The tag team division of Impact Wrestling has featured some of the best duos in recent memory. Beer Money, Motor City Machine Guns and Team 3D have shown the best instances of teams thriving in the long run. However, there were the instances of TNA/Impact splitting up teams before they should have gone their separate ways.
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WWE is known for their desire to split up teams to find the bigger singles star, but TNA fell into this trap as well. There were even multiple instances of TNA having teams lose matches to break up as part of the stipulation. The following teams broke up too soon and could have accomplished much more sticking together.
10 America's Most Wanted
TNA witnessed James Storm and Chris Harris becoming the first breakout tag team in the early years as America’s Most Wanted. The duo got over huge in both face and heel roles throughout the years until a feud with LAX ended them for good.
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Storm and Harris put their futures together on the line with a loss against LAX causing them to break up. TNA did this a bit too soon as Harris and Storm treated water moving forward. Storm had to form a new team with Bobby Roode as Beer Money to rebound, while Harris flopped in TNA and WWE.
9 Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt
AEW recently reunited the former TNA pairing of Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt as a heel unit. Many fans forget they spent some time teaming since it didn’t take away from either man competing in the X-Division.
However, there was strong chemistry between Lethal and Dutt that could have played out with a tag title run. Dutt turning on Lethal in a love triangle storyline involving SoCal Val ended their team before they could reach a peak together.
8 Sarita & Taylor Wilde
The Knockouts division reached their own tag titles in TNA long before WWE introduced the Women’s Tag Team Championship. TNA booked the makeshift face team of Sarita and Taylor Wilde to win the Knockouts Tag Team Championship with strong crowd support.
Sarita however turned on Wilde towards the end of their run to split them up. The hope was that both women would become bigger singles stars, but this ended up being their final major angles in TNA before each left the promotion.
7 The British Invasion
TNA paired together the tag team of Doug Williams and Magnus in the tag division as part of the British Invasion faction. The British wrestlers were already heels and formed their own group before merging with other heels to form the World Elite faction.
Magnus and Williams winning the TNA Tag Team Championship was the peak of the faction as two strong wrestlers with direction together. Unfortunately, TNA had a habit of stopping and starting pushes to break them up before the act had worn out its welcome.
6 AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels
The rare scenario of AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels in TNA saw them thriving both as rivals and tag partners at different points. TNA witnessed some of the best tag matches in company history when Styles and Daniels won the NWA Tag Team Championship and feuded with America’s Most Wanted and LAX.
This run only lasted a few months before Styles started showing a heel side and no longer wanted to team with Daniels. AJ eventually did benefit the following year when becoming part of the Christian Cage Coalition, but the split from Daniels came before fans were ready.
5 The Dollhouse
TNA came up with The Dollhouse faction back when Billy Corgan was involved in creative and even helped them get the entrance theme of “Doll Parts” by Hole. Taryn Terrell returned from a wrestling hiatus to lead the heel group with Marti Belle, Mia Yim and Rebel.
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The group was a success for Terrell winning the Knockouts Championship, and the pairing of Belle and Yim in the tag scene. Taryn eventually leaving again caused TNA to lose faith and split the group up. The chemistry between the other members could have given them a long-term team if keeping them together.
4 Samoa Joe & Magnus
Samoa Joe and Magnus made up one of the more successful makeshift tag teams in TNA history. Both singles wrestlers got on the same page to help add excitement to TNA’s tag division after a few years of failure in the Hulk Hogan era.
The TNA Tag Team Championship win helped Magnus build real momentum and reminded fans of Joe’s greatness after a few years of bad booking. TNA eventually split them up with a feud against each other that didn’t even have much at stake. Both wrestlers remained faces for the following year where they could have continued teaming.
3 LAX
The original version of LAX saw Homicide and Hernandez thriving as TNA’s most important team for a few years. LAX had a heel run with Konnan managing them at their peak, but they also got over as faces after Konnan left the company.
TNA lost faith in the duo and split them up a bit faster than anyone expected. Hernandez’s size led to him getting a singles push in the upper card picture that flopped. Homicide rarely received any chances to shine outside of the X-Division and both their TNA careers suffered for it.
2 Tara & Brooke Tessmacher
One of the more successful duos in TNA’s first attempt at a Knockouts tag team division featured Tara and Brooke Tessmacher working together. The two Knockouts stars developed a tight bond outside of the ring for fun social media content to add to the on-screen product.
Both women benefited from the time together, but TNA split them up to push Brooke in a bigger role. The idea to get more out of each woman in singles roles made sense long-term, but they could have had the greatest Knockouts tag run before that to make it matter more when Tara betrayed Tessmacher.
1 Triple X
The trio of Christopher Daniels, Elix Skipper and Low Ki provided one of the first hot TNA acts as Triple X. All three wrestlers were incredible in the ring and delivered classic matches in the early stages of TNA’s tag team division.
An epic rivalry with America’s Most Wanted saw TNA wanting to put something major at stake when having the losing team break up. Triple X had a lot more to accomplish together and broke up too soon in defeat. Daniels thrived in a singles X-Division role, but Low Ki and Skipper could have continued teaming. TNA even tried to reunite them years later after the momentum was already gone.
