Minimum Wage Nerd

Barely a month into 2026 and already professional wrestling has delivered some standout highlights. One of the most memorable Wrestle Kingdoms in history headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi’s retirement, AJ Styles teasing retirement, Bandido and MJF tearing the house down in what will be in discussion for TV match of the year, and so much more.

And while these were incredible moments and matches, it was all carried on the back of an apparent tag team resurgence.

AEW closed 2025 by crowning their first AEW Women’s World Tag Team Champions in Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron, the Babes of Wrath, as the new division hit the ground running. Women’s tags have been fairly common on TV following the title tournament and even landed independent standouts Hyan and Maya World contracts.

WWE’s women’s tag division experienced a much needed surge to ring in 2026, as well, with many of the division’s top names including Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky wrestling for the Women’s Tag Titles. Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez, in particular, have been one of the biggest standouts in this period because of the pair’s natural chemistry that echoes Shawn Michaels and Diesel.

It has been pretty good on the men’s side, as well.

FTR has been on one of their best in-ring runs of their AEW careers as AEW Men’s World Tag Team Champions while new teams like the Don Callis Family’s Davis and Doyle or new signees Alec Price and Jordan Oliver have helped keep the division fresh. More established teams such as Jurassic Express and The Acclaimed received refreshes that have also gone over well with audiences.

In New Japan, the Knockout Bros. appear to have single-handedly revitalized the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Titles and larger division since returning from excursion in 2025. Yuto-Ice and OSKAR welcomed 2026 with a lauded titled defense at New Year’s Dash against TMDK’s Zack Sabre Jr. and Ryohei Oiwa. This was followed a few weeks later by another fantastic match, this time between the teams of Shota Umino and Yuya Uemura against Taichi and Tomohiro Ishii.

It continues down to the indies, as well, with plenty of standout teams for the bigger companies to take a look at. Some of the more notable teams, men’s and women’s, include Hyper Active, Violence is Forever, Cowboy Way, Fresh Air, Waves and Curls, and Medusa Complex, among many others.

And that isn’t to say anything of the trios, intergender, and multi-person matches have done to kick off the new year. AEW has joined TNA in finding avenues to show intergender wrestling on national TV, typically in a mixed/intergender tag match. Several mixed trios now dot AEW and Ring of Honor’s roster between Cru, the Premier Athletes, and Shane Taylor Promotions.

Finally there are the number of potential stars being able to use their successful tag team as a springboard.

Oiwa and Yuto-Ice were many fans’ standouts from the New Year’s Dash tag title match, Ice maybe more-so due to his post-match promo. Kevin Knight, Bandido, and Brody King have also made big splashes on AEW TV as singles stars in 2026 thanks to their ongoing success in the tag team division.

All this is to day that 2026 looks to be a year tag team wrestling dominates the fans’ attention.

Tag wrestling has its normal ups-and-downs, as any aspect of professional wrestling can. However, it seems like ever handful of years there is one or two years where tag team wrestling is all the talk among fans.

An easy example would be 2000 and 2001 WWF where the Hardy Boyz, Dudley Boyz, and Edge and Christian were at the peak of their three-way rivalry that saw the teams regularly trade the WWF World Tag Team Titles. Other teams including the APA, Too Cool, and Test and Albert, would find themselves involved to keep the scene fresh and find their own success in this period, as well.

And looking at the rest of 2026, the pieces are in place for tag team wrestling to have a big year across the globe.

Let’s take a look at AEW as just one example.

Between AEW and Ring of Honor, the tag team division has been in the middle of a resurgence that really picked up during Brodido’s tag title reign in mid-to-late 2025. The Young Bucks underwent a much-needed and very entertaining refresh, Jurassic Express reunited, Anthony Bowens and Max Caster have rediscovered the chemistry that birthed The Acclaimed, and GoA emerged as a standout team thanks to forming The Demand alongside Ricochet.

Younger teams including Price and Oliver, The Swirl, Cru, and Tommy Billington and Adam Priest have helped breath new life into a Ring of Honor weekly product that felt extremely stale heading into the summer of 2025. Since then, the weekly show on Honor Club has vastly improved, though there is still plenty to improve, and part of that has been on the back of these teams.

And then there is the teases of potential tag team runs involving some of AEW’s top stars. Swerve Strickland and ‘Hangman’ Adam Page have already tagged together since Swerve returned at Full Gear 2025 as fans buzz about the idea of the pair having a tag title run. Kyle Fletcher and Konosuke Takeshita have teased a similar idea amidst teases of them breaking away from the Don Callis Family, with the idea of Fletcher having a tag team run with Kazuchika Okada also teased as part of this story.

The still fairly new women’s tag division hasn’t slowed down, either. At the time of writing, the Triangle of Madness are going after Kris Statlander, Willow Nightingale, and Harley Cameron as the trio hold the Women’s World, TBS, and Women’s World Tag Team titles. Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa, the Timeless Love Bombs, have also found themselves embroiled in a fight against Megan Bayne, Penelope Ford, and Marina Shafir.

AEW has also signed or reportedly signed multiple women in recent months to improve the division’s talent depth with names including Hyan, Maya World, Persephone, Zayda Steel, Lena Kross, Christyan Reed, and Stori Denali.

Taking a step back and looking at the wider landscape, tag team wrestling looks to be the healthiest it has been in several years. There is no shortage of talent in professional wrestling, especially when it comes to tag teams. WWE, AEW, New Japan, MLW, and other major promotions have a veritable pick of the litter when it comes to teams and talent if they needed to freshen things up.

It doesn’t mean some promotions will experience it as overtly as others have been, but that’s nothing to say of the wealth of tag talent dotting rosters all over the world ready to go out and steal the show at a moment’s notice.