Credit: Wrestling Revue
Tag team wrestling has long been cyclical in WWE. Even as there is a solid number of tag teams on the current roster (e.g. The Bar, The Usos, New Day, The Revival) and some have been a bright spot of the promotion in the last year, the sentiment remains that "WWE doesn't care about tag team wrestling. Lately fans have found booking of tag teams lacking. So it may come as a surprise to some that the promotion was once a tag team territory and tag teams were some of its biggest drawing cards - in early years when it was called Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC).
Perhaps the best team was the tandem of Antonino Rocca and Miguel Pérez. Rocca, who was already a big attraction as a singles wrestler joined with Pérez, a Puerto Rican wrestler. Rocca and Pérez appealed greatly to Latino American fans and dazzled audiences with their acrobatic, high flying styles. From 1957 to 1960, the team would headline Madison Square Garden a remarkable 28 times (often with crowds of 20,000 in attendance) against the likes of The Grahams, Fabulous Kangaroos, The Hamiltons (a young Jody Hamilton of Assassins fame and his brother Larry), Tolos Brothers and Johnny Valentine and The Sheik. Rocca and Pérez were also recognized as the first NWA United States Tag Team Champions for CWC and held the titles for a year until they were defeated by The Grahams.
Rocca-Pérez seems largely forgotten today, even when compared to their contemporaries. They paved the way for teams like Demolition, Legion Of Doom, Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs, Brain Busters, Strike Force and The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers to main event house shows decades later. Not to mention being one of the early high flying teams. Rocca-Pérez stakes a claim as one of the greatest teams in WWE history, if not the greatest, based on drawing power alone.
Did you watch Wrestling From Washington or Wrestling From Bridgeport with Ray Morgan in the late '50s and early '60s talk about it here. List mr_luck07 as your referrer.