Taz ends his team once and for all in AEW

After two years, five members, and three FTW Championship runs, Taz has officially disbanded his namesake team in AEW.

When Taz arrived in AEW, it was for one reason and one reason alone: To do commentary for AEW Dark.

I know, in hindsight, that seems a little hard to believe, as Taz has since gone on to earn a gig on AEW Rampage, AEW Dynamite, and an in-ring management role first with Brian Cage, then with a full-on team, and eventually with his son Hook, but that all came via the sheer charisma of the ECW legend – initially, Taz was hired away from his CBS Sports radio show “Taz and The Moose” to serve as a YouTube commentator and occasional call-up if AEW needed a fill-in.

And yet, with a full-time role on AEW's Dynamite announce team all but officially announced, with Tony Schiavone calling the first hour of the show and Jim Ross on the second, it was only a matter of time before Taz's in-ring role would change accordingly. Good news, that means more Taz on AEW television, which, considering his fantastic commentary work with Excalibur on Dark for years now, is nothing but good, but alas, perhaps for that to happen, some storylines need to fall by the wayside to facilitate the move, including one of the longest-running bits in the promotion, Team Taz. That's right, with Hook the new FTW Champion, Powerhouse Hobbs and Ricky Starks officially split up, and Taz on the mic full-time, it looks like all of the fun and games AEW's first and to-this-point only team went through have come to an end, with the trio of performers – plus Cage, who hasn't wrestled in AEW since last October – officially going their separate ways.

Disappointing? You bet, but hey, it was fun while it lasted and featured more big band brass parade segments than any other faction in AEW history, that's for sure.

AEW's Team Taz has left the building.

Taz's first interaction outside of the AEW commentary booth wasn't with Hook, his “current” team, or even former members of the faction like Brian Cage. No, Taz's initial run at getting into the managerial world was actually with Darby Allin, whom he desperately wanted to help elevate to a new level in the promotion. Though Allin tried to play it cool, and kindly reject the ECW legend's advances, the Long Island native took the rejection personally and brought brian Cage into the promotion to settle the score once and for all.

From there, the war against Allin expanded out to include none other than ex-NWA television champion Ricky Starks, who won himself a contract in Tony Khan's promotion by putting on a fantastic effort in a TNT Championship bout with Cody Rhodes during his initial TNT Championship open challenge. With Starks in the fray, Taz officially had himself a team, with Powerhouse “don't-call-him-Will” Hobbs, the Tazmanian prince, Hook, and Dante Martin – at least for a time – filling out the unit. Though their run wasn't the most consistent in the promotion's history, with Starks only defending his title 10 times over 378 days and no other member of the unit securing a championship belt outside of the 10 pounds of black and orange, the team of Hobbs and Starks put on a few of the best tag team matches of the year via their bouts with Swerve in our Glory members Swerve Strickland and Keith Lee, and Hook was in the middle of one of the more endearing storylines of AEW Rampage since making his Rampage debut in December of 2021.

Had things stayed copasetic, it's possible Team Taz could have been swerving it up with their Glorious rivals via a match at Battle of the Belts III, which would have been their fourth overall match, a third bout for the AEW Tag Team Championship belts, and second-ever four-man tag team, but alas, it just wasn't meant to be; Taz disbanded his team after Hobbs attacked Starks at Fight for the Fallen 2022 – one year after the Ricky Starks Memorial Parade – and outside of the impending feud between the two former tag team partners, it would appear the team will be going their separate ways… right? I mean, Taz has been known to say one thing and then do another during his 30 years of wrestling experience and may very well be the one behind Hobbs' attack on Starks, or at least the one who told Hook to go down to the ring to take the strap off of the “Absolute One” after he officially became the longest-running champion in FTW history. If that's the case, this might actually be the beginning of things for Team Taz, not the end.

TEAM TAZ – GONE.

— taz (@OfficialTAZ) August 4, 2022