Tag team wrestling was on center stage in 2022. Promotions across the globe put an extra emphasis on duos bouts, with most companies having multiple two-man units that were worthy of “best in the world” superlatives. A tag match even earned a rare pay-per-view main event spot, as Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler battled Jay and Mark Briscoe over the Ring of Honor Tag Titles in the last match of ROH Death Before Dishonor. Teams like New Japan’s Aussie Open, Impact Wrestling’s Motor City Machine Guns, and Stardom’s Hazuki and Koguma all impressed in 2022, but these five nominees for the 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Tag Team stood above the rest.
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AEW’s The Acclaimed rode a ground-swelling of fan support to an AEW World Tag Title victory at AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam earlier this fall. Max Caster and Anthony Bowens took those titles off of the unit of Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee, who put on high-profile title defenses throughout the year. The Briscoes opened and closed 2022 as ROH Tag Team Champions, boasting a critically-acclaimed trilogy against FTR throughout the calendar year. FTR themselves had a banner year, as the pair of Harwood and Wheeler reigned as ROH, AAA, and IWGP Tag Team Champions simultaneously for nearly six months. In WWE, Jimmy and Jey Uso unified the Raw and SmackDown Tag Titles and eclipsed The New Day to become the longest-reigning tag champions in company history.
And the winner of the 2022 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Tag Team is…
Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions Jimmy and Jey Uso!
2022 tag superlatives will be split between the Usos and FTR, as both teams spent the majority of the year draped in multiple pieces of gold. While FTR collected championships across multiple promotions, they failed to gain the straps in their own company. On the other hand, the Usos not only reigned with WWE’s SmackDown Tag Titles for the entire year, but also added the Raw Tag Championships to their shoulders as well.
Looking towards the new year, the Usos barely have any challengers left. The two are reportedly going to be on a collision course with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn come WWE WrestleMania 39 season, but until then, it doesn’t look like any tag team is escaping the Uso Penitentiary.
Congrats to the Usos on their victory!
The full list of nominees can be seen below…
The Acclaimed
The Briscoes
FTR
The Usos – WINNER
Swerve in Our Glory
