As revealed on this week’s jam-packed episode of NXT, the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic will be making a return in 2020, marking the fourth annual event under the banner. The teams for this edition will be unveiled on January 1st via the New Year’s Day special edition of NXT.
The #DustyClassic RETURNS to #WWENXT in 2020! Teams will be announced on the New Year’s Day edition of @WWENXT! https://t.co/jI4qTE42KH
— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) December 19, 2019
Beginning in 2015, the tournament has been held annually each year (with the exception of 2017), being used to honor the legendary WWE Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes, who played a huge part in the early days of NXT as a senior producer and a trainer when it turned from a game show into WWE’s developmental system. The first two tournaments saw the winners presented with a trophy in the style of Rhodes’ wrestling boots, with the following two tournaments also seeing the winners granted an opportunity at the NXT Tag Team Championships at that year’s TakeOver during WrestleMania weekend.
In order, Samoa Joe and Finn Balor, The Authors of Pain (Akam and Rezar), The Undisputed ERA (Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly), and Aleister Black and Ricochet have won the tournaments, last defeating Baron Corbin and Rhyno (at NXT TakeOver: Respect), TM-61 (Shane Thorne and Nick Miller) (at NXT TakeOver: Toronto), both The Authors of Pain, and Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong (at NXT TakeOver: New Orleans), and The Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler) (on the March 27th, 2019 edition of NXT). The Undisputed ERA would retain their Tag Team Championships over AOP, and Dunne and Strong after Roderick turned on The Bruiserweight, while Black and Ricochet were unsuccessful in their attempt at winning the Tag Team Championships from The War Raiders (Hanson and Rowe).
NXT‘s tag team division is booming right now, with several great teams who can easily fill out the field, whether it remains an eight-team competition or reverts to the sixteen-team format from 2015 and 2016. Keep your eyes on NXT heading into 2020 as we see the teams for the fifth annual Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic revealed.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch all the NXT action every Wednesday night via the WWE Network.
