A tag-team match has the same goal for achieving a win, but the rules are slightly modified.The opponents will wrestle, one team member at a time, while the other waits outside on the apron (the outer edge of the ring which extends outside the ropes.)
The legal wrestler will "tag" his partner to let him come into the match. In the past, tagging was strictly a slapping of hands, but these days it's any physical contact. Also, in the past the Inactive Partner was required to wait at their designated turnbuckle, hanging onto a little rope attached for the purpose, and have both feet on the apron. If that's still a rule, it's never enforced these days.
Upon tagging, the original wrestler is technically "in the ring, interfering" and is given a five-count to return to his corner. Usually, a team will take advantage of the five-count to perform a quick double-team.
That pretty much covers the altered rules, but this type of match also calls for different strategies.
The most effective strategy in a Tag-Team Match is to prevent an opponent from making a tag, while constantly tagging in and out yourself. This keeps the two of you fresh, while wearing down your opponent.
A favorite trick of the Heels is to goad the Inactive opponent into the ring. While the referee is busy getting them back to their corner, a lot of nefarious cheating goes on behind his back.
Some Alternate Tag Matches
Six-Man, Eight-Man, Ten-Man, etc.: While a standard tag-team is two members, a match may be signed to have as many wrestlers as needed.
Tornado Tag: A match in which the partners don't need to tag, but all wrestle at once.
Handicap Match: As the name implies, a match where both sides do NOT have an equal number of wrestlers.
Also, all of the gimmicks and stipulations mentioned in my first installment on rules may be used in a tag-team setting as well. Hardly anything is more wild than a Tag-Team Ladder Match.
So Why Have Tag-Teams?
Tag-Teams started to slowly pick up momentum in the 1950s, and most Tag-Team Titles were originated during that decade. It was in the 80s, however, that it started to pick up in popularity. Teams such as The Rock 'n' Roll Express, The Midnight Express, The Hart Foundation and The Rockers were able to tell good stories in the ring, combined with (from most participants) technically sound wrestling. Demolition and The Road Warriors (Legion of Doom) were also able to provide their style of wrestling to this gimmick. While not all these teams were able to wrestle each other (Separated between the WWF and NWA) it was guaranteed that any two of those teams at random could be told to have a match with no advance warning, and put on a good show.
The most-used and most-effective "story" for a tag-team match involves the Heels cutting off one of the Faces early in the match. This poor guy will be pummelled to within an inch of his life. More than once his frustrated partner will run into the ring, and while he's being returned the Heels will perform cowardly acts of cheating behind the referee.
If it looks like he's about to make the Hot Tag afterall, The Inactive Heel will rush the ring...the referee will be forced to return him, and while he's doing that the Hot Tag is made.
Except...the referee didn't see it, and now he's requiring the Fresh Face to go back to his corner while the fans threaten the ref and his family with bodily harm.
After a few more minutes of this the Face is miraculously able to perform some kind of "Desperation" move that has both of them lying on the ground. The race is now on, as both dazed wrestlers crawl towards their partners. The Heel's make the tag first, but before the Fresh Heel can even climb through the ropes the Face makes one last Adrenaline Packed Lunge and makes the tag.
At this point the match is almost over: Either the Fresh Face will quickly clean house and get the pin, or one last dastardly deed of the Heels will knock him out.
Over 90% of Tag-Team Matches follow this formula.
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Having Tag-Team matches on TV allows more wrestlers to get some exposure during a limitted television period.
It also allows two wrestler's who aren't all that great to not be exposed too much, as their ring time is cut.
Many times a partnership will be of someone talented partnered with someone average. (Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels = Talented, Jim Neidhart/Marty Janetty = Average) In those pairings, it's usually the talented wrestler who plays the part of "Face-in-Peril"
Some wrestlers are trained in the Tag-Team style from the beginning, especially if they are family (The Harts, The Hardy Boys), but most wrestlers (for obvious reasons) would prefer to shine as a singles wrestler and many beginners don't put much heart or effort into learning the Tag Style. As a result, very few Tag-Team matches today can compare to the classics of the 80s.
On the subject of prefering to wrestle singles: An event that happens constantly in the world of wrestling is the break-up of a team.
Usually the team will be falling on hard times leading up to this, losing more matches than winning. Perhaps they will have just lost the Tag-Team Titles in a major PPV match.
If it's Faces: One will start to be more cocky. He'll start to showboat more often in a match, which often results in getting pinned. At the end of a particularly brutal loss, he'll turn on his partner...or he might even leave him in the middle of a match to fend for himself.
If it's Heels: After one loss too many, one partner will pound the other for getting pinned again and kick him out of the club.
The arguments afterwards are always the same: Either I carried this team from the beginning, or you always tried to hold me down.
A variant to this break-up will result in Brother vs. Brother matches, which will often pique the interest of the fans. As a result, many teams are comprised of Fictional "Brothers or Cousins".
Three teams of Real-Life brothers who feuded at one time or another include Bret & Owen Hart, Rick & Scott Steiner, and Matt & Jeff Hardy.
In the case of the Harts, both men were technical geniuses and wrestled many 5-Star matches. With the Steiners, only Scott had any semblance of talent and most of their few matches were with other tag-team partners. The Hardy's had a smattering of matches that went no where. They are both talented as singles wrestlers, but Matt has been wrestling half-assed the last year, while Jeff often seems to be high on Pain Killers. Two weeks ago Matt attacked Jeff, causing him to lose a match. Matt immediately jumped to Smackdown, and no mention of the team's break-up has been heard since. Perhaps Jeff is merely thinking "Damn that Matt, I'll kick his ass at Thanksgiving...I need another hit."
Another variant that has become popular the last few years is of Reluctant Partners. This will entail two men who hate each other being forced to team in a match...or perhaps two people who don't see eye-to-eye but who have an enemy in common. Either they won't be able to co-exist and therefore lose, or they will earn some grudging respect for each other.
One last variant that is sometimes used, but rarely since it's not all that popular, will be a Singles Champion who's title is on the line during a tag encounter. Sometimes the rules state that HE must be the one pinned to lose his title, other times it could be ANYONE from his team being pinned for the title to change. The one equalizer in that rule is that an opponent might not just stand there and watch his partner be the one to win the match and the title. At King of the Ring 2000, The Rock pinned Vince McMahon to win Triple H's Heavyweight belt, but he first had to fight off his own partners, Kane and Undertaker, to keep them from being the winners. (If you want to get technical, Kane and Undertaker still won the match since it was a Six-Man Tag-Team, and would get their cut of the Winner's Purse if such a thing really existed.)
