by Chris Olsen

Created on: November 07, 2008

I have been a fan of professional wrestling since I could first remember! However, I didn't really become a fan until I was a 4-year old boy in 1988 and I saw a wrestler called The Ultimate Warrior burst on my TV screen like a pack of wild dogs chasing a big juicy piece of meat and from then on I was hooked!

It wasn't long before I became even more of a fan of tag-team wrestling. Tag-teams tagging in and out and feeling exhilarated when heel ("bad guy") teams would illegal double-team their opponent(s) behind the referee's back, hoping they wouldn't get caught. I also loved when a wrestler would "play Ricky Morton" and be what was to called the "Face in Peril" in which a baby face tag team would have one of their guys isolated and take a shellacking from the opposition for quite some time prior to making the highly-anticipated "hot tag" and the crowd erupts and blows the roof of the arena! Now as for me picking and choosing the greatest tag-teams of all-time is a difficult task to pull off objectively, but instead, I will say who is the greatest tag team in my opinion and why this combo is my favorite:

The Fabulous Freebirds: Michael "Purely Sexy" Hayes, the late, great Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy and the often-overlooked Buddy "Jack" Roberts with Jimmy "Jam" Garvin (or "Gorgeous" Jimmy Garvin) along with other loosely-associated partners, managers, and valets. Many wrestling experts would legitimately refer to the 'Birds as the greatest all-time team, but there are too many great ones out there to call them the best of all of them, but I know I can honestly say that they are undoubtedly my favorite combination of wrestlers.

What really set them apart from all the rest is the fact they were among the first to revolutionize the "rock 'n' wrestling" era of the '80s that Vince McMahon successfully promoted. In October 1980, they came to the ring to Lynyrd Skynyrd's immortal Free bird ballad and as 1983 hit, most mainstream wrestlers had their own entrance music that would play after their victories in addition to accompanying them to the squared-circle. Nowadays many fans can't recall a time without that, but at the time it was different and quickly became popular. Interestingly enough, it was Michael Hayes who became the first professional wrestler to record, sing, and compose/write his own entrance music with "Badstreet U.S.A.", released in May 1984 and was also the first wrestler to release an album, "Off the Streets" as the leader of his own band called Michael Hayes

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