The Top 100 Tag Teams of All Time | 96: The Brain Busters

Click here to see the Top 100 Tag Teams of All Time list so far.

We now go back in time to the mid-to-late ‘80s to see the Brain Busters in action. The number 114-ranked Forever Hooligans in the number 96 slot. Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard started teaming about a year after they founded the Four Horsemen with Ric Flair & Ole Anderson. Two years after that, they moved over to the WWF and started being called the Brain Busters. This review is helpfully divided into two parts; The Four Horsemen against various NWA babyfaces, and a Brain Busters threematch against the Rockers. 

April 19, 1986 – New Orleans, Louisiana 

Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers def. Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard {Second Round Match}
From the NWA Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup. Blanchard came into this as the NWA National Heavyweight Champion, and Anderson was the NWA World Television Champion. What this match had that most modern tag matches don’t was a babyface team pressing the action aggressively. It got to the point where the Horsemen weren’t much more than a canvas on which the Fantastics did whatever they wanted. In that regard, this was fun. But I have a feeling the reason it caught people’s attention at the time is because it was in a sea of repetitive tag team matches during a long tournament. It’s the same reason I assume people go nuts for the match the Fantastics had later in the tournament with the Sheephearders that isn’t actually all that special. Fulton dropkicked Rogers on top of Anderson for the win at 11:24. It was nice of the referee to pull up Fulton’s trunks after Anderson pulled them down. ***¼ 

March 27, 1988 – Greensboro, North Carolina 

Barry Windham & Lex Luger def. Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard {NWA World Tag Team Championship Match}
From the inaugural NWA Clash of the Champions. This was basically an extended squash for the babyfaces. The Horsemen got very little offense in, taking only over when Luger would tag out to Windham, and even then only when the heels got a lucky shot in. Luger really bulldozed these guys, and picked up the win and the titles after running Anderson into a chair that JJ Dillon was holding at 9:35. Fun, but short and very one-sided. ***

January 23, 1989 – Manhattan, New York 

Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard def. Marty Jannetty & Shawn Michaels
From WWF on MSG. These teams wrestled “10 times” on television in 2-on-2 matches, but really 8 times as both of their Superstars matches were just brawls on the floor. This is the third, after they’d already gotten down their dope match formula in Boston. This actually felt a step less on point than the Boston match, though some of Michaels’ work here eclipsed the work he did there. Even if this had been at the same level as Boston through and through, it would be tough to be as high on this because so much of the match was identical. The finish saw only a slight tweak, with Jannetty being the one pinned and Anderson pulling on his boot lace instead of his foot while hiding behind the apron. That got the Brain Busters the win at 16:14. Still, a hell of a ride. ***¾ 

March 11, 1989 – Hershey, Pennsylvania 

Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard dco. Marty Jannetty & Shawn Michaels
From WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event 20. This was a very abridged version of their usual shtick, the bright side being there wasn’t a down moment to speak of. Bobby Heenan joined the Brain Busters at ringside, but got caught cheating and sent to the back. Rather than do the blocked suplex finish, both teams spilled to the floor and brawled until getting counted out at 8:40. That’s a bummer, but the match was still a fun ride until the finish. ***¼  

March 18, 1989 – Manhattan, New York 

Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty def. Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard
From WWF on MSG. They’d put on a much longer version of this match earlier in the day in Boston. They must have learned their lesson because that match felt very long, and this one felt better. Well, not better, but shorter. For as much as I grew tired of the match they were having leading up to Saturday Night’s Main Event in March, this version of the match that they put together afterwards just wasn’t as engaging. It didn’t have enough of what made either team special, be that chicanery from the Brain Busters or fast-paced stuff from the Rockers. It was a sort of disappointing compromise from both. The finish was identical to the one in Boston, not surprising, as Michaels hit Blanchard with a Superfly Splash off of Jannetty’s shoulders, only for Anderson to pull the referee to the floor and get disqualified at 13:53. ***

Blanchard failed a drug test later in the year and got fired. Anderson left shortly after that and re-signed with WCW. This was pretty much the end of Blanchard’s career. He wrestled here and there for the rest of the ‘90s, but that drug test and a bad attitude kept him out of the spotlight until he became a manager in AEW. Anderson & Blanchard will show up again in a couple more matches against teams higher up in the list, but that January Boston (in the pop-up review) match is going to be tough to beat. 

Speaking of tough to beat, one of my favorite tag team matches of all time featured Arn Anderson, but doesn’t fit neatly into this top 100 tag teams list. That’s because it featured Anderson as part of the Enforcers with Larry Zbyszko in the only great two-on-two tag match the two had together. And it was against the team of Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes, who also only had this one great two-on-two match as partners. That plus the fact that it’s been criminally ignored by history means I’ll have to review it as a pop up here.