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Who was the last tag team to debut in AEW and immediately make an impact on the division? Swerve in our Glory? I mean, sure, technically, that's true, but the duo came into Tony Khan's company as singles stars and only really started to find success working together when the booking gods forged their union. How about Team Taz? Same idea, Ricky Starks and Will-turned-Powerhouse Hobbs both joined AEW as enhancement talent before finding a home in Team Taz, the faction, before they became a fantastic-yet-volatile tandem that fell apart in a spectacular way.
Really, the last tag true tag team to enter AEW and immediately make an impact was reDRagon, and technically, they didn't even join together, as Bobby Fish was already in AEW when Kyle O'Reilly jumped ship. To find a fully-formed, packaged-as-contenders team to enter the faction and take a believable shot at the titles, one has to go all the way back to FTR in 2020, who came into AEW as stars and validated that reputation with their in-ring efforts. While performers like Makalai Black, Jay Lethal, and Toni Storm roll into the company, take shots at the champs, and either win or lose the belt of their choosing, there hasn't been a realistic championship contender of that sort – no offense, Gates of Agony – in quite some time.
Enter The Kingdom, AEW's new challengers for FTR's Ring of Honor championship. The trio, consisting of Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, and Maria Kanellis-Bennett, aka Maria Kanellis for WWE fans, have won tag team championships in Ring of Honor, NJPW, and Impact Wrestling, where they technically still hold the belts despite having lost the titles at the company's television tapings on October 8th, 2022 to Heath and Rhino. The Kingdom, or OGK, as they are also called, have been a faction in one form or another since 2014, and needless to say, their path from consisting of Bennett, Kanellis-Bennett, Matt Hardy, and Adam Cole – seriously – to the trio who invaded Rampage after FTR's bout with the Gates of Agony is wild.
Some members of AEW are very familiar with The Kingdom.
The seeds of The Kingdom began in AEW all the way back in 2013, when, get this, Hardy helped Cole retain his ROH World Championship at Final Battle. From there, the duo formed a tag team and eventually expanded out into a trio when Bennett and eventually Taven joined the team in 2014, and Hardy left the company to pursue a TNA run with Jeff.
From there, the trio of Cole, Bennett, and Taven, when all healthy, worked together through the remainder of 2014 and into 2015, before tensions grew between the founder and his plucky young recruit and before too long, tensions came to a boil. Cole was out – of The Kingdom and eventually ROH as a whole to pursue NXT – Taven and Bennett were tag team champions, and all was right in the world, at least until Bennett left the company for a TNA run of his own before jumping to WWE with his wife for her second run in the company.
Suddenly without all of his friends, Taven kept the Kingdom name alive and reformed it as a trio with T. K. O'Ryan– who has been out of wrestling since 2019 – and Vinny Marseglia, who eventually became known as “Horror King Vincent” and now simply goes by Vincent as a member of both Honor No More – the ex-ROH faction in Impact – and The Righteous, his late-ROH group with Dutch, Vita VonStarr, and Tyler Bateman who modeled themselves off of the Mason Family. Though that unit eventually dissolved, with Taven reforming The Kingdom as OGK with Bennett and Kanellis-Bennett before entering into a feud with The Righteous.
Before ROH shut down due to COVID and even for the time between its relaunch and its final show under the previous regime, Taven vs. Vincent was one of the hottest feuds in the company, with the battle coming to an end at Glory by Honor 2021, when the latter secured a win in a Steel Cage match.
Had ROH continued on past that fall PPV, who knows what interesting angles would have been presented to the OGK, as they'd just won the tag team championships in November of 2021, but when it was announced that the company was going on hiatus and every contract was going to be terminated, the decision was made to give the belts to The Briscoes as a farewell present at Final Battle. The Kingdom quasi-continued on, with the trio working indie dates, but their biggest success came in Impact, where they worked in the previously mentioned ex-ROH faction Honor No More with Vincent, PCO, and eventually, Kenny King and Eddie Edwards.
With OGK's run in Impact reportedly done – again, despite still being champions on television – it now appears they will be full-time AEW/ROH performers, with a chance to do some serious damage in the tag team division.
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The Kingdom are in AEW for a very specific reason.
Speaking with Lexy Nair after their debuts, The Kingdom declared their intentions to the AEW universe.
“It was a shocker, wasn’t it?” Bennett asked rhetorically. “But it’s not only the fact that we are the two-time ROH Tag Team Champions, we are also the former IWGP Tag Team Champions, we are The Kingdom, I’m Mike Bennett, and this is my beautiful wife.”
Before Bennett could declare her name, she did it for him.
“I am Maria Kanellis-Bennett, the first lady of professional wrestling.”
“And he is I and I am him, and I’m Matt Taven, and we’re the ones everyone has been talking about. The interweb has been chatting ‘where are they gonna show up? What are they gonna do?’ Well, guess what? We’re here for a reason; we never got our rematch for the Ring of Honor tag team gold, and we are here to get exactly that. Because we are the OGK”
“But you,” Kanellis-Bennett said. “Can call us The Kingdom.”
.@LexyNair caught up with @MariaLKanellis and the 2-Time @ringofhonor World Tag Team Champions @MattTaven & @RealMikeBennett after their shocking debut tonight on #AEWRampage pic.twitter.com/j4SweIKjH4
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) October 15, 2022
