Former Tag Team Champions set to make their WWE return after 3 years on ‘New Year’s Revolution’ episode of SmackDown

Authors of pain were teased in a vignette of Karrion Kross, confirming their return to WWE.

Former Tag Team Champions set to make their WWE return after 3 years on ‘New Year’s Revolution’ episode of SmackDown

WWE SmackDown Superstars (via Lucha Noticias)

The year 2024 is set to witness another return as former Tag Team Champions, the Authors of Pain, have been given the green light by Triple H. They will make their return on next week’s episode of SmackDown.

According to PWInsider, AOP and Paul Ellering are scheduled to return on the January 5th ‘New Year’s Revolution’ edition of SmackDown. There were rumors of the chaotic duo returning to WWE in 2022, but that was never put into plans. They were released in 2020 after a couple of inconsistent pushes that didn’t lead to anything.

It looks like the duo is going to join forces with Karrion Kross, who has been given a completely new storyline to deal with. In Kross’ latest vignette, AOP was teased on last week’s SmackDown. During their NXT and main roster runs in WWE, they found some success and became NXT and Raw Tag Team Champions.

Akam and Rezar worked for some time in the indie circuit with a new name, Legion of Pain. Now that they are back in WWE, where they need many tag teams to make the division look healthy, it will surely benefit both AOP and WWE. Only time will tell how their run goes this time with the company.

Reflecting on Authors of Pain’s previous run with WWE in NXT

Akam and Rezar first appeared when they teamed up together with WWE Hall of Famer Paul Ellering as their manager. They won the prestigious tag team tournament called the ‘Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic’ in 2016. They attacked American Alpha as they lost the NXT Tag Team Titles to Revival.

Authors of Pain with Paul Ellering
Authors of Pain with Paul Ellering (via WWE)

They had some amazing sets of matches against teams like TM-61 and DIY. They won their first gold, as they beat DIY at NXT TakeOver: San Antonio. The duo held the title for over 200 days and dominated the entire division by delivering memorable matches.

Their last match in NXT was against the Undisputed Era for the Tag Team Titles, but they were unsuccessful. In 2018, they made their main roster debut on Raw and defeated the team of Heath Slater and Rhyno. However, The company released them after two years, in September 2020. It will be interesting to see whether they can create the same magic they created in NXT or not.

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