WWE Clash of Champions 2019: Raw Tag Team Championship match preview

Two unique tag teams battle it out for the Raw Tag Team Championship at WWE Clash of Champions.

At the conclusion of this past Monday Night Raw, current tag team champions Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman celebrated in victory by joining WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in a trademark beer bath. The tag champs teamed with Cedric Alexander and the Viking Raiders to take on United States Champion AJ Styles, the O.C., and their Clash of Champions challengers Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode.

The victory gives Rollins and Strowman momentum headed into Clash of Champions where they’ll defend their titles. However, Strowman is also set to face off against Rollins for the Universal Championship that same night so the question still looms on whether the two will work as a cohesive unit.

The other question that’s been asked is why Roode and Ziggler have not only become a team but also how they defeated seven established teams to become the challengers for the Raw Tag Team Titles. The answer to that one is simple: you can’t keep talent down for long.

Roode was a star in NXT but after moving to the main roster he hasn’t found his footing just yet. A team with Chad Gable that looked promising fell victim to the brand split and it was then that Roode got repackaged into a heel. After floundering on Main Event for several months it looks like the powers-that-be are giving Roode another shot at greatness. The team also presents a fresh opportunity for Ziggler, who himself has been on a losing streak since returning as a heel in his own right to assault WWE Champion Kofi Kingston.

Pairing together two solid talents whose singles careers have grown stale has been a long-standing tradition in pro wrestling. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Having Roode and Ziggler align themselves with the O.C. as a faction injects energy into their team straight away and putting the tag titles on them would solidify their strength as a team even more.

How Rollins and Strowman ended up with the titles in the first place is a bit of storytelling that weaves together the tag title defense and the Universal title defense at Clash of Champions. If Rollins and Strowman are successful in their tag title defense it brings an interesting element into their match later that night.

A lot of questions and some very big stakes await the Raw Tag Team Championship match this Sunday at Clash of Champions streaming on the WWE Network.