WWE NXT announced the return of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic at New Year’s Evil, but the lineup was a mystery (aside from a few obvious inclusions) until now. Today they announced the teams that will be included in the tournament, which has been around since NXT TakeOver: Respect in 2015. An impressive list of winners have held the equally impressive Dusty Cup, and the most recent winners were MSK, who are also entrants in this year’s Dusty Cup Classic. Other returning names are the Grizzled Young Veterans and Legado del Fantasma, but there are some new NXT 2.0 era names in the mix as well.
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You can find the full list of Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic competitors below, which include names like the Creed Brothers, Jacket Time, and more. Here’s the full lineup for the tournament, which starts on January 18th and will feature eight teams. The women’s tournament will kick off in February.
MSK (Wes Lee and Nash Carter)
Brooks Jensen and Josh Briggs
Jacket Time (Kushida and Ikemen Jiro)
Malik Blade and Edris Enofe
GYV (Zack Gibson and James Drake)
Andre Chase and Bodhi Hayward
Legado del Fantasma (Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza)
The Creed Brothers (Julius Creed and Brutus Creed)
MSK would love to repeat and get some momentum back before they go after the NXT Tag Team Championships, though with the way the title scene is going lately, we could very well see one of the newer teams take the victory. Teams like The Creed Brothers, Jenson and Briggs, and Blade and Enofe could very well win and use it to springboard themselves into the main picture, but we’ll have to wait and see.
There are some big names in the Dusty Cup’s winners list, with previous winners including Finn Balor and Samoa Joe (2015), The Authors of Pain (2016), Undisputed ERA Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly (2018), Aleister Black and Ricochet (2019), and The BroserWeights Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne (2020),ย
Could MSK repeat or could GYV finally knock them down a peg? Maybe Legado del Fantasma gets some time in the sun or Jacket Time gets a major win and push. This could also be the beginning of some new legacies, and we’ll start the journey on January 18th.
Who do you want to see win the tournament? Let us know in the comments!
