The new WWE Tag Team Championship belts were unveiled Friday night on SmackDown in a segment involving head of creative Triple H, SmackDown general manager Nick Aldis and WWE tag team champions Austin Theory and Grayson Waller.

Triple H presented the new titles to A-Town Down Under, who were one of two teams to win a Tag Team Championship ladder match at WrestleMania 40:

The Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships had been unified since The Usos beat RK-Bro in 2022, but the decision was made to put them up for grabs separately at WrestleMania.

Judgment Day members Damian Priest and Finn Bálor entered WrestleMania as champions, however, A-Town Down Under grabbed the SmackDown tag team titles, followed by Awesome Truth securing the Raw tag team titles.

On Monday night's episode of Raw, Triple H announced that the Raw Tag Team Championships would be known as the World Tag Team Championships moving forward, and he presented new titles to The Miz and R-Truth:

A similar ceremony occurred on SmackDown with the SmackDown Tag Team Championships being renamed the WWE Tag Team Championships, although the heel duo of Theory and Waller disrespected Triple H by not shaking his hand.

While the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships were essentially the same titles with different-colored straps, the WWE and world tag team titles are significantly different.

The WWE Tag Team Championships received instant praise from WWE fans on social media due largely to the fact that they evoke memories of past WWE tag team title belts.

They have a shape similar to arguably the most well-known and beloved tag team titles in pro wrestling history, which were the ones used in WWE from 1985 to 2002.

Many of the most iconic tag teams of all time held those titles, including The Hart Foundation, Demolition, The Legion of Doom, The New Age Outlaws, Edge and Christian, The Hardy Boyz and The Dudley Boyz.

The new titles have a long way to go before matching the lineage of those championships, but there is little doubt that they represent a significant upgrade over the most recent set of belts.

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