves.
Run with the Bull: Three Generations of Sports and Entertainment, written with Eric Johnston and Joseph Casciaro, came out in February 2024, and is an interesting mix of pro wrestling, comedy and family.
He has another book on the go, though it has not been announced publicly. He’s always looking for the next project.
A member of the Society for International Hockey Research, and a recipient of SIHR's Bill Fitsell President’s Award in 2021, Greg lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his wife and lives vicariously through his son, away at university.
He was co-awarded the 2008 James Melby Memorial Award for wrestling journalist from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and the Cauliflower Alley Club awarded him its Melby Award for historical work in pro wrestling in 2021.
In the spring of 2023, the memoirs of former Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons (Gibby: Tales of a Baseball Lifer), and pro wrestler turned monster truck driver Madusa Miceli / Alundra Blayze (The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story) hit shelves.
Run with the Bull: Three Generations of Sports and Entertainment, written with Eric Johnston and Joseph Casciaro, came out in February 2024, and is an interesting mix of pro wrestling, comedy and family.
He has another book on the go, though it has not been announced publicly. He’s always looking for the next project.
A member of the Society for International Hockey Research, and a recipient of SIHR's Bill Fitsell President’s Award in 2021, Greg lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his wife and lives vicariously through his son, away at university.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 18, 2015
The Johnson/Oliver collabs produced some great works of wrestling scholarship that have flown under the radar screen. Invaluable biographical info here, culled from interviews and other primary sources.
June 6, 2020
Oliver and Johnson do a very thorough job covering all of the most popular and influential tag teams throughout the history of the sport in the United States and Canada, up through the early 2000s.
August 17, 2019
This book was a fascinating read. It is broken up into six sections which are The Top 20; The Golden Era (1950s to mid 1960s); The Brothers; The Territorial Era (mid 1960s to mid 1980s); The Evil Foreigners and The National Era (mid 1980s to the present). There are also a few pages touching upon a specific topic and listing some of the teams that fit into that topic (such as teams made up of really big wrestlers).
Most readers of this book are going to come across teams that they will not be familiar with. How many will likely depend on when you started watching wrestling and how well-read on the subject you are. I started watching during the Territorial Era. As such unless a team made it into one of the territories I could at least see on television I might not be familiar with them. One advantage I have is that I got a lot of different wrestling on television so at various times I could see the shows from six different Canadian promotions: Maple Leaf (Toronto); All-Star (Vancouver); Stampede (Calgary); Celebrity (Montreal); Grand Prix (Montreal) and Superstars of Wrestling (Ontario I think). As well I could also get shows from whatever promotion a particular television station would air at any time. This included the NWF; AWA; WWWF; UWF, World Class and Mid-Atlantic as well as some I have no idea where they were. I also read a lot of wrestling magazines so got to read about teams that I never saw. Even so there are a lot of teams in this book that I am unfamiliar with. This is probably more the case in the earliest eras.
The Top 20 is sure to be the section that will cause the most discussion/arguments among wrestling fans. The number 1 team is The Fabulous Kangaroos and number 2 is The Road Warriors. Already I can see the arguments about the placing there. I have had the privilege of seeing both teams in action and personally think they may have gotten this one right. Of the 20 teams I have seen eight of them in action, and was aware of seven more from the wrestling magazines I read. Probably not a bad total actually with only five being more or less new to me (a couple I knew had existed but didn't know much else about them). With other sections, the more recent the time period covered the more likely one is to know the teams.
The reader is also likely to learn a few things that he or she might not have known before. I am sure some fans only familiar with Luke Williams and Butch Millar from their Bushwackers days in the WWF/WWE will be surprised to learn that as The Sheepherders they were one of the most violent teams in the business. I can attest to that from having seen their barbed-wire cage match against The Fantastics in Bill Watts' old UWF promotion.Another amusing tidbit is that the first person to be Smash of Demolition had been a member of The Moondogs previously. Apparently a large number of fans recognized him, started calling out Moondog Rex during taping and were so loud that the tapes were unusable. As a result he was replaced by another wrestler (a bummer really as the team had been his idea originally). There is plenty of other items to discover in this book.
The book includes a bibliography at the end. I was actually amazed to see how many books on wrestling there are (and I know of books not on that list). And of course there are plenty of pictures. Each team discussed in the main listings and some of the sidebars have pictures as well. Some of them outside the ring, such as the McGuire twins (all one thousand pounds of them) at a tug-of-war competion. The cover picture is an action shot from a scaffold match between the Rock 'n' Roll Express and the Midnight Express. Don Gibson and Ricky Morton are on the top of the scaffold while Beautiful Bobby Eaton is on the bottom hanging on for dear life. I can't be sure but I suspect this shot is from a late 1980s Great American Bash card held in Chicago.
