Couture's Championship Profiles: World Tag Team Champions La Resistance

Folks, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking James E. Couture. After watching the monthly tag title defense on Raw, I got a jonesing for some teamwork-contingent Championship Profile. With that in mind, it's a former Commissioner and his manservant, no, not Sgt. Slaughter and Pat Patterson, or Mick Foley and Al Snow, it's William Regal, and Tajiri, World Tag Team Champs!

It was early 2005, and La Resistance was reigning supreme as tag team champions, if your definition of reigning supreme is having a flag shoved up your butt by Batista. It might be a Quebec thing. La Res, or the real World's Greatest Tag Team (not the Real World's greatest tag team, that's the Miz and Lysol), regained titles from William Regal and Jonathan Coachman after Eugene tore off his knee cap executing one of the most dangerous maneuvers in wrestling, the standing dropkick. But William Regal was all full of piss and vinegar, or as the British call it, the big urine and sour, and so he had to be a man, he couldn't let this slide. On February 7, 2005, when Raw went to Japan, William chose his longtime associate, whom he hadn't associated with in 4 years (kind of like Regal and Taylor being a tag team for 20 years, with only a 9 year break in the middle), Yoshi's Island Tajiri.

"Brown nota. Kino sata."
-Japanese wrestling expert Guard-from-Metal-Gear-Solid-on-Playstation-Demo-Disc, 1998

What transpired was a match of the year candidate, in that the match took place during a year. Much like two high school pals who pick up where they left off like it ain't no thing (Hey Nooch, remember Mr. Stephanopolous' class? "Pass the pudding!" Ha, ha, ha, ha....), the magic was still there, and we had new tag team champions, the implication that a guy who doesn't speak english is equitable to a guy who's retarded, and they're both better than being French Canadian.

Oddly, in a series of rematches, the crowd would chant USA, in support of...Jim Ross? Indeed, during one of those rematches, something incredibly rare happened: something interesting took place on Heat. In the main event of Heat (kind of like the highest quality Port-a-Potty), La Resistance actually appeared to win the titles, only to have the match restarted and lose the match, and any rights to subsequent rematches. If only someone would enforce that stipulation in TNA. Hey, it's Sting v Abyss 12: The Bag of Doorknobs Match! Anyhoo, fans of La Resistance everywhere cried. I know I did.

"I cried too. Want to watch me wrestle? Please?"
-Rene Dupree, Dark Match Monthly, 2007

Then, at Backlash, something miraculous happened. No, it wasn't Viscera actually appearing on Pay Per View, but La Resistance finding a loophole in the stipulation, taking place in the Tag Team Turmoil match. Willy Reegs and the Taj Man would prove to be no match for the pride of Quebec, getting pinned to lose the Tag Team Titles. I was there, and I can still recall the joy of seeing William Regal's asscrack as Sylvan pulled the tights for the 1-2-3. Yeah, they lost to Hurricane and Rosey minutes later, but we don't talk about that.

Even if William Regal and Tajiri didn't do anything that "mattered", they still proved it's better to be British or Japanese than French or Kentuckian.