Citing the latest episode of WWE’s After the Bell podcast, WrestlingNews.co reported that Corey Graves was critical of the company’s Women’s Tag Team division.
The episode, which also featured Hall of Famer Edge, saw Graves reveal his real thoughts on female pairings in WWE. According to the outspoken Friday Night SmackDown announcer, the lack of “legitimate” duos is “killing” the tag scene for the women.
Graves insisted that he wasn’t disrespecting the efforts of the individual performers on Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown . His issue stems from management’s lack of focus on establishing alliances that make sense together.
“You have people that show up randomly that want a match and now they’re a team. You’ve got Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke who are about the closest thing to a legitimate team. You’ve got Nia [Jax] and Shayna [Baszler] that have grown into that role, but it’s just been a bunch of mashups of two random people competing for the championships and I feel like it’s just never really allowed that division to shine and become a focus like I know it’s capable of just like the men’s tag team championships.”
The blue brand’s color commentator went on to reiterate that the female stars should be viewed as equal to their male counterparts across the board. However, he doesn’t think that their division will gain any credibility until more believable pairings are given a run with the titles.
Graves isn’t the only pundit who feels this way, either. As Sportskeeda pointed out, the lack of depth in this area — coupled with the company’s tendency to prematurely split up popular duos — has exposed this title scene as an afterthought in the grand scheme of things.
Per the Sportskeeda report, The IIconics were separated last year and the decision has proven to be quite unpopular among fans and performers alike. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Peyton Royce — who was one-half of the IIconics — recently expressed her frustrations about their breakup.
Royce looked set to receive a push after she and Billie Kay parted ways, but she’s arguably struggled to find any momentum since then. Furthermore, she was placed into a short-lived team with Lacey Evans shortly after, which led some fans to question why she and Kay couldn’t have remained aligned for a while longer.
The Kabuki Warriors and The Boss and Hug Connection (later known as The Golden Role Models) were also disbanded in recent months, albeit for understandable reasons. In regard to the former, Kairi Sane moved to her native Japan in 2020 to spend more time with her family. Bayley and Sasha Banks, meanwhile, were given a long and successful run before they became enemies.