There is only one drawback to this book. That is that the careers of the wrestlers who were part of a team are not covered that much. I suppose this is due to the nature of the book, being concerned with the team as such. As well to do so would probably have inflated the size of the book. This book is actually part of a series of four, the others being The Canadians, The Heels and Idols and Icons.
All in all this is a book that should be on the shelf of any wrestling fan. There is a lot history covered in this book and one will learn about teams from all eras of the sport, not just the current crop of wrestlers. So if you love your wrestling history this is a book for you.
I have since discovered there is another book in this series named The Storytellers, another book to add to the shelves.
Most readers of this book are going to come across teams that they will not be familiar with. How many will likely depend on when you started watching wrestling and how well-read on the subject you are. I started watching during the Territorial Era. As such unless a team made it into one of the territories I could at least see on television I might not be familiar with them. One advantage I have is that I got a lot of different wrestling on television so at various times I could see the shows from six different Canadian promotions: Maple Leaf (Toronto); All-Star (Vancouver); Stampede (Calgary); Celebrity (Montreal); Grand Prix (Montreal) and Superstars of Wrestling (Ontario I think). As well I could also get shows from whatever promotion a particular television station would air at any time. This included the NWF; AWA; WWWF; UWF, World Class and Mid-Atlantic as well as some I have no idea where they were. I also read a lot of wrestling magazines so got to read about teams that I never saw. Even so there are a lot of teams in this book that I am unfamiliar with. This is probably more the case in the earliest eras.
The Top 20 is sure to be the section that will cause the most discussion/arguments among wrestling fans. The number 1 team is The Fabulous Kangaroos and number 2 is The Road Warriors. Already I can see the arguments about the placing there. I have had the privilege of seeing both teams in action and personally think they may have gotten this one right. Of the 20 teams I have seen eight of them in action, and was aware of seven more from the wrestling magazines I read. Probably not a bad total actually with only five being more or less new to me (a couple I knew had existed but didn't know much else about them). With other sections, the more recent the time period covered the more likely one is to know the teams.
The reader is also likely to learn a few things that he or she might not have known before. I am sure some fans only familiar with Luke Williams and Butch Millar from their Bushwackers days in the WWF/WWE will be surprised to learn that as The Sheepherders they were one of the most violent teams in the business. I can attest to that from having seen their barbed-wire cage match against The Fantastics in Bill Watts' old UWF promotion.Another amusing tidbit is that the first person to be Smash of Demolition had been a member of The Moondogs previously. Apparently a large number of fans recognized him, started calling out Moondog Rex during taping and were so loud that the tapes were unusable. As a result he was replaced by another wrestler (a bummer really as the team had been his idea originally). There is plenty of other items to discover in this book.
The book includes a bibliography at the end. I was actually amazed to see how many books on wrestling there are (and I know of books not on that list). And of course there are plenty of pictures. Each team discussed in the main listings and some of the sidebars have pictures as well. Some of them outside the ring, such as the McGuire twins (all one thousand pounds of them) at a tug-of-war competion. The cover picture is an action shot from a scaffold match between the Rock 'n' Roll Express and the Midnight Express. Don Gibson and Ricky Morton are on the top of the scaffold while Beautiful Bobby Eaton is on the bottom hanging on for dear life. I can't be sure but I suspect this shot is from a late 1980s Great American Bash card held in Chicago.
There is only one drawback to this book. That is that the careers of the wrestlers who were part of a team are not covered that much. I suppose this is due to the nature of the book, being concerned with the team as such. As well to do so would probably have inflated the size of the book. This book is actually part of a series of four, the others being The Canadians, The Heels and Idols and Icons.
All in all this is a book that should be on the shelf of any wrestling fan. There is a lot history covered in this book and one will learn about teams from all eras of the sport, not just the current crop of wrestlers. So if you love your wrestling history this is a book for you.
I have since discovered there is another book in this series named The Storytellers, another book to add to the shelves.
June 2, 2012
If you like tag-team pro wrestling, this book chronicles many of the legendary tag teams in wrestling history. It is a fantastic and very easy read that will bring back a lot of memories. Just a fabulous book and one of the best ever about pro wrestling!
September 15, 2013
This series of books by Oliver and Johnson are the gold standard of professional wrestling history. Well written and edited, I reread this series at least once a year as I always learn something new.
December 24, 2012
Easily one of my favorite books on pro wrestling. The book is a wealth of information and tells so many wonderful stories. I find myself looking through it again every few months.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews