The WWE Raw Tag Team Championship is a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

world tag team championship The world tag team championship is the name usually given to the primary tag team championship (professional wrestling), championships in professional wrestling Professional wrestling promotions, promotions. Nomenclature The name of the promo ...

created and promoted by the American

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vari ...

, representing the Raw brand division. It is one of two male tag team championships for WWE's main roster, along with

SmackDown ''WWE SmackDown'', also known as ''Friday Night SmackDown'' or simply ''SmackDown'', is an American professional wrestling television program produced by WWE that as of currently airs live every Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Fox Deportes sim ...

's Tag Team Championship. The current champions are

The Usos The Usos (born August 22, 1985) are an American professional wrestling tag team composed of twin brothers Joshua Samuel Fatu and Jonathan Solofa Fatu, who are known professionally by their respective ring names Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso. They ar ...

(

Jey Uso Jey may refer to: *Jey, Iran, a village in Alborz Province, Iran *Jey Rural District, in Isfahan Province, Iran *Alih Jey, a Latin Grammy nominated Dominican Rock music singer and songwriter *Clarence Jey, a Los Angeles-based Billboard Record Produ ...

and

Jimmy Uso The Usos (born August 22, 1985) are an American professional wrestling tag team composed of twin brothers Joshua Samuel Fatu and Jonathan Solofa Fatu, who are known professionally by their respective ring names Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso. They are b ...

), who are in their third reign. As The Usos concurrently hold the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, they presently defend the titles together across both brands as the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship, although both titles retain their individual lineages. The championship was originally established as the WWE Tag Team Championship on October 3, 2002, and the team of

Kurt Angle Kurt Steven Angle (born December 9, 1968) is an American retired professional wrestler, Olympic gold medalist in American freestyle wrestling, and former collegiate wrestler. He is best known for his tenures in WWE and Total Nonstop Action ...

and Chris Benoit were the inaugural champions. It was introduced for the SmackDown brand as a second title for

tag team Tag team wrestling is a type of professional wrestling in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. Tag teams may be made up of wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of establish ...

s in the promotion to complement WWE's original

World Tag Team Championship The world tag team championship is the name usually given to the primary tag team championship (professional wrestling), championships in professional wrestling Professional wrestling promotions, promotions. Nomenclature The name of the promo ...

, which became exclusive to Raw. 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. As a result of the

2016 WWE Draft Sixteen or 16 may refer to: *16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 *one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films * ''Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film * ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film ...

, the championship became exclusive to Raw with a subsequent rename, with SmackDown then creating their own counterpart title.

History

From 1971 until 2002, the

was the primary men's

of the

promotion

. Following The Invasion storyline, WWE's roster doubled in size due to the influx of wrestlers from the former promotions,

World Championship Wrestling World Championship Wrestling, Inc. (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System, through a subsidiary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of Nati ...

and

Extreme Championship Wrestling HHG Corporation, doing business as Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), was a professional wrestling promotion and media company that was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The promotion was founded in 1992 by Tod Gordon as National Wrest ...

. As a result, WWE introduced the brand extension in March 2002 to divide its roster between the Raw and SmackDown! brands where wrestlers would exclusively perform on their respective weekly television programs. The World Tag Team Championship initially became exclusive to SmackDown!, but was later reassigned to Raw, leaving the former without a tag team title. As a result, SmackDown! General Manager

Stephanie McMahon Stephanie McMahon Levesque (born Stephanie Marie McMahon; ; September 24, 1976) is an American businesswoman and retired professional wrestler. She is the current chairwoman and co-chief executive officer (CEO) of WWE, the world's largest prof ...

introduced the WWE Tag Team Championship and commissioned it to be the tag team title for the SmackDown! brand on October 3, 2002. She also announced that the inaugural champions would be determined from an eight-team tournament. At No Mercy on October 20, 2002, the team of

and Chris Benoit defeated

Rey Mysterio Óscar Gutiérrez (born December 11, 1974), better known by his ring name Rey Mysterio, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand. Widely regarded as one of the greatest prof ...

and

Edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed ...

in the tournament final to become the inaugural WWE Tag Team Champions. Deuce 'N Domino

On October 17, 2007, SmackDown! and ECW (which became a third brand in 2006) 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, reigning WWE Tag Team Champions The Colóns ( Carlito and Primo) engaged in rivalry with reigning World Tag Team Champions John Morrison and The Miz, which resulted in the announcement on the March 17 episode of '' ECW'' that at WrestleMania 25, both teams would defend their titles against each other and the winning team would hold both titles. The Colóns 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. The championships would be defended as the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship on any brand until August 2010. That month, the Anonymous Raw General Manager announced that the World Tag Team Championship would be decommissioned in favor of continuing the WWE Tag Team Championship, which received a new, single set of championship belts, which were presented to reigning champions

The Hart Dynasty The Hart Dynasty was a Canadian professional wrestling stable who appeared in World Wrestling Entertainment. The unit consisted of the tag team of Tyson Kidd and David Hart Smith, and Natalya as a manager. The group was named due to the connecti ...

(

Tyson Kidd Theodore James "TJ" Wilson (born July 11, 1980) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler better known by the ring name Tyson Kidd. He is currently signed to WWE, where he works as a producer. The final graduate of the Hart Dungeon, Wilson ...

and

David Hart Smith Harry Francis Smith (born August 2, 1985) is a Canadian professional wrestler, best known under the ring name Davey Boy Smith Jr. and his real name Harry Smith. He currently performs for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), where he was on ...

) by Bret Hart. The WWE Tag Team Championship, which dropped the "unified" moniker, subsequently became the sole tag team championship in WWE, available to any brand. The first brand extension then ended in August 2011. Following the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016, reigning champions The New Day ( Big E,

Kofi Kingston Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah (born August 14, 1981) is a Ghanaian-born American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the NXT brand under the ring name Kofi Kingston. He appeared on WWE's NXT brand as one-ha ...

, and Xavier Woods) were drafted to the Raw brand, making the championship exclusive to Raw. In response, SmackDown created the

SmackDown Tag Team Championship The WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship is a professional wrestling world tag team championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE, representing the SmackDown brand division. It is one of two male tag team championships for WWE' ...

on August 23, 2016. The WWE Tag Team Championship was subsequently renamed to Raw Tag Team Championship and The New Day were the first champions to hold the title under its new name. In 2019, WWE's developmental territory NXT became the promotion's third major brand when it was moved to the

USA Network USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...

in September, thus making the

NXT Tag Team Championship The NXT Tag Team Championship is a men's professional wrestling tag team championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE. It is defended on the NXT brand division, the promotion's developmental territory. Introduced on January 2 ...

the third major tag team title for men in WWE. However, this recognition was reversed when NXT reverted to its original function as a developmental brand in September 2021. At

WrestleMania 34 WrestleMania 34 was the 34th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on April 8, 2 ...

on April 8, 2018, reigning Raw Tag Team Champions

Cesaro and Sheamus The Bar, originally simply known as Cesaro and Sheamus, was a professional wrestling tag team in WWE. They were record-setting four-time Raw Tag Team Champions and one-time SmackDown Tag Team Champions, making their team overall five-time cham ...

were scheduled to defend the title against

Braun Strowman Adam Joseph Scherr (born September 6, 1983) is an American professional wrestler and former strongman. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Braun Strowman. In WWE, he is a one-time U ...

and a partner of his choosing. At the event, Strowman revealed that his partner would be a fan from the live audience. He then went out into the crowd and picked 10-year old Nicholas, and the two defeated Cesaro and Sheamus for the title. This made Nicholas the youngest WWE champion in history. Nicholas was also revealed to be the son of WWE referee,

John Cone John Cone (born November 16, 1974) is an American professional wrestling referee who works for WWE under the Raw brand. Cone also works in the corporate role of senior manager of talent relations for WWE. Professional wrestling career Indepen ...

. The following night on '' Raw'', the two relinquished the titles. During the May 20, 2022, episode of ''

'', reigning SmackDown Tag Team Champions

(Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) defeated reigning Raw Tag Team Champions

RK-Bro RK-Bro is an American professional wrestling tag team composed of Randy Orton and Matt Riddle. They are both currently signed to WWE, where they perform on the Raw brand. The team's name is derived from Orton's initials and finisher "RKO" and co ...

( Randy Orton and

Riddle A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requ ...

) in a Winners Take All match to claim both championships and become recognized as the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions. WWE had billed the match as a championship unification match; however, both titles remain independently active with The Usos being double champions, defending both titles together across both brands as the

Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship refers to both of the following: * WWE Raw Tag Team Championship, the men's tag team championship of WWE's Raw brand *WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championship, the men's tag team championship of WWE's SmackDown brand ...

Inaugural WWE Tag Team Championship Tournament (2002)

The WWE Tag Team Championship Tournament was a tournament held to crown the inaugural WWE Tag Team Champions for the SmackDown brand. It concluded at No Mercy on October 20, 2002, and was won by the team of Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit.

Brand designation history

Following the events of the WWE brand extension, an annual

WWE draft The WWE Draft, alternatively called the WWE Superstar Shake-up from 2017 to 2019, is a process used by the United States, American professional wrestling promotion WWE to refresh its rosters between the Raw (WWE brand), Raw and SmackDown (WWE bran ...

was established, in which select members of WWE's roster are reassigned to a different brand. After the WWE Tag Team Championship was unified with the World Tag Team Championship as the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship, the champions could appear and defend the titles on any WWE brand. The titles were combined as the WWE Tag Team Championship in August 2010 with a single set of belts, and continued to be defended on any brand. The brand extension was discontinued on August 29, 2011, but it was revived on July 19, 2016. The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the WWE (Raw) Tag Team Championship between the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands.

Belt design

In August 2010, the WWE Tag Team Championship received a redesign. Taking inspiration from

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

, the belts feature a center plate dominated by two

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...

n helmets facing outward and the center plate is encircled with a

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ba ...

pattern. At the top of the center plate is the WWE logo and at the bottom is a banner that reads "Tag Team" on one line and "Champions" below that. On both sides of the center plate are two side plates. The inner side plates feature the WWE logo and are encircled with the meander pattern, while the outer side plates feature a single Spartan helmet facing inward. When this belt design was introduced in 2010, the plates were bronze colored and featured the long-standing WWE scratch logo and the straps were black. In August 2014, the belts, along with all other pre-existing championship belts in WWE at the time, received a minor update, replacing the scratch logo with WWE's current logo that was originally used for the

WWE Network WWE Network is a subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television t ...

. In August 2016, after the reintroduction of the brand split and the creation of the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, the WWE Tag Team Championship was renamed to Raw Tag Team Championship. The belts received an update on December 19 that year to reflect the name change. Featuring the same physical design, the plates were made silver and the straps changed to red, countering the silver plates on blue straps design of the SmackDown Tag Team Championship belts. While all other WWE championship belts have been updated to feature customizable side plates for the champion's logos, the Raw and SmackDown tag titles are the only championship belts in the promotion that lack this feature.

Reigns

As of , , there have been 88 reigns between 67 teams composed of 98 individual champions, and one vacancy. The team of Cesaro and Sheamus and The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) have the most reigns as a team at four, while individually, Kingston and

Seth Rollins Colby Daniel Lopez (born May 28, 1986) is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Seth Rollins (often referred to as Seth "Freakin" Rollins). Prior to signing ...

have the most with six. The New Day's second reign is also the longest reign at 483 days and they are the only team to hold the championship for over one consecutive year—Big E is also credited for this reign as during New Day's first two reigns, Big E, Kingston, and Woods were all recognized as champion under the

Freebird Rule The Fabulous Freebirds were a professional wrestling tag team who attained fame in the 1980s, performing into the 1990s. The team usually consisted of three wrestlers, although in different situations and points in its history, just two performed ...

(Big E was split from the team in the

2020 WWE Draft The 2020 WWE Draft was the 15th WWE Draft produced by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE between their Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The two-night event began on the October 9 episode of '' Friday Night SmackDown'' and conc ...

John Cena John Felix Anthony Cena ( ; born April 23, 1977) is an American part-time professional wrestler, actor, and former rapper. He is currently signed to WWE. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he is tied ...

and

The Miz Michael Gregory Mizanin (born October 8, 1980) is an American professional wrestler, actor, and television personality. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name The Miz. Mizanin first gained fa ...

's sole reign is the shortest reign at 9 minutes, due to

The Corre The Corre was a multinational villainous stable that wrestled on World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE's SmackDown brand in 2011. The group was a spinoff of British wrestler Wade Barrett's previous stable, The Nexus. The stable was formed after Ame ...

invoking their rematch clause immediately after losing the title. As a team, The New Day (across its two different variants of team members) also have the longest combined reign at 627 days, while Kingston individually has the longest combined reign at 912 days (910 days as recognized by WWE). Nicholas is the youngest champion at 10 years old (also making him the youngest champion in WWE history), while

Billy Gunn Monty Kip Sopp (born November 1, 1963), better known by his ring name Billy Gunn, although he is currently finding renewed popularity under the ring name Daddy Ass, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to All Elite Wres ...

is the oldest champion at age 50. The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) are the current champions in their third reign. They defeated RK-Bro (Randy Orton and Riddle) in a Winners Take All match on the May 20, 2022, episode of ''SmackDown'' in

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...

. The Usos had also defended the SmackDown Tag Team Championship in the match, and with both titles, they are recognized as the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions.

Notes

References

; General * * ; Specific

External links

Official Raw Tag Team Title History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wwe Tag Team Championship WWE Raw WWE tag team championships